Finding Strength Through The Gospel

Psalm 51 King James Version (KJV)

1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

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

11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Prayer

The last time I brought a message here I said we tend to view the gospel as the way to get saved and then we head off for greater things. While Paul does call us to move on to greater things my concern is that to often while we confess at conversion that the answer to our problem does not come from us but from God pretty soon we leave the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the very core of the good news to our bad problem) we leave the core sitting on the shelf beside our first grade reader as if it were our introduction and now we don’t really need it anymore because we are going to work really hard to KEEP God happy. We might not say it that way but thats what we are doing . We are trusting in our righteousness and not the work of Jesus Christ and that is self righteousness.

This morning I want to plead with you to examine your life. How are you measuring up? What do things look like? Is it Christ working in you, molding you toward perfection or is it you trying to measure up and falling short over and over and over and over again. Do you know that story? I do.

Friends if you could not live righteously before conversion and Christ was your only strength at conversion, today your only strenght lies at the heart of the Gospel. Your ONLY hope of strength and victory come ONLY from the risen saviour - Jesus Christ.

And so this morning I want to plead with you that you would not leave the gospel with your first grade reader but that you would LIVE in the gospel. (the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy.) Its in his reasurrection that we find strenthg. We find strength in our RISEN Savior. We are not made to be some superman. The strenght is not ours but Christ and we get this strength by living the Gospel. By bringing nothing to Christ and in repentance fall brocken before him casting our faith in HIM and when we do we fall solidly into the arms of an ALMIGHTY SAVIOR. When we live our life in the arms of this saviour we see change and growth but when we set about to see how we can prop ourselves up to keep us from falling and it is in these times that we get hit from the other side or we skip a prop and we go down and the ride down generaly is a messy one. Do you know what I’m talking about? Have you lived it? So you with me probobly treasure 1 John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

This morning I would like to suggest that the only true sorce of power comes from dropping the righteousness we are holding in our hands and fall onto the arms of our almighty Savior - Jesus Christ and to see what that looks like I’d like to look at Psalm 51 but before we got there we need to take a look at David’s downward spiral of sin that leads up to Psalm 51.

David’s Downward Spiral of Sin

Psalm 51 is one of the few psalms that are pinpointed as to their historical origin. The heading of the psalm goes like this: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Here is the story in crisp biblical words from 2 Samuel 11:2–5:

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. . . . Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

He tried to cover his sin by bringing her husband Uriah home from battle so Uriah could lie with her and think it was his baby. Uriah was too noble to go in to his wife while his comrades were in battle. So David arranged to have him killed so that he could quickly marry Bathsheba and cover the sin that way.

2 Samuel 11 ends with these words: “The thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Samuel 11:27). So God sent the prophet Nathan to David with a parable that caused David to pronounce his own condemnation. Then Nathan says, “You are the man!” and asks, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord?” David confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Then Nathan says, astonishingly, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die” (2 Samuel 12:7–15).

“The Lord Has Put Away Your Sin”

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. David sinned with Bathsheba. The baby will die. And Nathan says, “The Lord has put away your sin.” Just like that? David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He “despised the word of the Lord.” He “scorned God.” And the Lord “put away [his] sin” (2 Samuel 12:13). What kind of a righteous judge is God? You don’t just pass over these sins. Righteous judges don’t do that.

But here is what Paul says in Romans 3:25–26. This is one of the most important sentences in the Bible for understanding how Christ relates to the Psalms—and to the Old Testament in general:

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins [that’s exactly what 2 Samuel 12:13 says God did—he passed over David’s sin]. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In other words,. God sees from the time of David down the centuries to the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, who would die in David’s place, so that David’s faith in God’s mercy and God’s future redeeming work unites David with Christ. And in God’s all-knowing mind, David’s sins are counted as Christ’s sins and Christ’s righteousness is counted as his righteousness, and God justly passing over David’s adultery and murder and lying.

