Cosmic Cleansing And New Hearts

Psalm 51 Cosmic Cleansing And New Hearts Introduction: We have here the story of one of the greatest men in all of scripture (probably one of the greatest men that ever lived) -King David -the one who is called the man after God’s own heart - at his lowest. He has stooped to the depths of depravity and guilt through his sin, and yet at the end of the story, he’s free! He got freedom from guilt and shame, so much so that he is a witness to others, how to get that same freedom from guilt, sin and shame. 1. We aren’t what we ought to be 1. David is one of those individuals that every guy wishes he was something like and every girl wishes there were more of… He’s got it all. He’s the king, he’s a mighty warrior, he’s a man of the wild, he’s tough, he’s tender, he’s an inventor, he’s an architect, he’s an amazing poet and musician, he’s spiritual, he’s successful, he’s attractive. He has it all. He’s got an amazing story -the lowly shepherd boy that becomes the greatest king of Israel. 2. The best king Israel ever had - nonetheless had a deeply flawed heart and blew up his life through an extramarital affair 1. This shouldn’t have happened. David had it all and yet even though David has it all - it’s not enough. 3. Tell the story - 2 Samuel 11 and 12 4. “Though all the wealth of men was mine to squander and towers of ivory rose beneath my feet. Were palaces of pleasure mine to wander The sum of it would leave me incomplete. Though every soul would hold my name in honor and truest love was always by my side My praises sung by grateful sons and daughters My soul would never still be satisfied. Though I could live for all to lift them higher Or spend the centuries seeking light within. Though I indulged my every dark desire exhausting every avenue of sin. It's not enough, it's not enough I could walk the world forever Till my shoes were filled with blood It's not enough, it's not enough.” - Dustin Kensure 5. The Bible isn’t here to tell us that David is some uniquely evil individual but to show us that even at our best, even great men, the greatest men and women, like David, are capable of this. Every one of us is deeply flawed. 2. Why we aren’t what we ought to be 1. Why aren’t we what we should be? Sin. 1. Many would say in our day that the ancient Judaeo/Christian doctrine of sin is primitive, medieval, outdated. But what’s the one thing we all agree on? That something is greatly wrong in the world. After centuries of kingdoms, nations, monarchs, politicians, religions and pseudo saviors our world is still greatly broken. Economist know it, psychologist know it, everyone knows it. Without believing in the biblical doctrine of sin you can’t really make sense of the world around you. 2. David describes sin in three ways - 1. Iniquity - Self absorption - we are curved in on ourselves (iniquity means to be bent or twisted - the inner warp of the fallen nature) 2. Transgression - Self will (transgression refers to stubbornness and willfulness) we say, the heart wants, what the heart wants..bent on our own will, self determination.. rather than God’s will, rather than loving God and loving others 3. Sin -Failure -the word “sin” means to miss the mark, to get “it” wrong. We are not what we should be. And these three things make the world a miserable place. 2. It’s interesting that the scripture doesn’t really tell us why David did this, in the sense that it says - such and such were the circumstances that led to David’s downfall… Because often we want to put the blame on everyone and everything but ourselves, but the scripture won’t let us. 1. Some of us might think that we are simply the product of our environment or of the nurture or lack of nurture that we received in childhood. This can obviously be a factor in who we are - but cannot free us from moral obligation and guilt - but the point that David makes in the way he describes sin and his own beginnings is that he is born a sinner, he is twisted from within, from the beginning. 2. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” -vs 5 3. Some of us might think -well that is a crazy story but I would never do something like that.. but I think that if we are saying that to ourselves we are missing the issue underneath David’s issue. 3. What is David’s sin? - Obviously it is the adultery with Bathsheba and the killing of his friend and faithful servant Uriah to cover it up. But David says here in his prayer to God, “against you and you alone have I sinned.” What?? why would David say that?? Because underneath David’s sin and every other sin is the sin of cosmic treason. 1. Martin Luther once said that you don’t break the other commandments without first breaking the first commandment - “You shall have no other God’s before me.” (Exodus 20:3) 2. Before David could have slept with Bathsheba or murdered Uriah he first had to say something like, God I don’t believe you have my best interest in mind and I know what is better for me than you do. David put self in the place of God. David decided for himself what was good, disregarded God’s law, and satisfied his own desires. 3. See, David failed to believe that God wanted good for him, that God had or would meet his needs - so David took for himself what he thought was good, and satisfied his own desire. This is essentially the same thing we see Adam and Eve doing in the garden of Eden. Before Adam and Eve took of the fruit they first committed the sin of unbelief in the goodness and love and provision of God. The original sin was really a character assassination on God. 1. We’ve all done the same in some way shape or form -Letʼs say a person cheats on his income tax form. Why does he do that? Well, you say, because he is a sinner. Yes, but why does his sin take this form? Lutherʼs answer would be that the man only cheated because he was making money and possessions—and the status or comfort from having more of them—more important than God and his favor. Or letʼs say a person lies to a friend rather than lose face over something she has done. In that case the underlying sin is making human approval or your reputation more important than the righteousness, love, and acceptance you have in Christ. 