A Prayer of Sorrow & Joy
Download MP3Well, good evening. It's good to see you all. We are gonna be in Psalm 51 tonight. For our Sunday gatherings this summer, we've been looking at great prayers of the Bible. Times when the people of God called out to the Lord, in times of distress, times of celebration, times of great fear, and great thanksgiving.
Jeffrey Heine:And, today we're gonna be looking at the prayer of King David in Psalm 51. It might be a song that you are familiar with. A prayer that you're familiar with, in the scriptures, and we're gonna be looking at it, in it's, from beginning to end tonight. And the way that I'd like for us to enter into this, to kinda look at this prayer of of deep repentance is like this. I want us to read through the whole Psalm, this whole prayer, and then I want us to take a step back, and I wanna tell you a story.
Jeffrey Heine:I wanna tell you the story of what is the what happened behind this prayer of repent repentance. What what is the what's the sin behind this desperate, anguished prayer that's also resilient and hopeful? And then, with our remaining time, I want us to, to think about what are some of the lessons that David has here for us, some lessons to learn about prayer and about repentance. And so that's kind of the, the lay of the land for tonight. If you would turn with me to Psalm 51.
Jeffrey Heine:Psalm 51. Let us listen carefully for this is God's word. Psalm 51, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love, according to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Jeffrey Heine:For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, You delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.
Jeffrey Heine:Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Jeffrey Heine:Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, oh God, oh God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Oh, lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
Jeffrey Heine:You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, You will not despise. Do good to Zion in Your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Jeffrey Heine:Then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. The word of the Lord. Amen. Let's pray.
Jeffrey Heine:God, we are grateful for your word. Each and every one of us here, we need to we need to hear from you tonight. We need you to walk through the the rooms of our soul and turn the lights on that we might see ourselves clearly, that we might even know what to repent of when it comes to turning to you. So, Lord, prepare our hearts to listen, prepare our hearts to receive, prepare our hearts to respond. We pray these things in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. King David was in his fifties. Many years, decades had passed since that legendary battle with Goliath. It was springtime in Jerusalem, the time of year when the kings would go out to battle, but not David. David sent his nephew Joab and the men of the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites while he stayed back home at the king's house.
Jeffrey Heine:In many ways, that's when the trouble began for David. It's when he decided to be where he wasn't supposed to be, and that might be familiar for many of us. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time seems to be where trouble tends to happen. But David wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time on accident. It was on purpose.
Jeffrey Heine:He just didn't want to go. Late in the afternoon, David got up from the couch, and he walked on the high roof of his palace. And he could see from his high roof, a lower roof, on top of the home of one of his commanders. And on that roof, there was a woman, Bathsheba. Bathsheba was the granddaughter of 1 of his counselors, the daughter of 1 of his mighty men, a warrior, and the wife of one of his soldiers, the commander Uriah.
Jeffrey Heine:Bathsheba was on the roof practicing a Jewish ritual, a cleanliness ritual. There were lots of different rituals at that time that the faithful Israelites would carry out. Most of them, they came from the Lord as a part of worship. Other rituals came about just through the culture. Bathsheba was practicing a bathing ritual that had long been established by the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:We find it in Leviticus 15. She wasn't acting out of turn in any way. She wasn't trying to tempt anyone. In fact, she was just worshiping. She was worshiping the Lord by obeying his commands.
Jeffrey Heine:David sees her, and he asks his servants about this woman. And they told him who she was, Bathsheba. Eliab, her father, and Uriah, her husband, were men of courage and bravery. They would risk their lives for the king, and that's where Uriah was. That also means that he was gone, because this was the time of the year that kings went to battle.
Jeffrey Heine:Most kings went to battle. David, being at home and apparently lying on the couch for some part of the day, sent for Bathsheba. Now, in in the Hebrew, it it reads that David sent his messengers to take Bathsheba. This story, told today, would make for a horrifyingly familiar headline. A person of power using force and position to obtain what they desire without regard to anyone else's desires or even their dignity.
Jeffrey Heine:And this scene is no less abhorrent than the headlines that we see today. In fact, in many ways, this is even more abhorrent, because this isn't just some politician or some actor or a wealthy business person. This is the man who is the king of Israel. This is the man anointed ruler over God's people, and this is the man after God's own heart. And he uses his power and his possess his position to take Bathsheba.
Jeffrey Heine:This story gives us no indication that Bathsheba wanted any of this to happen. All that we see from her is grief and distress. And I know that many of you here and who have been here throughout this day worshiping in this room identify far more with Bathsheba in this story than with David. And though our text today, Psalm 51, is has more to do with David than it does Bathsheba, I recognize that that's not all of the story. And before we go any further, I want to recognize you and your story, and to let you know that we see you and we care for you and we care about your story too.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, Bathsheba becomes pregnant, and David sets out to cover up his sin. And this ultimately ends with Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, being sent to the front lines of the battle that David was either too scared or too lazy to go fight himself. And Uriah is killed on those front lines, just as David wanted. And so now David has covered up his sins of lust and then assault, and then adultery, with lies, and now murder. Months go by, nearly a year, and the prophet Nathan, moved by the Lord's prompting, he goes to David and tells him of an urgent matter of justice.
Jeffrey Heine:Really, Nathan comes to tell him a story. And so this is the inception part of the sermon. We're now, we're we're gonna move to a story within the story. He says, there was a poor man who had a lamb. He cared for it like a pet, actually, more more like a daughter.
Jeffrey Heine:And he would feed the lamb from his own plate, and he would take care of this special lamb. And there was a rich man, and the rich man, he he had lots of livestock, he had many possessions, he had everything that he could want, and he had a guest come to visit. And it was time to prepare a meal, and instead of going to his own animals and his own livestock and preparing the meal, he goes to the poor man, and he takes the lamb, and he prepares the lamb for a meal for the guest. And David is enraged when he hears the story. He is so angry to to hear that this would be happening in his kingdom.
Jeffrey Heine:Under his watch and in his righteous anger, David tells Nathan that this rich man deserves to die. David promises justice. Nathan looks at David the king and says, you are the rich man. And like a person sobering up the next morning and trying to piece together all the things that happened the night before, he starts to understand all that he has done, to see it rightly, to see his evil as evil, to see his sin as sin. He's beginning to hate that sin the way God has always hated that sin.
Jeffrey Heine:He's a king, exposed, his own horror on display, and the lives of innocent people torn apart by his desire and his disregard. Those are the sins of David. I don't like the man in second Samuel chapter 12. And when I hear this story, I begin to not like the man praying in Psalm 51. But I need to note a danger for myself, and perhaps for you.
Jeffrey Heine:I need to admit that there's a serious danger that arises when I begin to despise an unrighteous person. And the danger is this, I begin to think that I am not like them. As humans, we don't have to learn how to sin, but as Christians, we have to learn what conviction of sin is and how to repent. And if you've been a Christ follower for very long, you've probably noticed that there are lots of areas within the Christian faith that seem to be upside down from the culture around us. Things that we believe and things that we do that seem countercultural, that seem backwards or upside down.
Jeffrey Heine:And, specifically, there are things about wrongdoing, things about sin that don't make sense outside of Christianity, and so we have to pay careful attention to learn these things. David teaches us critical lessons here in Psalm 51, lessons about sin, And I want us to look at 5 of them. There are many, many more. Trust me. The sermon is much longer.
Jeffrey Heine:But we're gonna look at 5 of them. 5. I'm gonna list them out now, and then we're gonna visit each one along the way. Lesson 1, no one deserves forgiveness. No one deserves forgiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:Lesson 2, wrongdoing is not ultimately about the people we wrong. Lesson 3, there is more to wrongdoing than we can see. Lesson 4, the goal of repentance is not feeling better. And lesson 5, conviction is a gift. So, the first lesson from David regarding sin and repentance, no one deserves forgiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:Look with me at verses 1 through 2. Have mercy on me, O God. According to Your steadfast love, according to Your abundant mercy, iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Out of David's anguish over his sins that he now sees, David calls out to God asking, pleading for mercy. David does not try to negotiate with God based on being sorry enough or promising that He will try harder next time.
Jeffrey Heine:David isn't begging for a second chance. He's not pleading for forgiveness based on his own character. He is pleading and begging for mercy based on God's character. David knows that his only chance at forgiveness for his sin is not gonna come from being sorry enough for his past, and it's not gonna come from promising to be good enough in the future. His only chance at forgiveness is appealing to the steadfast love of God.
Jeffrey Heine:David's only hope is God's grace, and that's where his plea begins. Have mercy on me. Not according to my sorrow, not according to my determination to be a better person, not according to my status as king, not according to me deserving forgiveness for any possible reason. Have mercy on me according to your perfect, constant, faithful love, and your abundant, limitless, never stopping mercy. Everything that David believes about God is summed up in these opening lines.
Jeffrey Heine:He acknowledges his transgressions, his sins. He acknowledges his uncleanliness, and he boldly states his belief that God can actually do something about it. God has the ability to make him clean, and David knows that his sin has made him unclean. David believes that God can wash him. David's argument for why, why he should be forgiven, is not based on the quality of his faith in God.
Jeffrey Heine:It is based on the quality of the ferocious power of God's mercy. No one deserves forgiveness, not even the king of Israel. So David does not try to prove his worthiness to be forgiven. Instead, he recognizes that mercy must come from God. David goes on to teach us another lesson about repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:Lesson 2, wrongdoing is not ultimately about the people we wrong. Look with me at verse 3. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Jeffrey Heine:Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. David's sin led to the pain and the hurt of Bathsheba and Uriah and the child that was conceived who would later die. And then after that, the whole house of David would suffer. The next generation would suffer. Israel itself would suffer because of his sin.
Jeffrey Heine:But David says something very curious in verse 4, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. How can he say that? It's because sin is more than just wrongdoing. Sin is a rejection of God. God is the one who gave his laws and his statutes, and David, in other Psalms, sings his praises about how much he loves and adores the laws of God, and he knows that he has broken God's law.
Jeffrey Heine:Law is about desiring what isn't yours, about stealing, about assault, about murder, and God's command in Deuteronomy, for what David did to Bathsheba, the command is that David should be executed. David broke God's law, and David, recognizing the supreme worth of God's commands, says, I have broken your law. I have sinned against you. Consider this. When King Henry the 8th of England wanted an annulment for his marriage, and he couldn't get what he wanted, he changed the laws.
Jeffrey Heine:And then, when that didn't work, he changed the religion. That's how he got what he wanted. When a person is in power, especially when they view their position as the ultimate rule maker, they don't violate rules because they can just change the rules. That is the power of the king. I can't break the law.
Jeffrey Heine:I am the law. Sorry that I couldn't find a more modern reference than King Henry the 8th, but alright. So so to think about David, he is the king who makes the laws. He could get out a piece of paper and write down, the king can do whatever he wants. If he wants to assault someone, if he wants to take something that isn't his, if he wants to have someone murdered, he can, because he is the king.
Jeffrey Heine:If he has that kind of power, then why is this king trembling like a powerless beggar? Because he is, and so are we. He is humbled before the one and only true ruler of everything, The ruler whom the psalmist wrote in Psalm 33, let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it came to be.
Jeffrey Heine:He commanded, and it stood firm. That ruler, that king over all, the Lord your God, David knows that he is not the one who makes the ultimate law, and he knows that he has transgressed the law of Yahweh. He actually believes that he is accountable to God and must come before Him in total fear and submission, acknowledging his sin, his evil, and his sorrow. Wrongdoing is not ultimately about the people we wrong. It's about God.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes. We have the capacity to hurt people, to disappoint people, to wound, to create horrible consequences, and David has demonstrated all of those things. He's done all of them, and he can seek forgiveness from every individual that he has wronged. And even if every person whom David has wronged and hurt and sinned against, even if every one of them showed incredible mercy and kindness and forgave him, it still wouldn't be enough until he goes to God and repents. If you think that you are making things right with God solely by trying to make things right with people and just trying to wrong as few people as possible, as good as those things are, making things right with people, trying your best not to harm and hurt people, as good as those things are, they're not enough because we have all fallen short of the glory of God and stand in need of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:David says, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. See, here, David is not only acknowledging his sin against the Lord, his evil against the Lord. He's recognizing the Lord's rightful place as judge, and he says that God's words and His judgments are just and blameless. God is right to call for His execution. Do do you hear that He's do do you hear that in there?
Jeffrey Heine:When He is saying, your law is right, when he's acknowledging his sin, he's saying, I deserve that. That's not a weak I'm sorry. I'll try better next time. He's saying you're right. Your law is just, and I stand condemned under it, and I'm pleading for your mercy.
Jeffrey Heine:David goes on to describe that he is a rebel against God, not only in his actions, but that it runs deeper than that. It goes before he was even born. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and incented my mother conceive me. And what he's talking about is not that there's some sordid tale about when he was conceived. No.
Jeffrey Heine:It is that there's something deeper in him. It's this sinfulness is not just what he does. It has to do with who he is. It's in his bones. It's in this curse.
Jeffrey Heine:It's in this fall that's inescapable that he needs to be rescued out of. And David shows that this wrongdoing is not ultimately about the people that he has wronged. It's about God. And in that, it's more than what can just be seen in front of us, which brings us to lesson 3. There's more to wrongdoing.
Jeffrey Heine:There is more to sin than we can see. Look with me at verses 7 through 12. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness.
Jeffrey Heine:Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:David confesses that he desires God to do a work in washing him clean, that his sins would truly be dealt with and addressed, not just forgotten, addressed. And his joy then fully restored. In verse 8, David says another curious thing. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. What David is acknowledging is that God has permitted these consequences to unfold due to David's sin, and those consequences are overwhelming to David.
Jeffrey Heine:They feel like his bones are being snapped like twigs, being broken inside of his very body, and it's God who is breaking these bones. He's breaking him. David is asking for healing, that he would hear joy and gladness again. In the ancient world, the heart was the seat of the person. Now we kind of use the word conscience to talk about that, but this is the the the inner voice, the soul, the mind, the person, and David is pleading, saying, make the very deepest part of me over again.
Jeffrey Heine:Throughout the scriptures, the Hebrew word that's used here in Psalm 51 about create, throughout the scriptures, it is used exclusively to talk about Yahweh. It is God who creates like this. And because everyone else creates things out of things that were already created. Right? Everything that we make is out of something that was already made.
Jeffrey Heine:For those of you who are fathers, maybe today you even received some of those things, things that were made out of things that were already made, maybe even things that you had already purchased yourself. But see, we're creatures, and He is Creator, and we image Him when we create, and when we make things. We act like our Creator, but He is the only one that creates something out of nothing, and David certainly feels like nothing. And he's asking the one who creates out of nothing to make him new. David longs for this newness, to know again the joy of salvation, and for God to uphold him with a willing spirit, that he would obey, as the apostle Paul will later say, that he would obey from the heart.
Jeffrey Heine:The idea that we need a new heart is not a concept unique to David. I have countless concert ticket stubs from artists like Sean Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Amy Mann, Bonnie Raitt. You can find them in drawers. I often use them as bookmarks, and each one of them is testifying to my undying love for my wife. I have been to more Indigo Girls concerts than I can count, and I can count very high.
Jeffrey Heine:A few years ago, Jess and I went to see Bonnie Raitt at the BJCC, and it was a phenomenal concert. I talked about this in one of the earlier services, and a guy, single guy, not the guy that you would expect to hear, say this, he said, when she started singing, the song I'm gonna reference, he was like, I I I I just wanted to cry. And I said, I won't tell anybody. So don't don't bring this up. This isn't going to be recorded.
Jeffrey Heine:Right? Okay. One moment stood out in the night. It was one of those transcendent musical moments. I can remember hearing this song and this particular line from the song, and I'd heard it a 100 times before, and I've probably heard it a 100 times since, but every time I hear this line, I can never shake it.
Jeffrey Heine:I just turn that line over and over in my head, and and it makes me think about this Psalm of David. It makes me think about our hearts, and it's a line from one of Bonnie Raitt's songs from 1991 called, I Can't Make You Love Me. And she sings this. I can't make you love me if you don't. You can't make your heart feel something it won't.
