After God’s Heart (Part 12)(Psalm 51)                                                                                     2009.03.29    Pastor Edward Cheng

We are nearing the end of our sermon series, After God’s Heart, looking at the life of King David, who’s the only person in all scripture to be referred to as being after God’s heart.  Last time we looked at the life of David, we saw laziness and complacency.  Instead of leading his people out to battle like a king should, he stayed home.  And we saw that his laziness and complacency led to sin.  He went from thinking the things of God, in 2 Samuel 7, to thinking only about how to cover up his sin in chapter 11.  We find out in chapter 12 that Nathan the prophet confronts David, and immediately David repents.  2 Samuel 12 tells us the facts of David’s repentance; Psalm 51 tells us the emotions, what David is thinking when he repents of his sin.  Today we’ll look at Psalm 51 and see what each section tells us about God’s mercy and the forgiveness experienced by someone who is after God’s heart.

Look at vv.1-2.  Note the words, “unfailing love,” which is a tremendous term that we’ve heard before: chesed.  From the beginning, David invokes God’s chesed love.  Then he says three things that he would like God to do for him, three lines that basically say the same thing with slight nuances, in an example of parallelism.  First, “blot out” coveys the idea of the sin having been written on a tablet or a scroll, and asking God to erase it.  “Wash away” is the idea of getting a stain out of clothing.  “Cleanse me” is the idea of taking a bath to remove a stink.  In these three ways he asks God to take away his sin. 

What do we see in this?  We see that David clearly recognizes that he does not deserve mercy, and that in fact he deserves judgment.  We know that we don’t deserve forgiveness for our sins, yet for those of us who have been Christian for some time, we sometimes forget to realize that we don’t deserve it.  We get used to committing sin, and then asking forgiveness, which God does not deny us.  We forget what it cost God to forgive us: his son. 

The next few verses (vv. 3-6) show us that it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge the sin we’ve committed.  David is under the weight of his sin constantly and he doesn’t avoid it; he owns up to it.  He says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”  This is a funny thing to say, since he certainly sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, Uriah’s family—but at the end of the day, his rebellious heart is an offense against God.  When we sin, we turn our backs on the Lord.  In order to experience forgiveness, we must confess and acknowledge our sins.  It can be very easy just to say you’re sorry, but we also need to acknowledge what we’re sorry for.

The result, when we recognize that we don’t deserve forgiveness and when we acknowledge what we’ve done, is shown in v. 7 and on: a restored relationship.  When David says, “Create in me a pure heart,” he realizes that in order for him to change, it must come from the Lord.  In v. 11, he asks God not to take his presence from him, as he had with Saul.  For us, as Christians, we need not fear that the Holy Spirit will be taken from us—the Spirit is given to us as a pledge and a guarantee that the Lord will see us through our lives.  For David, he is asking to be made new and to experience closeness with the Lord again: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” 

Do you remember when you first became a believer, when you felt that you were no longer condemned, when you experienced peace with God?  The reconciliation that comes with forgiveness can be captured by the phrase, in Mandarin, méi shì, “It’s all right, it’s done, there’s nothing wrong.”  The Lord basically says to David, “Méi shì.  It’s over.  We’re right again.” 

We see this week what happens in the aftermath of sin, what happens in the heart of somebody who is after God’s heart.  In the heart of this person, there is recognition that forgiveness comes according to God’s chesed love and not our merit, and it comes from genuinely acknowledging our sin, and this forgiveness leads to a restored relationship.  As we seek to be people after God’s heart, we will stumble, guaranteed, and it doesn’t mean we’re not after God’s heart anymore.  It means we need to recover, and Psalm 51 shows us how a person who’s after God’s heart does that.