About this sermon
After Nathan confronted David with his adultery and murder, David cried out in Psalm 51 for mercy, cleansing, and a clean heart. He came to see his sin as God sees it, first and foremost an offense against the Lord, and so he took the first true steps of accountability. Romans 3 shows how God can forgive such sinners and remain just, through Christ’s sacrifice, so believers confess their sins to God and to those they have wronged and rejoice in the God who loved them too much to leave them in their sin.
Sermon transcript
We’ll focus our hearts this evening on Psalm 51, in which David cries out desperately for forgiveness and grace. Prior to turning there, however, we’ll turn to the situation, the telling of the situation which led to that plea for forgiveness. And then also another passage which explains how and from whom that grace and forgiveness comes, both why it is right for God to forgive him and for David then to seek it. So before Psalm 51, would you please open your Bibles to 2 Samuel, Chapter 12. 2 Samuel, Chapter 12. 2 Samuel, Chapter 12 is the confrontation of David and his sin through the Word of God as given through Nathan the prophet after the Lord had had sent Nathan to David, revealing David’s sin to himself and the severity of it. David, if you’ll recall, had taken another man’s wife and had indirectly murdered that man, even as he was out and fighting for David’s honor and glory as king. So 2 Samuel 12, starting in verse 1, this is the word of God. Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said, There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he bought and nourished. And it grew up together with him and his children. He would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather, he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.
Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion. Nathan then said to David, you are the man.
Thus says the Lord God of Israel, it is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care. And I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these.
Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household. I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight, Indeed, you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has taken away your sin.
You shall not die. However, because by this deed, you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The child also that is born to you shall surely die. We’ll end our reading of God’s word there at that point in this particular portion of it. Now please turn to the New Testament book of Romans, Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three.
And we have one of the clearest and most potent explanations and declarations in all of scripture of why it is actually right for God to forgive those who, like David, seek forgiveness and grace from him. One of the great questions that Paul is dealing with as the book of Romans opens is, how can a God who is himself righteous actually be righteous in forgiving people who are truly guilty of sin? How can God be just? And Paul explains why and how and by whom God’s justice is established in the forgiveness of those who are truly guilty. Romans chapter one starting in, I’m sorry, Romans chapter three, forgive me, starting in verse 21.
Once again, this is God’s word. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith is one. Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law.
And now turn please to our primary text for this evening, Psalm 51. Psalm 51, that great cry for grace and forgiveness and restoration, and also the confidence that David would actually have it from the Lord. The 51st Psalm. Once again, this is the Word of God. Psalm 51, for the choir director, a Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Be gracious to me, O God, according to your lovingkindness. According to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions. and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you desire truth in the inmost being, and in the hidden part you will make me know wisdom.
Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which 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 steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare your praise.
For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. By your favor, do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then young bulls will be offered on your altar. We’ll end our reading of God’s holy word there. Let’s pray, brothers and sisters, for both the blessing of God on both the preaching and on the hearing of his word this evening. Let’s pray together.
Our Father in heaven, how easy it is to take for granted the fact that even now in this very moment, we have audience with the true and living God. Oh God, you who know us far better than we know ourselves. You who know our sin far better than we know it. you who are gracious and righteous, far beyond our ability to fathom. We come before you once again this evening.
We ask you by the grace and blessing of your spirit that our hearts would be quiet before you and still and eager to hear. And as was prayed earlier, not only to hear, but to do what your word would call us to this evening. We pray that the good shepherd would speak to us his sheep, and that if any of this evening here, if there are any who do not know Christ, O God, that the Good Shepherd would call that one or those ones into his fold. We pray, Heavenly Father, that you would make us more like our Savior than we were when we assembled this evening. We pray that we would love you with all the more of all that we are, and therefore love one another as ourselves. Please bless Please grant these things in our midst as we continue to worship you.
We ask that your word now would be proclaimed in truth and that it would be received by your people with faith and love and an eagerness to put into practice what you would say to us this evening. Speak, O God. May we, your servants, your children, listen eagerly and attentively. We praise you in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
If you’ve ever stood next to a very tall building, let’s say it’s a skyscraper, it’s easy to miss the magnitude of the structure that is in front of you if you’re standing too close to it. Young people, if you would, imagine that you are in a big city in America and you are standing right next to a big building in that city.