Jeffrey Heine:And every time that I hear that song, that line turns over and over in my head about my rebellious heart against God. Every time I hear it, I think about humanity and our dead set rebellion against God and His love. The prophet Jeremiah tells us that the heart of every person is deceitful above all things. Our hearts lie to us, he says. Our hearts are desperately sick.
Jeffrey Heine:I know this is countercultural, and counter to every Disney song about following your heart, but our hearts lie to us. The apostle Paul says to the Romans, we are defiant against God, and we are by nature His enemies. He says to the Ephesians, we are by nature children of hatred, anger, wrath. And I think about when Bonnie says, you can't make your heart feel something it won't. Bonnie sounds like Jeremiah and like Paul, the prophet and the apostle.
Jeffrey Heine:Our hearts are against God, and we need an overriding, overwhelming rescue from our own twisted hearts. God desires us to love Him, but our hearts are desperately sick. We are dead in our sins and trespasses, and He desires us to be alive in Him. And I confess that I cannot make my heart feel something it won't. Like David, I need a new heart, and God can do what Jeremiah, Paul, Bonnie, David, and I, and you, what we can't do on our own.
Jeffrey Heine:He creates a new heart. He quickens our dead hearts to love Him, freely, wholeheartedly, passionately love Him. God made this promise through the prophet Ezekiel that our hearts would not always be hardened against Him. God says, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:Just like David, we cannot make a new heart for ourselves. And just like Bonnie, we cannot make our hearts feel something it won't. But God, through His son and His spirit, makes us alive with new hearts sprinkled clean, restored and renewed, that we can walk up to His throne with confidence. That makes no sense, especially if we take the time to think about what this sin really is. This is what David longs for.
Jeffrey Heine:David realizes that there is more to sin than he can see, and he longs for God to do what only God can do. And that means that David isn't simply looking to feel better, to have his conscience relieved of the burden of guilt. David wants more than that, which leads to lesson number 4. The goal of repentance is not simply feeling better. Look with me in 13 through 15.
Jeffrey Heine:Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, o God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. David sees the aim of his repentance to is not simply to feel lighter, less guilty, less down on himself, to have a better self image. No.
Jeffrey Heine:David sees that the goal of his confession is part of him declaring to everyone, to other transgressors, to other sinners, God's will to tell them how to walk the way to God, his law and his love, so they might return to God. Not only that, David wants to sing. He wants to sing aloud, to open his mouth and declare praise to the one who has forgiven him and restored him. Worship is the aim of repentance, and it's in this restored relationship that we delight to make known and to celebrate the greatness and graciousness of God, which means that all that God has done to show David his wretchedness, the the evil that He has done, to really open his eyes to see these things as they really are, all of that, even God breaking his bones, David sees that that conviction of sin was not out of God's hatred of him, but an expression of God's love for him, which leads us to the final lesson, lesson 5, conviction of sin is a gift. 16 and 17, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
Jeffrey Heine:You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, God, you will not despise. In God's loving kindness, He has shown His people what delights Him, what pleases Him. And to the surprise of many, it's not a sacrifice of grain, or of fruit, or of an animal.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not a big donation. It's not an act of great charity. It's not an act of great bravery. David says the sacrifices of God, what pleases God, what God desires is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. I know the word contrition is not one that we use that much anymore, but it comes from a Latin word that means a breaking of something hardened.
Jeffrey Heine:It's that true sorrow over sin, that true brokenness over sin. I think back to what David did, and David is learning to hate it the way that God has always hated it. His hardened heart, his callous heart that didn't care about what anyone else desired or wanted has now been turned into a heart of flesh, a contrite broken heart. The sacrifice that pleases God is not and never will be some sacrifice of things, of stuff, of money or possessions, because in the economy of the soul, your money is worthless. The sacrifice that God desires is a broken heart.
Jeffrey Heine:That is to say, a heart that was once hardened against him is now broken over sin. God creates that new heart of flesh. And no contrite sinner has ever called out to God in vain. And how do we know that for sure? It's because God always attends to the prayers of the contrite sinner, because the truly contrite sinner, the person who is broken over their sin, who sees it for what it is and is calling out for mercy.
