Psalm 51
Notes
Transcript
Intro/Background
Heading
Psalm 51 is a very famous and familiar Psalm to many of us, and it comes from perhaps King David’s darkest hours that we have recorded
That’s saying a lot for a man who went through so much adversity and difficulties
As we read in the heading, David wrote this Psalm as a response to Nathan the prophet calling him out for his sin with Bathsheba.
Most of you know that story too
We’re going to read some snippets of it this morning, but you can read the entire account in 2 Samuel 11-12.
1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. 3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house.
David at this time was living on a mountain top
After years of having the kingdom promised to him by Samuel the prophet, running from Saul who wanted to kill him, David had finally become king and united the country. He had build up his nation’s power and wealth, taken over and established Jerusalem as its capital, and had brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem.
If they had political polling back then, his numbers would have been through the roof. The nation loved him, things were going great.
And it was during this time that he let his guard down
1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
David, instead of doing what he should have been doing as king and leading his troops into war, took a break
That might not seem like such a bad thing, we all needs periods to rest and recharge. But in this case, it was not a good thing for David
It’s a good warning for us to not take a break spiritually from the things of the Lord, even if life is good
It can be easy to slack off on your Bible reading, or on your prayer life, or maybe even in serving the Lord when life is going great. Don’t take a break from those things, stay disciplined
38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
So David is at the palace hanging out, enjoying a nice walk around the balcony one evening, and he sees a woman named Bathsheba bathing on top of her roof
Now what she was doing I have no clue. She had to have known the palace overlooked her place, she knows what she’s doing
But regardless, David is the one who makes the choice to sin. Instead of turning away or finding someone to hold him accountable (“hey, don’t let me go out on the balcony cause I know my self and my sinful tendencies...”), David inquires more about this woman
“Who is she, what is she all about?”
He was fixated on her
We know that David already had a problem in life with lust and women
He had many wives, against God’s commandments and wasn’t satisfied w/ what the Lord gave to him
David’s discontentment w/ the gift that God had given him allowed his lust take over and wreck havoc in his life
David finds out that the woman was Bathsheba and he finds out that she is married
And even that fact doesn’t stop him from sinning
He sends messengers (probably secretly so know one would know) to go get her, brings her to the palace, and they spend the night together.
And as you keep reading the chapter, you’ll find out that David ends up getting Bathsheba pregnant
Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, has been away this whole time fighting the Ammonites.
David hatches this plan to bring Uriah home, get him to spend some quality time with his wife, then when the baby comes Uriah would just think the kid was his, no problem, sin covered up
But if you remember the story, you’ll remember that Uriah was an honorable man
9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 So when they told David, saying, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Did you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”
David tried a few different ties to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, but Uriah wouldn’t do it, so instead of just fessing up to his sin, David comes up with a plan to get him murdered.
He told Joab, the commander of the army, to put Uriah on the front line of the battle. Then when the battle was at its fiercest, Joab would secretly command everyone to retreat a bit, leaving Uriah exposed and allowing him to be killed in battle.
That’s exactly what happens. Uriah is killed, and then David swoops in like the hero and marries Bathsheba and the whole country think he’s a saint for taking in this pregnant widow
David thought he got away with his sin. No one knew about it, but God knew about it.
David went on with life for about an entire year before Nathan confronted him
Could you imagine though how David felt during that time? Have you ever had a secret sin? Usually it consumes you, you feel just sick with guilt
Sometimes its even over the dumbest of things
Tell story of hitting Granny’s car w/ baseball
Whew, glad I was finally able to confess that!
But sin leads to guilt which can just eat us up.
Psalm 38, which David wrote, and may or may not have been during this year long period, does a good job of painting that picture of what guilt does
3 There is no soundness in my flesh Because of Your anger, Nor any health in my bones Because of my sin. 4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. 5 My wounds are foul and festering Because of my foolishness.
After about a year, Nathan the prophet comes to David and tells him a story
Explain parable
2 Samuel 12:5–7a (NKJV)
5 So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! 6 And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” 7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”
And David just breaks. And in that sorrow, David writes this Psalm
Lesson - Psalm 51.