2. There is a reason why we steal. It is because we do not trust in God’s provision for our lives and value the stuff of others (going from I like, to I want, to I must have at all cost) to the point of making them our own.The Bible, then, does not consider idolatry to be one sin among many or a rare sin found only among primitive people. Rather, all our failures to trust God wholly or to live rightly are at root idolatry—something we make more important than God. There is always a reason for a sin. Under our sins are idolatrous desires. Every sin stems from a failure to believe in the goodness and love of God toward us. 3. “It would be honest to say, ‘ I’m somehow the same as those who have done terrible things. I am made of the same human stuff. There must be something down deep in me that is capable of great cruelty and selfishness, and I don’t want to see it. And while most of us, the self centeredness and sin of our hearts has not led to overtly criminal acts of violence and cruelty, it has still caused misery for the people around us, and it has kept us from serving the God who created us and to whom we owe everything.” -Tim Keller 4. Everyone one of us is guilty of sin - So what do we do? 3. What we can do about it? 1. David doesn’t just ask God for a second chance because he knows a second chance won’t do. He’ll find another way to sin or to mess things up again. He understands now that sin is so engrained in his nature. He needs something greater than that. So he prays, “Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me.” 2. David isn’t praying for a second chance he’s praying for a new heart, he’s praying for regeneration, he’s asking for the New Birth. 3. What is David asking for when he asks for the New Birth? He is asking for the work of the Holy Spirit. David says in vs 6 “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” So David is saying -Create in me a clean heart O God - How? By bringing your Holy Spirit into me and planting truth in my inward parts. 4. Let me explain this. How did David know that God was merciful to him? Because God had proved and shown his mercy to David in the past. So David is saying, take that truth and plant it deep within me. May it comfort and guide me. 5. Now think about this - we know something far greater than what David knew about the mercy of God. 6. David asks that God would hide his face from his sins, but that at the same time he wouldn’t hide his face from him… 7. We know what David didn’t. We know what it cost God to answer the prayer of Psalm 51. 8. When Jesus died on the cross he turned his face to his Father but the Father turned his face away. Jesus cried out to his Father in heaven and he did not answer. Jesus cried out, My God, My God why have you forsaken me! Why? He hid his face from his Son, so he could hide his face from our sin. He hid his face from Jesus so he wouldn’t have to hide his face from us. (He made him, who knew no sin…) 9. We know that when David is calling for washing, cleansing and the blotting out of his sins, when he’s asking God for some sort of spiritual cosmic detergent, he’s in fact crying out for the blood of the only son of God to cleanse him! God punished Jesus so our sins could be blotted out! 1. Hebrews 9:13-14 says, “For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify[f] for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our[g] conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” 2. You know what it means to be born again? You might have known all of your life that Jesus died for our sins. Here’s what happens when you’re born again - the truth of that goes deep down into your heart by the Holy Spirit. It used to be an abstraction, but now it’s actually down in there and it begins to eat away at the lie, the sin underneath the sin that’s been causing you problems all along, all of your life. 3. You look at the truth of the cross, what he did up there -God hiding his face from his Son - and you take it on in and it begins to eat away at that terrible lie. What was the lie? God doesn’t love me. God doesn’t want what’s best for me. That’s the reason you worry, that’s the reason you're bitter, that’s the reason you lie, that’s the reason why you can’t resist temptation. In it comes! Truth in the inward parts! Supernatural sincerity! And it begins to eat away at your worry. You start to worry, but if you're born again the truth is so real you say wait a minute, look what he did on the cross - he’s good! You want to lie cause it might make you more money, but if your born again you’ve got truth in the inward parts - the cross, you say wait a minute he told me not to lie and I know now, through the cross that he wants what is best for me. 4. Thats what it means to be born again, it means to have the truth of the cross of Jesus Christ, what God did for you, to have the knowledge of that come in - you trust in it, you believe in it, you rest in it, it becomes real - supernaturally real. Has that happened to you? I’m not asking if you believe Jesus died for your sins - lots of people do that aren’t born again. But that’s not being born again. 1. Until you say create in me a clean heart O God because I know that all my sins are against you, that all my flaws, and all my failures are against you and because I finally see that, that I’ve been trampling on your goodness and I will always trample on your goodness until you give me a new heart. Bring that truth in, implant within me give me a new nature and God will, he will answer your prayer.