In fact, you’re so close to it that you can touch it. You can see lots of little details in kind of the wall on the outside of that building. But what do you need to do if you really want to understand the massive nature of the building which is right in front of you? Well, you need to take a few steps back and you need to look up. And once you do, that building, which may not have meant very much to you just a few moments ago when you were so close to it, all of a sudden that building fills your entire field of vision. And the view is literally staggering. You might actually lose your balance and feel like the building is curving over top of you and about to fall on top of you. Because what you saw just a few moments ago, now you’re seeing in its full size and splendor. You’re really starting to understand the magnitude of what is right there in front of you.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there’s an irony about the blessing of our having such constant exposure to the Word of our God, to the freedom to worship as His people. Sometimes we can, in a way, be so close to the content of our faith that we miss its magnitude. In order to recognize the sheer magnitude and the glory of the faith that we are so often close to in terms of access to the means of grace, that we can sometimes be so accustomed to, it’s helpful to take a step back and to look up, as it were, and to see the gospel, perhaps even through the eyes of those who observe it from a distance and who may not like what they see.
Exhibit A this evening is a psalm in front of us, Psalm 51. This is the kind of passage which, in some understandable ways, draws the anger of the unbeliever. I’ve had conversations with those who don’t know Christ who have made this kind of complaint, and it’s the kind of thing that in their minds keeps them distant from the faith.
What angers them is the fact that God actually forgives someone like David, someone who has been, as we read from 2 Samuel, so desperately unfaithful and so despicably evil. And perhaps, while we immediately want to go to the depth of God’s grace, and we should, perhaps being so familiar with David’s story and David’s saga, and so close to his biblical writings in the Psalms, we’ve lost some necessary perspective regarding the severity of his sin. This is really bad, brothers and sisters. Think of what David had done as we read about it in 2 Samuel 12, which was a very brief but powerful summary of the treachery that David had acted out as king of Israel. Theft of a bride, another man’s wife, deceit, adultery, murder to cover it all up. It leads people to ask a very understandable question.
Why should God be forgiving toward David, especially if this God claims to be relentlessly righteous? And how could David have the gall to bring himself to ask for that forgiveness? And on top of that, even if God could find it in his holy heart to forgive David, how can David ask God for renewed joy when he had willingly caused others so much misery, even to the point murder. Who does David think he is and what does David think he deserves? And then David writes in verse 4 that it is only against God that he has sinned. It seems as if David is oblivious to the obvious pain that he had caused Uriah’s family and indeed the kingdom of Israel as a whole when this sin became known. And as he goes on in the psalm, David actually asks God, as I mentioned, to restore his joy. It’s understandable why people would ask the question, why would you want to serve a God who can forgive stuff like that?
Or perhaps you’ve turned that accusation inward with regard to your own sin. Have you ever had such a gut-wrenching glimpse of your own sin? that you don’t actually want to be forgiven. It’s not just that you think you don’t deserve forgiveness, but you think it would actually be wrong for you to be forgiven. Other people you can understand, they try their best, they have their bad days, but there’s something perhaps in your past or that you’re wrestling through in the present that makes you feel as if you not only are beyond God’s forgiveness, but you should be.
To many unbelievers and to the believer utterly grieved by his or her sin, Christianity can sound like a free pass in the face of unforgivable evils. But as we look at our passage this evening, and as we combine the big picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ with the particular details of what David is describing, we find that the joy for which David’s broken heart cries, it’s not the self-centered happiness of avoiding accountability, but it is the Christ-centered glory of having truly understood the severity of one’s sins. and having actually done what that true understanding requires, and that is going to God for forgiveness. The very God whose law says that what was done was evil calls David to forgiveness and David responds.
This evening, we’ll think about why that is right. For any of you who are taking notes and for whom it’s helpful, the rest of our time will be spent under three headings. First of all, facing our sin. Second, facing its consequences. And thirdly, facing our Savior. So facing our sin, its consequences, and then facing our Savior. First of all, facing our sin.
