Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
In Christ, Mark
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in your verdict and justified when You judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet You desired faithfulness even in the womb; You taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, so that sinners will turn back to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, You who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of Your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare Your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise.
May it please You to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will delight in the Sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
Psalm 51
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
I hate starting this out with bad news but I must. Here it is:
All of us are sinners and stand unworthy of God’s favor, deserving instead His full wrath and judgment. Wretched and wicked, we stand condemned and without hope in life before the God who has infinite power and might, a God who could send us back to dust He formed us from in the blink of an eye if He so wished. And with this, we are all in dire need of reconciliation and restoration, a way to be saved from destruction, a way to gain God’s forgiveness, mercy, and pardon.
As we look at the scriptures, it would be hard to find an example of someone who was in more dire straits with God than David was. This was the David that was a man after God’s own heart, a young shepherd boy who defeated a mighty giant Philistine warrior (Goliath) and was hand-picked by God to be His king of Israel. This is one of the most beloved and revered characters in the entire Bible.
And yet, David was just as much a shameful, disgraceful sinner as anyone else.
Consider his actions:
David committed adultery with the married Bathsheba and she became pregnant after the tryst.
Then David, trying to cover his sin, convinced Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, that he was the conceived baby’s father.
David then proceeded to send Uriah to the front lines of a battle that was raging, knowing he would be killed there (in other words, he intentionally wished for Uriah to be killed).
David got his wish and Uriah was killed, allowing David to marry Bathsheba.
Pretty heavy stuff right? And what made it all really bad was that David thought he would get away with it. He had a perfect plan to make it all work out in the end so he would have Bathsheba and the baby they conceived together, even if it was at the expense of a life (Uriah). The problem with David’s plan is that he forgot that God could see it all. No matter how well David schemed and concealed his sin to those around him, he couldn’t hide it from the One above him. We would be well served to remember this as we live out our lives. For God sees everything.
And so God sent the prophet Nathan to David to rebuke him for what he had done. Nathan told David a parable of which David was the main character, a rich man who had everything to include many sheep but yet chose to take the one precious lamb a poor man owned, killing it and preparing it as food for a guest. After David declared that the rich man deserved death for what he had done, Nathan informed David that he was the rich man in the parable. He further went on to tell David about the judgment God was going to bring on him and his family, judgment which included the baby he conceived through adultery dying (see 2 Samuel 12). In response to Nathan’s announcement, David had only one thing to say:
“I have sinned against the Lord.”
It’s important to have this background because this psalm, the 51st, was written after Nathan had confronted David and we get a glimpse of David’s penitent mindset and attitude, fully realizing his sin was known by the powerful God of the universe who was set to impose judgment. Not a comfortable place to be. In fact, I don’t know about you but I would be petrified in fear at that point.
And so David wrote down his feelings and thoughts, and in doing so, shows us proper steps to take gain reconciliation and restoration before God. Consider the words of this psalm:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in your verdict and justified when You judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet You desired faithfulness even in the womb; You taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, so that sinners will turn back to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, You who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of Your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare Your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise.
May it please You to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will delight in the Sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Well, I sure haven’t committed adultery or arranged for someone to be killed.” Maybe you would distance yourself from the acts of David and see your life as less sinful. But remember the words of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, words that upped the ante when it comes to adultery and murder. Didn’t Jesus say that if we lust after someone it was as if we had committed adultery with our hearts? He did (Matthew 5:27-28). And didn’t Jesus tell us that becoming angry at someone or calling someone a derogatory name was akin to murder? He did (Matthew 5:21-22).
We all need to pay attention to this psalm because we all need reconciliation and restoration just as much as David did. Look at the steps he took:
1. He confessed.
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in your verdict and justified when You judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
David acknowledged the evil sin he had committed before God and accepted the judgment of God, a judgment that he deserved for his actions.
2. He asked for his sins to be taken away.
“Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.”
David knew only God could cancel his sin debt and hoped his transgressions might be blotted out and not held against him forever.
3. He asked for mercy.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion”
David knew of God’s unfailing love and he prayed that this love would result in God’s compassion being shown to him.
4. He promised to help others turn from their sins.
“Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, so that sinners will turn back to You.”
David committed himself to help others turn from their transgressions so that his mistakes might not be repeated.
5. He asked for deliverance.
“Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, You who are God my Savior.”
David knew that only God would deliver him from his sin. No one else was capable of saving him.
6. He was willing to do whatever necessary to change.
“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise.”
David humbly submitted himself before God, admitting his brokenness before the One who could repair it.
7. He sought cleansing and a return to purity.
“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
David knew only God could make him right and righteous again. He desired for God to restore him to purity so he could be the godly man he was before he fell into temptation and sin.
8. He longed for a return to praising the Lord who had been so good to him.
“Let the bones You have crushed rejoice.”
“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
“Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare Your praise.”
Facing God’s judgment was not going to be easy. Life was so much easier when David lived according to God’s will and not his own desires. But David could see a time ahead when he would be past the penalty phase, a time he would be able to praise God for all He had done. He yearned to have the joy of the Lord return to his heart.
Friends, like David, we are in dire need of rescue. We are destined to doom short of salvation and deliverance. The Apostle Paul summed it up like this, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23-24a
So what hope do we have in life?
Our hope can be found in one word: Jesus.
For going back to Paul’s words in Romans, he didn’t just end his statement at “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” No he added the following good news:
“and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (verse 24b)
By the unfailing love that David acknowledges God as having, we were given a path to salvation as God sent His only Son Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus paid the price for you and me so we would be able to survive God’s judgment, pardoned by Christ’s redeeming sacrifice at Calvary’s cross. The shed blood of Jesus atoned for our transgressions and justified us (or made us just-as-if-I-had-never-sinned before God). It truly is amazing grace that saved wretches like you and me who were once lost and now found.
Friends, the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross followed by His victory over death and subsequent resurrection, paved the way for us to find our way from destruction to glory, from despair to joy, from hopelessness to hope, from death to life.
As we have seen in the 51st Psalm, there are many steps to reconciliation and restoration but the most important one is accepting Jesus as your Savior. He is the only One who can pardon you at God’s judgment time and he is the only way to be with the Father forever (John 14:6).
Don’t let today pass without giving your life to Him as He gave His life for you.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment