Sermon Tone Analysis

Getting Attention

Question: List ways stress can be self-inflicted.

Question: List some of the outcomes of self-inflicted stress.

Knowing & Understanding

Self-inflicted stress (that caused by willful sin) can be the worst kind.

Thriving Light Principle: Confessions and renewal are needed to recover from self-inflicted stress.

When a child of God sins, he or she cannot step back into fellowship with God and spiritual productivity without confession and cleansing (Ps.

34:18; John 15:4-7, 10; James 4:8).

By committing his hor­rible sins against Bathsheba and Uriah, David cut himself off from fellowship with God (Ps.

51:11) and from the sense of God's presence in his life.

After hearing Nathan's account of a rich man who slaughtered his poor neighbor's only, dear lamb to provide a meal for a traveler (2 Sam.

12:1-4), David responded with an angry indictment against the rich man (vv.

5, 6).

Nathan pointed his finger at the king and said, "Thou art the man" (v. 7).

At that point David was stricken with his guilt.

During the hours that followed, David must have written Psalm 51.

I.

The Process of Repentance

David did not resolve to straighten out his life or do better before he confessed his sin and experi­enced cleansing from sin.

Only after God had for­given him and had renewed his life did David resolve to serve the Lord anew.

A plea for mercy.

(51:1a)

David's approach to God began with a plea for mercy.

The Hebrew word "mercy" is closely akin to the Greek word for "grace" in the New Testament.

When David prayed, "Have mercy upon me," he asked God to respond to him in a way that he did not deserve.

He requested that God measure out His mercy according to His loving-kindness, a word that suggests the loyalty of one individual to another be­cause of an established relationship.

Loving-kindness exists because two parties have expressed love and have made an agreement or covenant.

David un­doubtedly pleaded with God on the basis of the covenant God had made with him in 2 Samuel 7:8-16.

David pleaded for mercy on the basis of the lov­ing-kindness God expressed in the covenant rela­tionship He had made with the king of Israel.

David knew that his sins were abhorrent to God, and he went to God in repentance, pleading that God would remember the commitment He had made.

Question: When we sin, how do we often feel?

Often when we sin, we feel as though we cannot lift our eyes toward God.

We need to understand, however, that God sees us in Christ.

In Christ, we enjoy a perfect standing with God.

Even when we sin, God relates to us as a loving Father.

Our sin does not negate the promises God made to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Father does not cast us out of His family.

Although He despises our sin, He loves us.

When we confess our sin, He re­stores us to fellowship with Him, and He cleanses us (1 John 1:9).

Note: Every Christian is eternally a member of God's family (1 John 3:1-3), but even as a member of God's fam­ily, every Christian sins occasionally (1 John 1:10).

A plea for clearing the record.

(51:1b)

David pleaded that God would blot out his transgressions.

The term "blot" means "to wipe off, remove, erase, or get rid of."

In Old Testament days when a debtor repaid a debt, the creditor erased or crossed out the record of the debt.

He did not write a new document or receipt to indicate that the debt had been paid in full; he simply made the previous record illegible by erasing it or scratching it out.

Question: How does it feel to have a debt erased?

David's record of sin was extensive.

He had al­lowed sinful, lustful thoughts to claim his attention and motivate his actions (2 Sam.

11:2, 3); he had committed adultery (vv.

4, 5); he had plotted the death of the man whose loyalty he had violated (vv.

6-16).

He was also responsible for the death of other soldiers who were present in the heat of that need­less battle at the wall (vv.

17-21, 24).

He had prac­ticed deception.

For God to relieve David's guilt and restore his fellow hip with Him, God had to erase from His manuscript the record of David's personal, deliberate rejection of holy standards and his destruction of his fellow men.

David requested that God would clear the record on the basis of His tender mercies.

Tender mercy is like the compassion a parent has for a child.

When a child does something wrong, the parent has the option either to forgive and forget or to disci­pline the child.

Many times when the child recog­nizes his or her sin and repents, parental tenderness carefully erases the child's transgression.

David pleaded for that kind of tenderness.

Lord, erase the lines.

Draw thy pen through the register.

Obliterate the record, though now it seems engraven in the rock for ever: many strokes of thy mercy may be needed, to cut out the deep inscription, but then thou hast a multitude of mercies, and therefore, I beseech thee, erase my sins.

Hebrews 12:5-8 assures us that God's disciplinary action toward us indicates that we belong to His family.

A request for cleansing.

(51:2)

David, because of his sin, felt dirty.

David pleaded for God to wash him "throughly."

This word has a meaning something like "thor­oughly."

It is an intensive form of the Hebrew word that means "through and through."

David wanted God to cleanse him vigorously so that he would be completely clean.

He asked God to symbolically beat him on the rock at the riverside so that the soap would go all the way through (see verse 10).

He did not want to retain any part of his sin or to become involved in it again.

His repentance was genuine.

The word "iniquity " in this verse means "moral distortion."

This word means more than simply missing the mark.

It refers to a willful, flagrant vio­lation of God's standard of behavior.

Those who en­gage in lies, deception, fornication, adultery, cheating, stealing, and murder to reach their own self-centered goals are living in iniquity, as this word defines it.

They, too, need a vigorous cleansing from their warped, sinful way of life.

David prayed for God to wash him from his in­iquity.

He also asked for cleansing from his sin.

The word for sin in this phrase includes all manner of shortcomings or failures.

The word for cleansing was used in such ceremonial washings as the cleans­ing of a leper.

Regulations required a leper to absent himself from commonly visited places.

He was ex­pected to step into a ditch when people passed him on the road.

He had to be extremely careful not to contaminate anyone.

David had a strong sense of his own polluted condition and asked God to remove his uncleanness so that he could again associate with the people of his kingdom.

A recognition of sin.

(51:3-4)

Psalm 51:3 begins with a full acknowledgment of David's transgressions and further demonstrates his genuinely repentant attitude.

David did not blame anyone but himself.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they immediately responded by passing on the blame: Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.

Neither one was repentant (Gen.

3:11-13).

The human part of restitution to God after sin is summed up in the first words of 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins...”

True confession is not a lifeless acknowledgment of committed sin.

It is a vivid consciousness of our sinfulness; it is often accompanied by restlessness, anguish, and a burden of wrong that causes us to cry out to God.

David acknowledged his transgressions in the light of their awful significance.

So intense was David's guilt that he could never forget his sin.

Regardless of the beauty of the evening or the peace­fulness of the hillside, his transgressions loomed be­fore him.

He could not escape their haunting presence in his life.

God had used the searing words of Nathan the prophet like a branding iron to im­press upon David's mind the reality that he, like any of his humblest subjects, was a sinner.

Note: Sins against God's people are called sins against God (Num.

12; 1 Sam.

8:7; Matt.