Look with me please again at verses one and two of Psalm 51. God’s word says this. Be gracious to me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
One of the things that we’re going to be increasingly feeling if this coming spring is anything like normal spring is thunderstorms. all of a sudden on a day that seems warm, and then all of a sudden a cool front comes in, or perhaps it works the other way, I’m not up in my meteorology. But we know that sometimes a thunderclap can hit out of nowhere, and it literally shakes us.
And spiritually speaking, that is what has happened to David in 2 Samuel 12. David was moving along, apparently fine, at least in his own understanding, and then Nathan the prophet comes to him with the word of God, which was like a thunderclap in David’s soul.
And the great king is left broken and shaken. He is utterly horrified at the sin that God’s word has revealed. And so David responds in confession. And theologian Sinclair Ferguson puts it in his sermon on this psalm, it’s as if David, in these opening verses, is ransacking his dictionary in the effort to find enough good ways, adequate ways, to express how horrified he is at his sin. Notice how many terms David uses to describe his sin.
Again, verse one, be gracious to me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions. Verse two, watch me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. Verse three, transgressions again. Notice it’s in the plural. Verse four, I’ve done this evil in your sight. He’s all over the place describing his wickedness.
David realizes now how deeply his sin runs, and so he cries out for a deep cleaning, a deep cleansing of his soul. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Wash and cleanse, both of those verbs in the original Hebrew in which David composed them, they occur in a particular form of the Hebrew that is given to us for the sake of intensity. It’s a normal word, but a particularly intense form of those words. David is not requesting a mere shining up of his heart, just a once-over kind of cleaning. He knows that his soul needs deep cleaning.
If you’ve ever run a vacuum cleaner or a steam cleaner on a carpet that you knew was kind of dirty, But little did you realize how dirty it can really be unnerving. As you look at all the crud that comes up as you move the machine over that carpet, you begin to think, wow, I was walking on that?
In my bare feet? This is disgusting. I had no idea. or if you’ve ever seen or ever used a washboard for laundry, it’s this riveted board which allows you to put clothing on it and then to really scrub it hard over and over, vigorously pressing the soap and water into the clothing, back and forth over that hard, riveted surface until the stain is gone. That’s the idea here.
David confesses that his heart requires almost a violent cleansing. is so dirty, it needs such vigorous cleansing power. As a result of Nathan’s work on behalf of the Lord, David is finally seeing his sin in the same way that God has already seen it. And what’s more, he’s realized that despite his attempts to cover his sin, God has, in fact, seen it. Verse four. Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Young people, we all need to remember this, and adults forget just as much. There are no secrets in our hearts from God. God sees everything in our souls, plain as day, as deeply as we may try to hide those things. God knows us. There are no secrets in our hearts.
Sometimes, and we adults do this as well, maybe you have younger brothers or sisters or maybe you used to play this game where you put your hands over your eyes and you think, well, if I can’t see other people, they can’t see me. You can sometimes see children hiding in plain sight and their hands are over their eyes and they’re just shaking with excitement because they realize no one else can see them, only they’re very wrong. The logic that says, if I can’t see them, they can’t see me just does not work.
And yet we sort of play that game with God in our sin. If we’re not thinking about what his word says about what we’re doing, well, then maybe God’s not paying attention. But David realized he is. He took his hands off of his eyes, and he saw his sin for what it is. We need to confess that sin to the Lord. There’s a natural reaction to that. We might think, well, God already knows my sin. That’s what David just confessed. God knows. Why do I need to tell him? Brothers and sisters, this is what it means to confess. That word means to say with. And David does.
In other words, we have to see our sin the way God sees it, and then we have to say what God says about it. That’s what it means to confess. When it comes to our sin, we have to see what God sees, and we have to say what God says. And that’s really uncomfortable, and that can be really scary. But it’s not enough to simply acknowledge our sin. It’s when we say it to God, when we say and believe what He says about it, then we know, then we really start to feel our sin for what it actually is. sometimes it actually helps to confess our sins out loud, even if we’re alone.
There’s something in making it audible. There’s something in saying it out loud that helps us really feel it for what it actually is. Verse three, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Having spoken it out loud, having confessed his sin, David is not merely acknowledging it. Yeah, I sinned. Yeah, I know. It was bad. He feels this in the depths of his soul. Once again, the word, the Hebrew word for no here is, it’s not just a factual awareness. David was not simply cognizant of his sin.
