HLBC Psalm 5:6-7 Sunday Night Devotional

Please turn to Psalm 5:6-7

How did you respond to those unordinarily hard circumstances in your life, the one’s that we would do anything not to go back into? Our Psalm shows us how King David responds when his sin directly caused one of those biggest challenges in his life.

Read Psalm 5:6-7

Main Point of the Text: God must punish sin—we are sinners. But through God’s love, Christ took on our punishment, so fear God.

What God Hates, His People Should Hate (v6)

(Context) As he writes his Psalm he is hiding from his pursuers. Your mind likely goes to one of David’s flights from Saul. Surely these were no easy times for David, but David remained blameless in those escapes. He is pursued then because of others’ sin, but now, he is pursued as a result of his sin. After laying with Bathsheba, God promises David that evil will come out of his own house to pursue him. Evil came in the form of his son Absalom who will gain control of Israel’s men and cause David to flee. King David expects to die that night at the hand of his son as a result of his own sin, but God preserves him. Our text is David’s response.

(Exegesis) David begins by recounting the characteristics of what God hates and then what God delights in. You might be thinking why would God David begin with what God hates? That is what I thought at first, but then I asked another question, why is David recounting all the specific sins which God hates, that he committed? David lied to Uriah, David deceived Uriah, and ultimately, David killed Uriah. David recounts these specific sins which he committed because he is repenting from them! Reciting that the Lord hates those who speak lies pushed David towards speaking truthfully. Brothers and sisters, this is what repentance looks like. Admitting the sin you committed deserves God’s punishment and then aspiring to do it no more. David is not the only one in our passage committing these sins however, Absalom has committed all of those sins to usurp David’s throne. While David hates his sin, Absalom continues to go deeper into his.

(Application) Brothers and sisters, times in my own life my repentance only includes God’s character what he loves (me), and not what he hates (my sin). I fear if I wrote this Psalm, I would have jumped straight to verse 7 speaking of God’s love, but not write verse 6. Maybe it is easier explained that my repentance can be one sided: I am motivated to repent because God loves me even with my sin, not always out of a hatred for my sin. We should not just hate our sin because it is immoral or looked down upon by man, but because when we sin we are looking at our creator and saying “I do not believe your word is true, or I do not care about your word”.

When I think of my sin of pride that I personally struggle with, sometimes I want to jump to “God still loves me even with my sin, okay let’s stop being so prideful Wyatt” and then move on. Of course God still does love me, but he sure does hate my pride. When my pride leads to me putting myself before others because the needs of others inconvenience me, because I tell myself “what has that person ever done for me”, God hates that. I tell myself God’s grace is enough, but then I am surprised my struggle persists when I am not actually hating what God hates.

David hates his sin and that is why he will be saved and Absalom will be killed. Brothers and sisters are you like me with a one sided repentance sometimes, there are some sins we just want to say “Thank you God for loving me anyway” versus “God I know how much you hate my sin, I hate it too, would you mold me to hate it as much as you”? One practical way to do this with whichever sin you are struggling with, in my case pride, is to read passages with the mindset of “how does God show himself to hate that specific sin: pride, and then love the opposite: humility”. What sin are you struggling with brother or sister, how does scripture portray why God hates it, and why you should hate it? That would be a good question to discuss over coffee with another church member this week.

2. God’s Grace Toward Sinners, and the Sinner’s Response (v7)

After repenting from his sin, David explains he is able to enter into the house of God. We may be tempted to praise David now, but look down in your bibles more closely in the beginning of verse 7. “But I, THROUGH the abundance of your steadfast love will enter your house”. Even with his repentance, David can only be with God because God desires him to be. This may sound unjust or unfair, but David has gone against the Lord. At times in David’s life, the Israelites may have wondered if he was the messiah, if he was the Christ who came to save Israel. But even the great king David who was a man after God’s own heart could not even save himself. He was saved though by his offspring who would eventually come in Jesus of Nazareth. So by trusting in his future offspring and repenting from his sin, David was saved. Even in the Old Testament, God’s people are saved by grace through faith and repentance. Without God’s love though, we would all be left in our sin.

So what does David do after God saves him from his own sin, he fears God. He does not turn back to speaking lies and deceiving. The sin which God hates, he hates, and then he worships God. Earlier we decided we sin when we do not believe in or do not care about the word of God. So then, the opposite must be we follow God’s commands because we fear him.

In the three statements David gives us he is explaining an abbreviated order of salvation: do you see it? We sin, God saves us and let’s us enter into his house, then we worship the Lord. But without a proper understanding of the abundance of God’s love even with our sin, we will not be able to revere God and worship him because we are not actually saved.

(Application) Growing up back in Missouri I had the same group of about fifteen friends I hung out with from 6th grade up to now when I go back. When we were much younger almost all of them claimed they were a Christian and in sixth grade it seemed that they all were. As we got older, their lives less and less reflected hating sin and worshiping God. I remember being so confused in probably about tenth grade: why aren’t they living like Christians. Overtime though, I understood they did not either believe or care about their own sin and then how God meets our sin. For them though, the Christian life did not always cause you to worship God and flee from sin.

Hunsinger Lane Baptist, an application from this text very close to my heart is to teach your children and children in this church these components of the gospel so that they will not fool themselves as they get older. Teach children we cannot escape the reality of our own sin, but we should not run from that reality because God graciously forgives us of our sin. God loves when you admit your sin and put faith in Jesus as the only way to be saved. God does not look down in shame when you admit sin. Then, teaching them what a saved life looks like: worshipping God in reverence through following his good commands for us.

So when a child grows up to be 16, sees how their life is not centered on following the Lord, they know they are not trusting in God’s love for salvation. Whereas many friends I have now would claim: yes you are saved by God’s grace, but that is not what is going to be the focus of my life and that is okay, that is normal. If they would have been consistently taught by their church and parents when they were younger the pure magnitude of our sin and God’s love, then what a saved life should look like, maybe they would not be fooled as they still are today. I recognize I am a twenty-year old single college guy giving you parenting advice, but oh how I wish my dear friends back home would have been taught the true gospel. Then, even if they do not become saved when they are younger, they will still know the truths of the gospel. I have a friend back in Missouri right now who I asked him last time I was in town if a good moral life will get you into heaven, he said no, and responded with “You have to have a good heart too”.

(unofficial conclusion)

We should hate our sin because of how it goes against God’s good purpose and creation for our life, we should know though that with the admittance of our sin we can enter God’s presence because of his love! Without God lovingly calling us to himself to be in his presence, we would always be left outside of him. Then because he is a good, holy God, we should seek to worship him in a reverent fear. His love is greater than all our sin.

Let’s pray.