Create In Me A Clean Heart

Slide: “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, Tune my heart to sing Thy grace”.

But coming from a wayward background, Robinson also included these words:

Slide: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.

Folks, we need to learn that lesson. That it’s possible to lose a clean heart. The Bible says that:

Slide: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV)

The minute you think you’ve arrived, Satan starts trying to turn you into a Pharisee and you start thinking with Little Jack Horner, “What a good boy am I.” “What a good girl am I.” “Look at what a good heart I have.” And before you know it your heart is stained with pride, and you know what comes after pride, right? A fall. It happened to David and to Samson, two of the greatest leaders of God’s people, and it can happen to you.

So understand: you can lose a clean heart, and you cannot create for yourself a clean heart. That’s God’s job. So, David, now deep into this Psalm prays – with all his heart: “Create in me a clean heart O God”. When you create something, you are making something brand new. You’re not just taking something that already exists and making a few modifications on it. You’re starting from scratch. Folks, if you haven’t gotten this yet, please understand that this is one of the main themes and truths of God’s Word. If you are going to be clean, it isn’t about you. God has to make you clean. All you can do is humble yourself like David and offer to God a repentant heart. And…

Slide: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 ESV)

God is in the business of cleansing and healing tainted and broken hearts. If it was about you, you would always wonder and you could never be certain that you’d done enough, but the Bible says

Slide: “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” (Romans 9:16 NIV)

Thank God. Thank God for His mercy and grace, that He so loved us that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Thank God that He so loves us and understands us that He gives to us what He offered on the cross, His Body and Blood in the bread and wine of communion so that we can know and believe and receive personally the forgiveness of all our sins: our greatest need in life and for eternity. Thank God He gives it all to us freely as a gift, because there’s no way we could ever earn it or deserve it.

All our attempts are going to come up short. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try. Of course we should. We just need to recognize the sinful material we’re working with. And the dangerous world we live in. It’s so hard today to have a pure heart when we live in such a sin-saturated society where we are assaulted with image after image encouraging us to have an impure heart and a covetous heart. And our culture almost seems to exult in it. If you are going to stand against all that you are in for the fight of your life. And you are going to stand out like a bunny at a fox convention.