He was crushed by it. My sin is always before me. It is always in my presence. It’s constantly on my mind and it’s pressing upon my heart. He knew what he had done. He knew that he could not escape the notice of the Lord. and he was no longer going to try. So, of course, this psalm leads us in the same way that Nathan led David.
What are we hiding? What are we harboring? What are we holding in here and just not letting out to the Lord in confession? And it’s time in our souls to end the cover-up. Again, that’s scary. But be encouraged. Our sin has to be exposed if it’s going to be expelled. And that’s the freedom that God wants for us. Verse 6. Behold, ye desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part you will make me no wisdom.” Think of that. Truth in the inmost being. No shows, no hypocrisy. Sincerity way down deep as far as we go. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Uncorrupted honesty. A cleansed conscience. Wisdom way down deep to the level of what defines us. God delights in that.
And David knows that it is only the work of God which can create such conditions in the hearts of sinners. And that’s what he cries out for in verses 10 through 11. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Again, that kind of confession can be scary and it’s certainly uncomfortable, but there’s a deep comfort involved when we are making that kind of confession and when we desire that kind of cleansing. In crying out for this renewal of spirit which only God can provide, in crying out that God would not take the Holy Spirit from him, David is actually demonstrating the Spirit of God’s work within him.
The Spirit was producing within David’s heart what Paul would later call in the New Testament, a godly sorrow. A sorrow that leads to repentance. A sorrow that says, I’m not only sorry that I got caught, I’m sorry for what I did. I want to be free, not simply from the consequences of my sin, but from the sin itself. Lord, get it out. Cleanse me from my sin. How do we know that David is so sincere? Because it’s so easy to go through the motions. of confession. Friends, one of the most important ways in which truth in the inmost being is demonstrated, one of the most important ways we prove the sincerity of our confession of sin is, in fact, our willingness to face its consequences.
Point number two in your outline, facing our sin’s consequences. As we read in 2 Samuel, David suffered for his sin. His family suffered, the kingdom suffered, his own son died. Our sins are indeed eternally forgiven in Christ. We know him. And at the same time, there are earthly consequences to face. There are the cause and effect realities of our sin. If we steal something from someone, we can truly be forgiven, even by that other person. And yet it might take a while to reestablish that trust that was once there. That’s part of the consequences of our behavior.
If we were to read further into 2 Samuel, we find that David makes no protest regarding the consequences of his sin. He prays, he prays that God would spare the child. He prays, but he does not ultimately protest. And when the child dies, David accepts it.
Our psalm shows us even more of David’s facing his sins consequences, particularly with regard to the people whom his actions devastated. And we might think that that just seems like the opposite of what’s going on here. After all, this baby dies, and David’s kingdom is devastated. And eventually, after Solomon, because of David’s sin, sin continues to rise within David’s household, or a rebellion comes up against him, and after Solomon, and his reign, David’s kingdom is split. It’s all stuff that David sowed in his own sin. And at first glance, it might seem as if David is ignoring the human victims of his sin. Verse four, against you and you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight. It sounds like he’s deliberately ignoring the other human beings whom his sin has savaged. But here’s what’s happening. Remember Nathan’s story. Nathan’s story that he spins for David is very much like the parables that Jesus tells in the New Testament.
Nathan’s story and Jesus’ parables would play upon principles that the hearers would rightly hold dear and force the hearers to realize that their own sin violated their own personal convictions about what counts as sinful. Parables had a way of collapsing upon the people who find themselves going right along with Jesus, and then all of a sudden they realize, oh wow, he’s talking about me. David had to see his sin as a violation of principles that he held close to his heart. Principles like mercy, generosity toward the poor, hatred for theft, and even the love of an animal. David had been a commoner and David had been a shepherd. Nathan chose his story well. Nathan was hitting all the right and the rightful sensitivities of David’s soul.
And when David realized that he himself was doing the very things which his soul despised, well, that’s when King David came undone. See, the similarities in all sin They boil down to this. It’s what David confesses in verse four. They are sins against the Lord. Deeper than David’s sense of his own morality, David rages against the outrageousness of what Nathan was saying. But deeper than David’s own sense of morality, where had David gotten such standards?