Verses 1-2
David’s first cry is for mercy. He knew what he had done, and it was not pretty
God, give me mercy. Don’t give me what I deserve
We know that all sin is sin in God’s eyes, and if we break one commandment, we’ve broken all of the law
But adultery and murder, to most people those are pretty big sins
There are consequences for David’s actions, severe ones
Leviticus 20:10 says that an adulterer should be put to death for their sin
Leviticus 24:17 says that the punishment for murder is also death
Deut 17:20 says that even the king is not above God’s law
David deserved to die
We know that our punishment for our sin is also death
Romans 6:23a (NKJV)
23 For the wages of sin is death
What we earn from our sin is an eternal separation from God
And we all are sinners
My youngest son Micah was asked that the other week.
We took our 3 kids to spend the week with my parents earlier in the summer, and it happened to be the week of their church’s VBS.
So my youngest is in his group during teaching time and the teacher asked who int he group had ever sinned before, and he very matter-of-factly stated that he had never sinned
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Before we continue, I want to take just a moment to talk about what sin is
Because we live in a society where more and more right is wrong and wrong is now right
So what is sin?
We had a conversation about this in our middle school group last week, and one of the things we discussed is that how morals are relative. I’d honestly say our nation is moving beyond relative moralism though. Because in many cases if you speak out against certain things that you believe are sin or wrong, you are labeled as hateful.
So what is sin then? It is anything that goes against the nature and word of God. We need to compare everything to what the word of God says
Parents, this is so important for all of us to teach our children! The world is feeding them so much garbage right now!
We need to be teaching our kids that the standard for right and wrong, what is sin and what is okay to do, is God’s word
It doesn’t matter what the world says or practices or considers normal or right, we need to hold it up to God’s word
David, in his cry for mercy, asks the Lord to blot out his transgression, to wash him, and to cleanse him
“Blot out” means to “wipe clean, wipe out, or annihilate”
Isn’t it wonderful that we have a God who can wipe clean or completely erase our sins
That’s a hard concept for us as humans to grasp sometimes
We see God through the lens of our own humanity too often, so when we think of God’s forgiveness for instance, we think of forgiveness in human terms
While humans can forgive, we’re not great at forgetting or completely erasing sins. It’s hard for us b/c our sin nature loves to hold onto stuff and bring it back up later
So we think God must be like us and He can’t possibly wipe out our sins
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
The terms “wash” and “cleanse” speak to the work of the Holy Spirit that not just eliminates the remembrance of sin, but it washes us clean so we are as white as snow before God.
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
We’re all sinners. We all have made a lot of mistakes. With our actions, with our speech, with our thought life. And God sees it all
I can’t imagine how filthy we look compared to His Son
Yet because of Jesus, and what Jesus did by taking our sin, nailing it to the cross, wiping out our sin and our debt, He can then wash us and sanctify us and justify us
Do you know an easy way to remember what the word “justified” or “justification” in the Bible means?
Just-as-if-I’d never sinned
When we come and confess our sin before the Lord, and we ask Him for His mercy and to forgive us, God does just that. And then He takes the righteousness of His Son and imputes that or assigns that to us, so that when He looks at us, God doesn’t see our filth, He sees the righteousness of Jesus.
Verses 3-4
David doesn’t make any excuses for his sin - no “the devil made me do it” mentality here
He owns up to what he did (“I acknowledge my transgressions”)
So important for us to do with our sin. God doesn’t want us to make excuses
It was their fault
I couldn’t help it
I have a disposition to fall in that area, it’s just my area of sin to deal with
God wants us to take ownership of our sin
Then David says something pretty interesting in Vs 4
Now, did David sin against other people with what he did?
Absolutely he did
So what does he mean here?
I think he’s getting at that no matter what we do, all sin is ultimately done against God
God was there in David’s bedroom when he sinned with Bathsheba
He was there in the war room when David gave the order to have Uriah killed
God is there and sees all the things we do. Even if its a secret sin that only you and another person know about. Or even if just you know about it, God still sees it
Fudging the numbers on your taxes isn’t just keeping the IRS away from your money, it’s sin against the Lord
Stealing time from work isn’t just sticking it to the man, it’s a transgression against God
Dwelling on hatred or lust in your heart isn’t just daydreaming, it’s what put Jesus on the cross for us
You start adding all these things up and you see why David in comparison calls God just and blameless
Verses 5-9
David knew that he was a sinner ever since birth, that it was his nature to sin
It’s the sin nature all of us are born with
You don’t have to teach a little kid to say no or to be selfish, they can do that all on their own.