Now lets go to Psalm 51 to see David's attitude that prompted God to forgive him. These feelings and ways of thinking should be typical if we are LIVING BY the Gospel.

1. He Turns to God

First, he turns to his only hope, the mercy and love of God. Verse 1: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” Three times: “Have mercy,” “according to your steadfast love,” and “according to your abundant mercy.” This is what God had promised in Exodus 34:6–7: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

David knew that there were guilty who would not be forgiven. And there were guilty who by some mysterious work of redemption would not be counted as guilty, but would be forgiven. Psalm 51 is his way of laying hold on that mystery of mercy.

We know more of the mystery of this redemption than David did. We know Christ. But we lay hold of the mercy in the same way he did. The first thing he does is turn helpless to the mercy and love of God. Today that means turning helpless to Christ.

2. He Prays for Cleansing

Second, he prays for cleansing from his sin. Verse 2: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Verse 7: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Hyssop was the branch used by the priests to sprinkle blood on a house that had a disease in it to declare it clean (Leviticus 14:51). David is crying out to God as his ultimate priest that he would forgive him and count him clean from his sin.

It is fitting that Christians ask God to do this (1 John 1:7–9). Christ has purchased our forgiveness. He has paid the full price for it. That does not replace our asking. It is the basis for our asking. It is the reason we are confident that the answer will be yes. So first David looks helplessly to the mercy of God. And second he prays that, in this mercy, God would forgive him and make him clean.

3. He Confesses the Seriousness of His Sin

Third, David confesses at least five ways that his sin is extremely serious.

3.1. He says that he can’t get the sin out of his mind. It is blazoned on his conscience. Verse 3: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” Ever before him. The tape keeps playing. And he can’t stop it.

3.2. He says that the exceeding sinfulness of his sin is that it is only against God. Nathan had said David despised God and scorned his word. So David says in verse 4: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” This doesn’t mean Bathsheba and Uriah and the baby weren’t hurt. It means that what makes sin to be sin is that it is against God. Hurting man is bad. It is horribly bad. But that’s not the horror of sin. Sin is an attack on God—a belittling of God. David admits this in striking terms: “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”

3.3. David vindicates God, not himself. There is no self-justification. No defense. No escape. Verse 4: “. . . so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” God is justified. God is blameless. If God casts David into hell, God will be innocent. This is radical God-centered repentance. This is the way saved people think and feel. God would be just to damn me. And that I am still breathing is sheer mercy. And that I am forgiven is sheer blood-bought mercy. David vindicates the righteousness of God, not himself.

3.4. David intensifies his guilt by drawing attention to his inborn corruption. Verse 5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Some people use their inborn or inbred corruption to diminish their personal guilt. David does the opposite. For him the fact that he committed adultery and murdered and lied are expressions of something worse: He is by nature that way. If God does not rescue him, he will do more and more evil.

3.5. David admits that he sinned not just against external law but against God’s merciful light in his heart. Verse 6: “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” God had been his teacher. God had made him wise. David had done so many wise things. And then sin got the upper hand. And, for David, this made it all the worse. “I have been blessed with so much knowledge and so much wisdom. O how deep must be my depravity that it could sin against so much light.”

So in those five ways at least David joins the prophet Nathan and God in condemning his sin and confessing the depths of his corruption.

4. He Pleads for Renewal

Finally, after turning helpless to God’s mercy, and then praying for forgiveness and cleansing, and then confessing the depth and greatness of his sin and corruption, David pleads for more than forgiveness. He pleads for renewal. He is passionately committed to being changed by God.

He pours out his heart for this change in at least six ways. I can only draw your attention to them. The main point is: Forgiven people are committed to being changed by God. The adulterer, the murderer, the liar, the child molester hate what they were and set their faces like flint to be changed by God.

4.1. He prays that God would confirm to him his election. Verse 11: “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” I know some say that Christians who are elect and secure in the sovereign grace of God should not pray like that because it implies you can lose your salvation. I don’t think so.