From the Lord. who a millennium later would enter into human history and human flesh and call himself the Good Shepherd, who, unlike other of Israel’s teachers, was no thief. All sin is a violation of God’s holy law, and God’s holy law reveals God’s good, relentlessly righteous heart. All sin is an expression of what we call autonomy, literally self-rule. self-law. And that is why it is so easy to become self-righteous in our denunciation of other people’s sins. I can’t believe they would do this. I would never do that. I could never be guilty of such a thing as that. Meanwhile, they’re thinking the same thing about us.
Even good and right hatred for sin can so easily become self-righteousness when we forget the standard which gives rise to that righteousness, and that is God’s own holy heart. And when we, as James enjoins us to do in the New Testament, take a look into God’s law, like a mirror, when we see what ought not be, not looking the other way at others, but squarely at ourselves, we see our sin for what it is. It’s self-law. It’s a refusal of God’s rightful reign over us and therefore a direct and treasonous attack against the King of Kings. And it’s only when we understand our sin as first and foremost and essentially an assault upon the Lord that we can truly understand its effects upon ourselves and others.
David’s not avoiding his accountability to others. David’s taking the first true steps of accountability. before the Lord. Commentator Derek Kidner puts it this way, our bodies are not our own, and our neighbors are made in God’s image. It all goes back to God. We might say, but there’s no historical record of David confessing his sin to the people whom he hurt. Well, there’s a sense in which, yes, there is.
And it’s our psalm this evening. In this psalm, David confesses his sin not only to the people he hurt, but to the entire kingdom that he failed. Yes, God is the one against whom we truly and ultimately sin. But as the book of James tells us, we are to confess our sins one to another.
David is doing his duty here as king of God’s people. He is teaching his people that though he is a king, he is no higher than they in relationship to God’s law. The King of Israel must bow to the King of Kings. And here, David is leading by example in what it really means to confess sin, to really come clean after a cover-up.
King David’s sin had massive public ramifications, and so he engages in mournful public repentance. Think of it, brothers and sisters. Every time the people of Israel took up this psalm in praise of God, or even privately meditated upon it in their hearts. Every time they sang it with family or when they sang it in public worship, every time this psalm was sung or even thought about, David’s sin was before them.
A sobering reminder of the seriousness of sin, how great their hero had fallen, and how great the temptations were that faced the one who had such great power. Brothers and sisters, you and I must take those difficult steps of accountability, first to God and then to those whom our sin has hurt.
But we rebel against that because it’s scary and we think, you don’t know what that kind of confession will cost me. You don’t know the trouble that it will cause. Will peace or prosperity gained by sinning and covering it up is no true peace and prosperity. Confession is hard and uncomfortable, but that difficulty is far, far better for us and for others than the devastation caused when we let sin fester and eventually metastasize in our souls. People of God, do not fall into Satan’s snare of silence.
On the other side of the hardest obedience lies the greatest freedom. It’s hard to confess, but when we do, there is freedom, there is openness, and there is restoration through Jesus Christ. On the other side of the hardest obedience lies the greatest freedom. James tells us to confess our sins one to another, as I mentioned, and he says, do it for the sake of your healing. Confession of sin calls us off the path of future sin, and to be off that path is a tremendous blessing for us and for those whom our sin most directly affects, and indeed for the whole body of Christ. And rather than focusing on what it will cost us to repent, we ought to focus on what it costs Christ to forgive and to reconcile us to God and to one another.
Point number three this evening, and our final point, facing our Savior. Facing our Savior. As I mentioned, David wrote this psalm as the public praise of the living God. And the Lord Jesus, in coming into this world, would take up this psalm, along with 149 others, in praise to God.
Now think of what it meant for Jesus, the sinless one, to sing confessions of sin. The sinless one identified with us as sinners, and Hebrews 2 tells us he was not ashamed to do that. Jesus resented neither God’s relentlessly righteous law, nor those whose rebellion against it would cost him his life.
Jesus sang this in all the other Psalms, not because he himself had ever sinned, but to express the depth to which he was willing to identify with us, to carry our burdens, to carry our shame, and to bear them upon that cross, not despite God’s justice, but as a demonstration of God’s justice.