Jeffrey Heine:The only reason you see your sin as sin is because God has shown that to you. And anytime he has ever shown you your sin, it is to liberate you from that sin. That's what's going on in David, and that sacrifice that pleases and delights God is the repentant heart that turns to Him in faith. And all this means that the message, the lesson, all of these lessons that that David longs to teach sinners is simply this. Repentance is not about how bad you have been, or how good you promised to be.
Jeffrey Heine:It is not about how many sacrifices or deals you are trying to cut. It's not about being sorry enough. It's not about deserving forgiveness enough. Repentance is the work of God in creating a new heart. He heals the broken.
Jeffrey Heine:He receives and restores the sinner. Why? Because he is rich in mercy, and because He no longer calls you sinner, He calls you child. David closes his prayer out with words about a restored community, the family of God. And he says that when we return to you, we will return and worship in the right way, the ways that you have called us to.
Jeffrey Heine:And he describes the people of God forgiven and restored, worshiping and honoring their God and king. So how is all of this possible? More specifically, where does David's horrific and terrible sin go? It's ever before his eyes. What's God going to do with it?
Jeffrey Heine:Because if it's such a big deal, and if God is so just and righteous, how can He just let it go? How can He shrug it off, water under the bridge, letting bygones be bygones? Well, he doesn't. He doesn't just let it go. It has to go somewhere.
Jeffrey Heine:Let us hear this. This new heart of flesh, this forgiveness comes at a cost. The only way that it is possible for David to extend mercy for for God to extend this mercy to David is if God extends his wrath to Jesus. That's the only way that God does this and is just. The only way he can give mercy to David is if Jesus takes the wrath.
Jeffrey Heine:Then he is just. This sin must be dealt with. So when you see Christ on the cross, you see David's assault of Bathsheba. You see the murder of Uriah. You see all the sins of the children of God.
Jeffrey Heine:You see the place where king David should have paid for his sin, and you see the place where I should have paid for mine, and you, yours. The cross holds within it the horrifying headline of every Christian, all of our sin. Christ on the cross, He becomes the wretchedness of our sin, the very opposite of holiness and righteousness. Why? So you could be forgiven and righteous in him.
Jeffrey Heine:The reason David is delivered from his horrifying guilt and his appropriate shame, the reason David opens his mouth and declares praise is because his sin was carried to the cross of Jesus, the perfect and eternal King of kings. When David sings aloud of the righteousness of God, he is singing of the sinless King whose blood secured forgiveness of the sinful King. Forgiveness is ensured by the greatness of God's love, not the greatness of our regret or sorrow. Forgiveness is not dependent on being sorry enough to deserve forgiveness, or the promise of being good enough to deserve forgiveness. Forgiveness depends on Jesus being enough, and He is.
Jeffrey Heine:He is eternally enough. The Spirit, how the love of God convicts us of our sin, shows us our sin, not to shame us or to devastate us, but to free us and renew us, and that is a gift from God. So may we hear this good news and eagerly repent today. Because as Martin Luther said, the Christian life is one of continuous repentance. As we continually repent, as God shows us more and more of our sin and shows us more and more of the evil of our sin, As he shows us these things, that we turn to Him and find Him faithful to forgive.
Jeffrey Heine:So as we go to him, may we find again the forgiveness and restoration secured for us in King Jesus. And in our repenting, may we find again the boundless and overwhelming mercy of God. Let's pray. O Lord, we have heard Your Word declared, and together, we were striving to understand it. And, Lord, we now ask that by your Spirit, you would help us to respond to it.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, in different ways, we can, each and every one of us, identify with some aspect of David and Bathsheba. We have wronged others, and we have been wronged. We have hurt others, and we have been hurt, And you tell us to come to you, to come to you, to find comfort in you, that our souls would find rest in you. And so, Lord, if if there are conversations that need to be had asking forgiveness from another person or extending forgiveness that we have been refusing. May we go from this place with a sense of urgency, and may we all recognize that our sin has to do with you.
Jeffrey Heine:We are accountable to you, and may we come to you with a sense of urgency to repent, to turn, and to receive the forgiveness secured for us, not in being sorry enough or deserving forgiveness, but because of Jesus. May we delight and celebrate and lift high his name, for He has ransomed sinners in this place. We pray these things in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