When David or I pray, “Don’t cast me away, and don’t take your Spirit from me,” we mean: Don’t treat me as one who is not chosen. Don’t let me prove to be like one of those in Hebrews 6 who have only tasted the Holy Spirit. Don’t let me fall away and show that I was only drawn by the Spirit and not held by the Spirit. Confirm to me, O God, that I am your child and will never fall away.

4.2. He prays for a heart and a spirit that are new and right and firm. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalms 51:10). The “right spirit” here is the established, firm, unwavering spirit. He wants to be done with the kind of instability that he has just experienced.

4.3. He prays for the joy of God’s salvation and for a spirit that is joyfully willing to follow God’s word and be generous with people rather than exploiting people. Verse 8: “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.” Verse 12: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

Is it not astonishing that nowhere in this Psalm does he pray directly about sex? It all started with sex, leading to deceit, leading to murder. Or did it? I don’t think so. Sigmund Freud may think that all our hang-ups start with sex. But David (speaking for God) does not see things that way.

Sexual Sin: Symptom, Not Disease

Why isn’t he crying out for sexual restraint? Why isn’t he praying for men to hold him accountable? Why isn’t he praying for protected eyes and sex-free thoughts? The reason is that he knows that sexual sin is a symptom, not the disease. People give way to sexual sin because they don’t have the fullness of joy and gladness in Christ. Their spirits are not steadfast and firm and established. They waver. They are enticed, and they give way because God does not have the place in our feelings and thoughts that he should.

David knew this about himself. It’s true about us too. David is showing us, by the way he prays, what the real need is for those who sin sexually. Not a word in this psalm about sex. Instead: “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. . . . Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing, firm, established spirit.” This is profound wisdom for us.

4.4. He asked God to bring his joy to the overflow of praise. Verse 15: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” Praise is what joy in God does when obstacles are taken out of the way. That is what he is praying for: O God, overcome everything in my life that keeps my heart dull and my mouth shut when they ought to be praising. Make my joy irrepressible.

4.5. He asks that the upshot of all this will be a life of effective evangelism. Verse 13: “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” David is not content to be forgiven. He is not content to be clean. He is not content to be elect. He is not content to have a right spirit. He is not content to be joyful in God by himself. He will not be content until his broken life serves the healing of others. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”

4.6. Which brings us to the last point. Under all this, David has discovered that God has crushed him (v. 8) in love, and that a broken and contrite heart is the mark of all God’s children. Verse 17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Brokenhearted Joy

This is foundational to everything. Being a Christian means being broken and contrite. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you get beyond this in this life. It marks the life of God’s happy children till they die. We are broken and contrite all the way home—unless sin gets the proud upper hand. Being broken and contrite is not against joy and praise and witness. It’s the flavor of Christian joy and praise and witness. I close with the words of Jonathan Edwards who said it better than I can.

All gracious affections [feelings, emotions] that are a sweet [aroma] to Christ . . . are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble brokenhearted joy. . . . (Religious Affections [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959], pp. 339f.)

Amen.

Chapter Contents

The psalmist prays for mercy, humbly confessing and lamenting his sins. (1-6) He pleads for pardon, that he may promote the glory of God and the conversion of sinners. (7-15) God is pleased with a contrite heart, A prayer for the prosperity of Zion. (16-19)

Commentary on Psalm 51:1-6

(Read Psalm 51:1-6)

