Clear Eyes, Clean Hearts

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

David’s Cry of Repentance

As we work through the text, we see that this Psalm shows us a great 3 step path of confession of sin: Recognition, Petition, and Repentance.

Psalm 51:1–2 ESV

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

David realizes that he’s sinned

More importantly, David knows God’s character

Firstly, God is merciful, not only merciful, but abundant in mercy

Secondly, God is steadfast in his love

Mercy:

In the Old Testament, the basic meaning of Mercy is to hold back from an action that is expected to occur. David knows that he is in the wrong but he also knows God’s character as merciful.

Steadfast Love:

Hesed; God’s covenantal love

God’s hesed, his covenantal love and kindness are eternal and are the foundational aspects of his character. God’s hesed undergirds all of the miraculous works throughout salvation history.

Despite David’s Sin, he has clear eyes to see God’s character and his faithfulness.

But David’s plea for mercy, is certainly the language of one who has no claim to the favor his begs.

It is on the basis of God’s steadfast hesed, that he trusts in God’s merciful nature and requests that God “blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!”

Here we have an image of a king, begging to be forgiven.

There is a reason David begs for mercy

Psalm 51:3–5 ESV

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

But what sin is David talking about?

David and Bathsheba

2 Samuel 11-12

Israel at war with the Ammonites

David isn’t at war with the rest of his men, behaving cowardly. David is a legendary warrior, so we first have to ask, why is he not at war with his men?

David takes a stroll on his roof, maybe waking up from a nap

He sees Bathsheba bathing on the roof and thinks [jaw dropped] “wow....”

David could’ve looked away from what he saw, bathing on roof was common practice, private for the most part.

David’s glance turned into a gaze, and his thought of “she was very beautiful” quickly turned into “I have to have her,”

Many people fault Bathsheba, stating that she was, “asking for it,” but when David sent servants commanding that she come to the King, what was she supposed to say? David is the most powerful man in her world.

This interaction basically boils down to David sexually assaulting Bathsheba. Some time passes, war takes a long time, and Bathsheba tells David that she’s pregnant with his child

David brings Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to the royal palace, calling him back from war.

David gives Uriah gifts, telling him to go back to his own house and to sleep with his wife, so that him getting Bathsheba pregnant would be covered up

Uriah refuses twice. His fellow soldiers are sleeping in tents and on the hard ground and he doesn’t see it as fair to them that he go home, eat home cooked meals and to enjoy the company of his wife.

Uriah is an shown to be a much more honorable man than David

David is put in a tough spot, now he can’t cover up his sin and furthermore, we can surmise that he felt ashamed that Uriah a commander in his army and a foreigner to boot, is shown to be a much more honorable man than he is, the King and Israel’s representative.

To compensate for these things, David then arranges to have Uriah placed on the front lines in the next battle, and to be abandoned to die.

So, at best, David is an adulterous homewrecker and a schemer, and at worst, he is a rapist and a murderer.

But don’t be too quick to look down on David

Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5:17-26 that if you’ve looked at someone with lustful intent, with a glance that evolves into a gaze, you’ve committed adultery with them in your heart! In the same way, if you’ve found yourself angry with someone you’re liable to judgement!

Do you have clear eyes to see when you’ve wrong someone?

Nathan helped David to see that he was indeed sinning before God (2 Samuel 12)

That is part of the evil of sin. Sin clouds our eyes to the reality that have fallen drastically short of God’s good standard.

When we’re in the midst of sin, the enemy does everything he can to make us think we are good and right

Accountability groups help us to see

That is why it is so important to live in community with other spirit filled believers. When our eyes are clouded, we need others with clear eyes to help us see.

David’s eyes have also been cleared to see that God is the one he had wronged.

God is the Father of all, Bathsheba and Uriah are dearly beloved children of the Father. David robbed God’s dearly beloved children not only of their joy, but of their dignity.

Don’t hear me wrong, I don’t mean that when you wrong someone, hopefully not to the degree that King David did, you don’t have to make amends. Go first and apologize, make amends to the people you’ve sinned against.

Recognize ultimately who you have done evil before, the Father who sees all and who is the source and sustainer of all.

Psalm 51:6 ESV

6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Our enemy has these titles that are all related to falsehood: the deceiver, the father of lies

But in contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the TRUTH, and the life!

What God delights in is when we are able to recognize the truth about ourselves.

David has been given clear eyes by the power of the Spirit working through Nathan.

The First Step in confessing your sin before God is having clear eyes to recognize that you have a problem that you can’t fix.

Talk about mom’s addiction

Step 2: Petition

Psalm 51:7–12 ESV

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Hyssop was used in two different ceremonial cleansings in the Levitical law:

Lepers were sprinkled with blood from the branch of a hyssop branch

Those who came into contact with a dead body were cleansed by a similar method

The declaration at the end of these prescribed ceremonies is: “and he shall be clean,”

David knows that nothing is beyond God’s power to forgive, he is confident that should God choose to cleanse David, he “shall be clean”. If God chooses to wash David of the filthiness of his sin, he “shall be whiter than snow,”.

David has clear eyes to see the character of God, that of one who is merciful and willing to forgive.

Verses 10-12 are focused on the inward renewal that David experiences.

David’s request that God ‘create in him a clean heart’ is similar to Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again

It’s nothing short of a miracle, but praise the Lord that we serve a miracle worker.

I think we are all aware of how it feels when we don’t feel the Lord near.

Despair, pain, doubt, questioning, and longing seep into our minds

It’s clear from the text that David feels those same emotions, a result of his own sin just as those feelings of God’s distance are often our own doing as well.

But just as David hung on his knowledge of God as abundantly merciful and steadfastly loving, we must do the same.

David has clear eyes to see that only God can work a miracle and give him new life.

Step 3: Response

Psalm 51:13–15 ESV

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

When we truly experience the life transformation that David asks God for, the natural outpouring from that recreation is telling the world of the new life that you’ve found

David is certain of God’s faithfulness to him, and the only proper response that David can see is to ‘Sing aloud of the Lord’s righteousness,’

When we experience the forgiveness of God, the true transformation that David is explaining here we experience, “the joy of the Lord’s salvation,”.

But we cannot experience this profound joy and freedom if our heart isn’t in the right place.

Psalm 51:16–17 ESV

16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

A contrite heart is that of one who is weighed down and broken by their guilt before the Lord

It takes true humility to recognize your sins for what they are, a black cancer eating away at your heart

Mind immediately went to Micah 6:6-8

Micah 6:6–8 ESV

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

The sacrifices you bring to God, the worship you give him, your fasts, you great acts of service and devotion, are worthless if your heart isn’t in the right place.

The only one who’s heart was in the right place was Jesus

The only person who did justice in everything was Jesus

The only person who really loved kindness was Jesus

The only person who really walked humbly was Jesus

You’re immediately made aware of how short of the standard you are when you come face to face with the one who set the standard.

But once you are given those clear eyes to see, God makes it possible for you to turn and be forgiven and to have that dirty heart of stone inside your chest to be turned into a clean heart of flesh through the power of Jesus.