(Due to technical difficulties, we did not have an audio recording, here is the manuscript)
Good Morning, my name is Noah, I am one of the pastors here at Pillar. It is a great privilege to be here this morning to open God’s Word. After today, we only have one more week in our series in Psalms. We’ve been looking at a bunch of different types of Psalms to see how we can worship God in every season of our life. Good, bad, hard, easy, and everything in between. Today we are going to look to King David to see how we are invited to worship God in the midst of our sin. Psalm 51 is written in the context of the aftermath of the Prophet Nathan confronting King David after he slept with Bathsheba and had her husband Uriah killed. In the midst of David’s sin, adultery and murder, how does he worship God? We are guilty of sin just like David was. Maybe not the same types of sin, but are all sinners, we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Even as Christians, we still sin and go through seasons where sin dominates our lives. The question is, how do we respond to our sin? Do we give into it and let it take over every area of our life or do we do everything we can to kill sin and worship God?
In our text this morning there is one overarching, clear point that you and I need to see from God’s word and apply to our lives by God’s grace. Really simple, repent of your sin. Nothing flashy, just pure, rich doctrine good for christian or not. Repent of your sin.
The key to worshipping God in the midst of our sin is repentance. Plain and simple, repenting of our sin is one of the most beautiful acts of worship there is. In Psalm 51, there are 5 parts to David’s repentance that serve as a model and invitation for us to worship God through our repentance. I’m going to read our text, then pray and we will dive right in. If you are able, please stand as I read God’s word…
“1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 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. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
To really understand why David responds to his sin this way and why we should respond to our sin in this way, we need to know what sin is. If you’ve been in church or around Chrisitniy for any length of time then you have heard this word. In my experience, sin is a word we use a lot but do not define a lot. We all generally have a working definition, we understand it and could probably explain it pretty well. Sin is talked about in two general terms, 1 as an action and 2 as a state of being. You commit a sin, like murder or lying, that is sin as an action. Or you are in sin, your state of beginning is sinful. Our condition is sinful and therefore separated from God. When we are in sin, we are guilty, dirty, and unable to be in the presence of the almighty good and glorious God. But, what is sin? God has designed and created us to follow His moral and just law and sin is our rebellion against God and us breaking God’s design for the world. So, let me propose to you a definition of sin that has been really helpful for me and I think will be helpful for you… Sin is the denial of God, that is what sin is. Sin is denying God. Denying His existence, His creation, His order, His kingship, His authority, His goodness, His love, His mercy. Sin is the denial of God. We refuse to accept God’s design for the world and for our lives which leads us to believe the lie that we know better than God. When we sin, we actively deny God’s design and authority and we put ourselves in the position of God. Sin is not complicated, it is simply the choice of choosing your way over God’s way. God has presented us a good world that is created to function in a perfectly designed way and we look at it and say I can do better.
Think about the context of Psalm 51 which can be found in 2 Samuel 11-12, King David’s army was at war with the Ammonites, but instead of being in battle which was the normal practice for the kings, David was at home. The Bible says that David saw Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop and he inquired about her. David was lusting after this beautiful woman, He is denying God’s design for sexuality and purity. Sex is designed by God to be enjoyed in a convent marriage relationship between one man and one woman. David denies God’s design for his own pleasure. Then David sleeps with Bathsheba and commits adultery, again, denying God’s perfect design for marriage. Then the story goes on and you can see other ways David denies God, but when we jump to the end we see that David had Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, purposely killed in battle so that he wouldn’t know that David had gotten his wife pregnant. David is denying God’s design for the sanctity of human life, for honesty and reconciliation, for leadership, again for marriage and sexuality, and so many other things. David’s sins are the product of his denial of God.
When we deny God, the fruit of our life will always be sin. We live in a fallen world, we are a fallen people and we are living under the curse of sin. We are not perfect, we are going to sin. The question is not will we sin, but how do we respond to God when we sin? The only right and worshipful response to sin is repentance. Turning away from our sin, turning away from our denial of God and submitting to God’s design and authority. Repenting is turning away from our former ways and walking towards God. Repentance is turning away from our denial of God and accepting God. Repenting is the shift from active denial of God to active submission to God. It is the only right response to sin. Sin is a soul killer and repentance is accepting the free gift of God’s grace and mercy. Brothers and sisters, when you fall into sin, when you deny God, you must repent of your sin. I must repent of my sin. Sin is dirty and shameful and wicked and perverted. When we talk about sin in church there is a temptation to only feel shame and like we are not good enough and we dwell on our failure and dirtiness, how bad we are. But that completely misses the point, the point of talking about our sin is not to make you feel bad or to guilt you into acting “more christian,” the point of exposing and talking about our sin is to recognize our own denial of God. To recognize that we deny His existence, kingship, love, mercy, character, and holiness. We must recognize our denial so that we can recognize the full weight of the hope of the Gospel. When we see how great our sinfulness is, we see how much greater the Gospel is. We are far more sinful than we recognize and the Gospel is far more sweeter than we realize. The more you recognize your own denial of God, your opposition, your rebellion against God, the far more glorious and sweeter is the truth that Jesus Christ came to earth and died for you and me so that we can be forgiven. That while we were enemies of God “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” As sinners, as deniers of God, we have been given this amazing gift of salvation because of the mercy of God through Jesus. We accept this gift of salvation through the act of repentance. Repentance is the pathway to gospel hope. Our act of repentance, the act of turning from our denial of God and toward accepting God is how we receive the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection on our behalf.
Repent of your sin. That is the key to receiving the reward Christ, and that is exactly what David does in this Psalm. He has committed a number of sins, and God confronts him through the Prophet Nathan and David recognizes his sins and this Psalm is David’s response to God. His repentance has 5 parts and we are going to walk through them, and they serve as a model and invitation for us to worship God through repentance. I’ve been calling this the anatomy of repentance. What is happening in our hearts when we repent of our sins. David shows us the inner workings of true repentance so that when we repent of our sins, we can have the same posture. Genuine repentance as an act of genuine worship.
The first part of the anatomy of repentance is…Come to the heart of God. V.1-3, “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! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”
David goes straight to God’s heart, he does not make light of his sin, he does not try to shift the blame of it, he goes straight to God and calls on God’s perfect character. V. 1 “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” He is asking God to forgive his sins, for God to exercise His perfect and righteous character on him. David immediately recognizes that his sin is deep and evil and only God can forgive him. Look at what he is asking God to do, to “Have mercy on me” and “blot out my transgressions.” He asks God to show compassion, to show him favor by withholding the punishment David rightly deserves. And for God to wipe clean His slate, to eliminate his guilt. What a bold thing to ask for. After you have done wicked things and completely denied God’s authority and design, you turn to him and say “blot out my transgressions.” David keeps going, V.2 says “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” David turns to the righteous judge of the universe, after denying His reign and rule, with the blood of Uriah, the blood of a man whom God made in His own image and loved still on his hands and says “Wash me thoroughly” He is asking God to forgive and purify him by removing the guilt of His sin. To make him clean of all guilt. I don’t know about you, but if the man that just killed and committed adultery with my loved ones came and asked me to wash and clean their blood off his hands, to free him from all guilt. I would not respond well, but that is what David is doing. He has come to God, after killing and committing adultery to a family made in God’s image whom God loves deeply, and asks God to blot out His transgressions, wash him thoroughly from his iniquity, and to cleanse him from his sin. David is not oblivious or naive or dumb. He knows what evil he did, he knows how wicked his actions are. V.3, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” David sees it, he sees how wicked, and evil his denial of God is. He knows the weight of his sin, he knows that he is guilty and that God is right to punish him by an eternity separated from God. But David does not come to God based on his own merit or innocence. His request for forgiveness and being made right does not come from his own heart. V.1, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” David does not come to God with all the reasons why he should be forgiven, but he comes to the heart of God. According to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, may I be forgiven and taste your mercy. David’s forgiveness has nothing to do with him and everything to do with God. True repentance calls on the heart of God for mercy. David knows that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He knows that God’s heart is the only place where mercy is found, so that is where he runs to. He runs to God’s heart not because he is good enough or can make a case for why he isn’t so bad, but he comes to the heart of God because that is the only place where mercy is found.
We must take hold of this truth, that true repentance calls on the heart of God. When we sin, when we fall short and fail to live in the godly and righteous way God has commanded us to, we must come to God. We must come to God not as a lawyer ready to make our defense, but as humble people who know their guilt and submit ourselves to the character of God knowing He is good and just to forgive us. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When we come to the heart of God through repentance, there is mercy found every time. God loves to shower His children with mercy. Whether you are repenting of your sin for the first time or the 10th million time, you will find mercy at the heart of God every time. God Himself says that He is merciful, so we can trust that when we repent and come to the heart of God, He is faithful to forgive and cleanse us from our guilt. This does not mean that we can go on sinning whenever we want, but it means that when we genuinely repent and turn away from our denial of God He is faithful to forgive us. So, brothers and sisters, repent of your sins. When you do, the first step is to come to the heart of God because you will find mercy.