David, being convinced of his sin, poured out his soul to God in prayer for mercy and grace. Whither should backsliding children return, but to the Lord their God, who alone can heal them? he drew up, by Divine teaching, an account of the workings of his heart toward God. Those that truly repent of their sins, will not be ashamed to own their repentance. Also, he instructs others what to do, and what to say. David had not only done much, but suffered much in the cause of God; yet he flees to God's infinite mercy, and depends upon that alone for pardon and peace. He begs the pardon of sin. The blood of Christ, sprinkled upon the conscience, blots out the transgression, and, having reconciled us to God, reconciles us to ourselves. The believer longs to have the whole debt of his sins blotted out, and every stain cleansed; he would be thoroughly washed from all his sins; but the hypocrite always has some secret reserve, and would have some favorite lust spared. David had such a deep sense of his sin, that he was continually thinking of it, with sorrow and shame. His sin was committed against God, whose truth we deny by wilful sin; with him we deal deceitfully. And the truly penitent will ever trace back the streams of actual sin to the fountain of original depravity. He confesses his original corruption. This is that foolishness which is bound in the heart of a child, that proneness to evil, and that backwardness to good, which is the burden of the regenerate, and the ruin of the unregenerate. He is encouraged, in his repentance, to hope that God would graciously accept him. Thou desirest truth in the inward part; to this God looks, in a returning sinner. Where there is truth, God will give wisdom. Those who sincerely endeavour to do their duty shall be taught their duty; but they will expect good only from Divine grace overcoming their corrupt nature.

Commentary on Psalm 51:7-15

(Read Psalm 51:7-15)

Purge me with hyssop, with the blood of Christ applied to my soul by a lively faith, as the water of purification was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop. The blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling, Hebrews 12:24. If this blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, cleanse us from our sin, then we shall be clean indeed, Hebrews 10:2. He asks not to be comforted, till he is first cleansed; if sin, the bitter root of sorrow, be taken away, he can pray in faith, Let me have a well-grounded peace, of thy creating, so that the bones broken by convictions may rejoice, may be comforted. Hide thy face from my sins; blot out all mine iniquities out of thy book; blot them out, as a cloud is blotted out and dispelled by the beams of the sun. And the believer desires renewal to holiness as much as the joy of salvation. David now saw, more than ever, what an unclean heart he had, and sadly laments it; but he sees it is not in his own power to amend it, and therefore begs God would create in him a clean heart. When the sinner feels this change is necessary, and reads the promise of God to that purpose, he begins to ask it. He knew he had by his sin grieved the Holy Spirit, and provoked him to withdraw. This he dreads more than anything. He prays that Divine comforts may be restored to him. When we give ourselves cause to doubt our interest in salvation, how can we expect the joy of it? This had made him weak; he prays, I am ready to fall, either into sin or into despair, therefore uphold me with thy Spirit. Thy Spirit is a free Spirit, a free Agent himself, working freely. And the more cheerful we are in our duty, the more constant we shall be to it. What is this but the liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free, which is contrasted with the yoke of bondage? Galatians 5:1. It is the Spirit of adoption spoken to the heart. Those to whom God is the God of salvation, he will deliver from guilt; for the salvation he is the God of, is salvation from sin. We may therefore plead with him, Lord, thou art the God of my salvation, therefore deliver me from the dominion of sin. And when the lips are opened, what should they speak but the praises of God for his forgiving mercy?

Commentary on Psalm 51:16-19

(Read Psalm 51:16-19)

Those who are thoroughly convinced of their misery and danger by sin, would spare no cost to obtain the remission of it. But as they cannot make satisfaction for sin, so God cannot take any satisfaction in them, otherwise than as expressing love and duty to him. The good work wrought in every true penitent, is a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, and sorrow for sin. It is a heart that is tender, and pliable to God's word. Oh that there were such a heart in every one of us! God is graciously pleased to accept this; it is instead of all burnt-offering and sacrifice. The broken heart is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ; there is no true repentance without faith in him. Men despise that which is broken, but God will not. He will not overlook it, he will not refuse or reject it; though it makes God no satisfaction for the wrong done to him by sin. Those who have been in spiritual troubles, know how to pity and pray for others afflicted in like manner. David was afraid lest his sin should bring judgements upon the city and kingdom. No personal fears or troubles of conscience can make the soul, which has received grace, careless about the interests of the church of God. And let this be the continued joy of all the redeemed, that they have redemption through the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.