We all are born with a sin nature and before we give our lives over to the Lord, that is what rules our lives
Self
But when we are born again, sin no longer rules in our lives
17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
But then we endure the war. Our new nature that Jesus gives us then wars against the flesh (that’s what the Bible calls our sin nature, our flesh)
And that war is a daily battle. I know it goes on in my own life. There are times that I’m super close to the Lord, that there’s no where else I’d rather be than in His presence or in His word. The world just seems so pointless compared to pursuit of Jesus
And then there are other times that my flesh rears its ugly head and the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as John puts it in his epistle become more important to me than the things of God
And that swing happens in like 5 minutes!
To properly battle sin, we need to understand our sin nature, but also realize we are not a slave to it any longer. But to fight that battle we need to feed our spirit and starve our flesh
Verses 10-13
David’s cry here echos what we were just talking about with that war that occurs in each one of us
It’s the same one Paul talks about in Romans 7.
A couple of great takeaways from these verses
God is the one who has to give us a new heart
Christianity isn’t a self help manual for good behavior. Sometimes we think it is some sort of moralistic way to have a good life
Christianity is about sinners saved by God’s grace who get a new heart and serve their Savior out of their gratitude
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
We should be praying this daily - God give me a clean heart
I am so glad we live in the NT era under the new covenant with Jesus - we don’t have to worry about God taking His Holy Spirit away from us
God would send His Spirit on people for times in the OT before Jesus, but after Jesus, the Bible tells us that God gives His Spirit to us as a seal or His promise/guarantee that we belong to Him
And God won’t take that Spirit away from us, we have been adopted as sons and daughters and nothing can snatch us out of the Father’s hands
When we sin though, God may not empower us with His Spirit (the Bible would say the Spirit is upon us when God supernaturally empowers us through His Holy Spirit), but that Spirit never leaves us
Salvation is a joy
Our walks with the Lord should be filled with joy, which is different from happiness.
Joy doesn’t depend on our circumstances, joy depends on who we serve.
If we serve ourselves, we’re going to be miserable. If we serve Jesus, we are going to be filled with joy for all that He has done for us and how good He is and how much He loves us
Have you lost the joy of your salvation? Maybe there’s some sin you need to repent of, maybe you’ve been serving self instead of God.
God can use our sin to help others
Many times the greatest lessons we learn come from failures. We can use those to help others avoid the same pitfalls we get ourselves into.
That’s why so much of the Bible is here, especially the OT, to give us examples of what happens when we sin and examples of what happens when we walk close to the Lord
Verses 14-19
David closes by recognizing that God isn’t pleased with sacrifices or penance for when we sin, He wants our hearts and our confession.
I read a story of the crawlers of Guatemala which talked about these men who, every Good Friday, will walk on their knees to church with thorns on their backs as an act of penance for their sin.
While we may not do something as extreme to that, I think sometimes we can try to buy God off with an extra $20 in the tithe box or an act of service as a way of saying I’m sorry to God
That’s not how he works! He doesn’t want our religiosity, He doesn’t desire sacrifice, He desires our hearts
Is there sin in your life? Confess it. Ask God to cleanse your heart, to restore the joy of your salvation
And then praise Him for who He is and what He has done in your life
Close
As we close this morning, we’re going to do something a little different.
I’m going to ask Jamie and the worship team to come back up and they’re going to just play some instrumental music for a few minutes
And I want each person in this room to spend that time in silent prayer.
If you have sin in your life, use this time to confess it to God and to repent.
We serve a God who will forgive us and cleanse us
If you have never repented of your sin before. Maybe you’ve even gone to church for a while or you’ve read your Bible before and you give money, if you’ve never confessed your sin to God and asked Him to forgive you, you are still spiritually dead in your sins.
We all have a sin nature, so our nature is not to normally be with Jesus. We won’t make it to heaven based on our religiosity.
If you haven’t repented, use this time to get right before God. Confess that you’re a sinner, that you’re not perfect. Ask God to forgive you of your sins. Tell Him that you want Him to be your Savior and that you want to follow after Him the rest of your life
So spend a few minutes in prayer, I’ll come back up to pray, and then we’ll close with praise
Silent prayer
I close in prayer
Last worship chorus