The 2nd part of the anatomy of repentance is…Confess your guilt against God. V.4-6, “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 in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.”
When we repent, once we’ve come to the heart of God, we must confess our guilt against God. David says “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Now, reading the story in 2 Samuel about David’s sin, you might come to the conclusion that David’s sin is not just against God, but also against Bathsheba and Uriah too. We must remember that the Psalms are poetry, so while David’s sin harmed others, he is saying that his ultimate sin and denial is against God. David has offended God, and that offense is great. That does not discredit what David did against Bathsheba and Uriah, but it shows how serious our sin is against God. Our sin is a great offence against God and David is confessing his guilt against God. Look right at the beginning of V.4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” David has sinned against God, he has done what God says is evil. David denied God’s judgement of good and evil and justified his sin for his own pleasure. His confession of sin leads him to declare that God is justified in His words and blameless in His judgment, meaning that God is right to judge and punish David because he is guilty of sin against God. David’s request is for God to forgive him, but he also says that God is right to punish him. That his sin deserves to be punished, that he is guilty and that if God makes him pay the price of his sin, then that is just and right for God to do. V.5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David’s guilt of sin is not a new thing. He does not make an excuse for his sin, but he says that He has been guilty of sin his whole life. He was brought into this world guilty of sin, and from the start of life, the moment of conception, he was guilty of sin. From the moment we are conceived and our life begins we are guilty of sin and our hearts deny God. It is the natural inclination of our hearts to sin, this is why Paul says we were by nature children of wrath in Ephesians 2. Because of the sin that entered the world through Adam and Eve, you and I and everyone else are inherently corrupted by sin. We are all guilty of sin and guilty of living in the denial of God. Which is not how God designed us to be, our sinful nature is inherited down from Adam and Eve, but God also does not delight in our sin. He does not find pleasure in our sinful nature. Look at V.6, “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” God delights in truth in the inner most being of our hearts, not sin. God does not take pleasure in our sin, He does not take pleasure in our denial of Him. We are created to glorify God and reflect His image, but our sin has distorted the image of God we were created to bear. Our denial of God leads us to seek glory for ourselves rather than for God. Our denial of God leads to death. God does not delight in our sin, and God also takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. Which is why David says about God, “you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” David is sinful and has been his whole life, but he is repenting of his sins and asking God to cleanse him from guilt and to teach him how to honor God with his life. God can you teach me the wisdom of godliness in the innermost being of my soul so that my sinful nature is overcome by godliness. When we confess our sins against God, this is what it should look like. God I have sinned against you, I am a sinner, God please forgive me and transform me from the very core of my being so that I no longer deny you but submit to your perfect reign and rule. Confessing our guilt to God is one of the key parts of repentance, it is humbling to admit your guilt before God. We do not have to be embarrassed or ashamed by it because God is good and merciful to forgive when we come to Him and repent. Refusing to confess our sins before God is prideful and a sign of an unrepented heart. We can go through the motions of repentance, but the fruit of it only comes when it is genuine, when you really come to God’s heart and confess that you are a broken sinner in need of God’s mercy. God has offered His mercy to you and I freely by sending His son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that His blood paid the punishment our sin required. Jesus has offered to pay for our sin through His blood, our confession of sin and repentance from sin is how we humbly accept God’s sweet gift of mercy. If there is sin in your life that you are refusing to repent from, you are denying God yes, But you are also denying yourself from experiencing sweetness and richness of God’s mercy. You have nothing to fear, God has graciously sent His son to pay the punishment for your sin. But your refusal to repent is your denial of God’s saving work and your denial of your need for the Gospel. The promises of the world seem attractive, they seem as if they can satisfy your desires but they leave you empty and broken. Sleeping with Bathsheba did not satisfy David’s lust and having Uriah killed did not make David innocent. What cleansed David from his sin, what made him right before almighty God was God’s heart of mercy to forgive repented sinners. Confessing our sins to God might be hard, awkward, uncomfortable, or damaging to our earthly likes and comforts, but the reward of confessing and repenting is we are made right with God. Nothing that sin and this world can offer is worth holding onto when it separates you from God.