Again, from Romans 3, God put forth Jesus as a propitiation, a substitution by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that God might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Or Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, For our sake he made him, meaning Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is why John can say in 1 John 3, behold what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we would become the children of God. And how did that happen? By the unique Son of God taking upon himself our sin, our guilt, our shame, taking it to the cross, dying the death our sin earned. And then rising again, Paul says in Romans 1, for our justification, for our being declared righteous in God’s sight, though we are fully guilty, we receive Christ’s full righteousness by faith. And God, who does not make any mistakes and who cannot do anything unrighteous, declares us to be righteous in His sight by virtue of His Son’s righteousness as we receive it by faith.
And as I mentioned in my prayer earlier, the Lord does more than even that. The Lord adopts us into his family, not only forgiven, but loved eternally as beloved sons and daughters. Back to the critics. or to any of us who have had that gut-wrenching glimpse at our sin to the point where we want God to stay away. We’re like Peter. At one point, when Jesus hauls in a miraculous load of fish, when Peter had been sarcastic and just basically obeyed out of a sense of sheer duty, not gratefully at all, Peter falls down before the Lord and says, depart from me, for I am a sinner. And Jesus goes nowhere. but rather he cleanses Peter and commissions him in his service.
1 John 1.9, which we read in our call to worship.
If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice the attribute of God that John chooses to emphasize in association with his forgiving us. John does not write, if we confess our sins, God is merciful and gracious to forgive us our sins. That is very true, but that is not John’s point. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.
Your relationship to the Lord, brothers and sisters. His forgiving your sins and giving you that deep cleaning that David is crying out for here in Psalm 51. This is not only the result of God’s love for you. God is too holy to overlook sin. Sin must be punished. If you’re a believer, God has poured out his wrath against you on his son. And so your forgiveness flows not only from the love of God, but from His justice.
It would be unjust for God, the relentlessly righteous judge, to cast away anyone who comes to Him through faith in His Son. That’s how safe you are in Christ. That’s how loved you are, because it’s not as if God sits as a begrudging judge and says, oh, okay. It is the Father’s love that sent the Son into the world to provide this redemption so that you could call Him Father. This is why it is right and why it is just and necessary to make confession and to receive forgiveness. God forgives you for the sake of His glory. you are a display of His forgiving grace.
And so to refuse repentance and the forgiveness and restoration that God promises upon it is in some ways to act like we are more righteous than God, that we have a better understanding of our sin than He does. Again, David says in verse four, against you and you only have I sinned. By the same godly reasoning, it is for God and for God only that we live. In the same way that sin is always essentially an offense to God, so our lives are always to be lived in order to serve Him.
And Christ our King commands us to repent of our sin and to seek reconciliation with the ones whom our sin has hurt. Seeking forgiveness for our sin through Christ is not the ignoring of our sin’s seriousness. It is the truest acknowledgement of our sin’s seriousness. God knows our sin far better than we do. and he has made it a matter of his faithfulness and justice to forgive the sins of his people. He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He applies to us the deep cleaning for which David’s broken heart cries out in our psalm.
And when you receive that kind of forgiveness, how can you not rejoice? Verses 13 through 16. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering.
Having been justified, Our joy in God’s forgiveness is utterly justifiable. And having confessed and received forgiveness for our sins, having sought and worked hard for reconciliation with those whom we’ve hurt, our desire for others to know that same cleansing and forgiveness is not hypocritical. It’s holy because it’s the desire of God’s own heart. Verse 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise.
If you know the Lord this evening, your Father has cleansed you from your sin. He has done everything that David asks for here. He’s blotted out your transgressions. He has washed you thoroughly. And you now stand before God, your Father, in clean white robes, radiant with the righteousness, the incorruptible righteousness of His Son.
So make those confessions, first to the Lord, and then, as James says, to one another, where that confession is appropriate. the sin that we’ve done to others, that has affected others, we need to seek reconciliation. Exercise the affections of the new heart that God has given you, and rejoice in the faithfulness and justice of the God who loved you too much to abandon you to your sin. Let’s pray together.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.