The 3rd part of the anatomy of repentance is…Call on the cleansing power of God V.7-12, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; 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.”
In a bunch of different ways, David is asking God to transform and clean his heart. He is asking for the life changing power of God to kill his sinful self and to be made new so that he is right with God. To make him new, to forgive his sins and transform his spirit from one that denies God to one that obeys and submits to God. He says “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” Hyssop is a thin, flowery plant that was used in ancient Israel for cleansing and purification rituals, it was actually what the Israelites used to spread the blood on the doorframes so that the angel of death would pass over them. David is poetically asking God to cleanse him. He says “wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” David is calling on God to do a work in his heart that washes his sin and makes him clean. When we sin, all of our trust and dependence rests on us, but in the midst of repentance, our dependence is on God. God is the only one that can make us clean, we cannot do it on our own. That is why Daivd says when God washes me, I will be whiter than snow. When we repent, we must call on God’s cleansing and forgiveness. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” He came to the heart of God, confessed his sins against God and then asked God to use His cleansing power to transform his heart from one that is sinful to one that obeys God. That the blood on his hands that makes him guilty is washed clean and David is made right before God. Look at what he says in V.11-12, “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.” In his repentance he is asking the Lord not to cast him away, not to separate him from God but to restore the joy of salvation that is only found in God and by God’s grace to uphold him in a right relationship. God is the God of salvation, so when David is repenting of his sin, he is calling on God’s saving work to transform his life.
In the midst of our sin, whether you are a christian who has committed a sin or not a christian who is still living in the naturally sinful state of mankind, an important part of our repentance is calling out to God for Him to make you clean. You and I cannot make ourselves not guilty of sin. We can do every good work in the Bible, we can go to church every Sunday, we can go on hundreds of missions trips, we can give millions of dollars to the poor, we still cannot free ourselves from the guilt of our sin by our own strength. Nothing you can do will make you right in the eyes of God. You and I are sinners, that is who we are. At the core of our being, and the innermost part of our hearts we are denier of God. We are guilty of sin, it is in our nature. Our identity is sinner and guilty before a righteous God. If this was the end of the story, then we are hopeless, we are destined to spend eternity separated from God and we will face the full punishment of our sin. God is a just God, He will by no means clear the guilty, and in our natural, sinful, unrepentant state we are guilty. The good news is that the Bible does not end here. God’s grand story of history does not end with Him all alone in heaven, the grand story of the Bible ends a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb shouting out “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” That is how all of history will end, will a loud voice crying out “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” God is the God of salvation, He takes no pleasure in the death of anyone, He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, but who by no means clear the guilty. But because of God’s great love in which He loved us, God did not leave us alone to pay the punishment for our sin, but He sent the perfect, spotless, Lamb of God to die on our behalf as a punishment for our sin. So through the blood of the Lamb, your guilt is paid and you do not have to pay it. The guilt of sin is no longer on you because it was placed on the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus paid it all, He bore the full wrath reserved for you and I so that through His death, you and I may have life. Jesus Christ, left Heaven and put on humanity, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. With Jesus’s death, our sinful self dies, but with His resurrection, with Jesus’s defeat over death we are raised to new life with Christ! Romans 6 from this morning says “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Through Jesus we are set free from sin! Jesus’s death has set us free from sin and our repentance is how we accept this gift of salvation. So, if you are here today and you have never put your faith in Jesus, if you’ve never died with Christ so you can be raised to new life, free from the slavery of sin, then I urge you, repent of your sins. Come to the heart of God, confess your sins against God, and call on Him to cleanse you from your sin and the Bible says God is faithful and just to shower you with His redemptive mercy. If you are a Christian, and you are living in unrepant sin, I urge you to let the power of the Gospel set you free. Sin is the soul killer and our denial of God will only lead to harm. Even if it hurts your earthly reputation or hurts some of your relationships, repenting of your sins is eternally freeing. You do not have to be enslaved to sin, but the Gospel will set you free.
The 4rd part of the anatomy of repentance is…Commit to the praise of God. V.13-17, “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, 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. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; 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.”
An important part of David’s and our repentance, is how will we live in light of our new found freedom from sin? After God forgives us, what do we do? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! Repenting means to turn away, so when we turn away from our old sinful life and step into our new life with Christ. Look what David says, “I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, 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.” I remember the night I got saved, for the first time I repented of my sins and accepted God’s free gift of grace and afterwards when I was laying in bed I did not know what to do. I knew I couldn’t go back to the way I was living, but I did not know how to move forward. And the whole next day I remember feeling a bit lost, I knew my life had changed but I didn’t know how that was going to play out. After a few days of wrestling with this thought and knowing that I did not want to waste God’s grace on my life, I was reminded of something that my friend Debby had told me. Like 10 minutes after I had prayed and repented of my sin, Debby pulled me aside and told me she was so happy for me and had been praying for me, and then she said something along the lines of “now we have to start praying for others to know Christ.” God uses our repentance and our submission to Him as the vehicle to take His Gospel to the nations. Our salvation is not only for us, but it is an example to the lost world around us of the joy that is in Christ. Our lives as Christians are to be a doorway, an example in which others can look into our lives and see God’s glory and God’s free gift of grace. This is what David is talking about when he says “I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” The transformation, the cleansing power of God that we experience through the Gospel is not just for us to experience and be done, it is for us to have our lives transformed and to proclaim that the hope of Jesus is available for all who come. Anyone who repents of their sins and believes in God will be saved. V.15, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” When we repent, we are committing to praise God with our lives. Our repentance is a turning point in our lives, when we stop denying God and start living for God. Our mouths no longer spew out curses or vulgar words, but they sing our praises to God. Repentance is saying “Lord, transform my life and my whole life is yours.” “God, forgive me of my sins so that I can live for your glory.” “Father, create in me a clean heart so I can tell the nations of your goodness.”
V.16-17, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; 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.” God does not delight in sacrifices, God does not want our good works. If he did, we would be able to earn and lose our salvation. David even says “or I would give it” To be honest, working for our salvation seems way easier, then we could still deny God and be our own God, as long as we make sure our good works outweigh our bad. God is not pleased or delighted with our good works, with our burnt offerings, with a salvation by works, but God’s desire is for a broken and contrite heart. His desire is for repentance, for lost sinners to experience the mercy of God by the power of the Gospel. God wants to be in a right relationship with His children, He created us to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever and our sin separates us from God. God does not want your lousy good works, He wants your heart. He wants to be close to you. Our sin makes us far from God but through the Gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus, when we repent we enter into a relationship with God that He created us for.
The final part of the anatomy of repentance, this will be short, is…Cry out for others to be protected by God V.18-19, “Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
Lastly, David ends his repentance to God by asking the Lord to protect Jerusalem from the effects of his sin. David is the king, he knows that his sin affects others and he is crying out to God for mercy and forgiveness, he asks the Lord not to punish others for his sins, but to spare them from the effects his sins cause. “Do good to Zion in your good pleasure” Our sins do not only affect us, but those around us. David’s sin did not only affect himself, but they affected Bathsheba, Uriah, Nathan, Bathsheba’s baby, and many others. When you and I sin, it is damaging to our souls, but it also affects those around us. Growing up, if you punch your little brother, yes you sinned but it very much affected him too. When we lie, that affects those around us. When we have sexual sin, that affects others around us. When we have a fit of anger, that affects the people around us. David thought it important and wise to ask the Lord to protect others from his sin when he repented, and it would be wise to follow His example. If we are going to be a people who worship God in every season of our lives, or worship God at all, we must repent of our sins. We must ask the Lord to create in us a clean heart, to have mercy on us according to His steadfast love. Repenting of our sin is accepting God’s free gift of grace. It is not a good work we must perform, it is not just a motion we go through to make God happy with us, it is not a box we check to get into heaven. True repentance leads us to experience the reward of the Gospel. I pray that we are all a people that can come to God and repent of our sins. That we will experience the joy of salvation from God because He has washed us clean from our guilty state. Sin and denying God may seem more attractive, you can be in control, you are the judge of right and wrong, you are the highest authority in your life, but those are just the empty promises of the world and they will leave you broken, enslaved and separated from God. God offers you a sweet inheritance, He offers His free gift of grace, through Jesus’s death and resurrection you can be made right with God, no longer separated from Him. Responding to God by repenting of your sins is saying yes to His offer of salvation. To Jesus’ offer of everlasting life with God, so will you deny Him and live for yourself? Or will you say yes to Jesus, deny yourself and live for God?