Forgive Me - Psalm 51:8-11 Series

Psalm 51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. 5 Behold, I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6 Behold, you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. 7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. 14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Introduction

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

A Christian is someone who routinely confesses his sins to God. What does it look like, exactly, when you do that? If we take the word “confess” from that verse and zoom in with a telephoto lens so that we can see all the various aspects of it, what would we see? In other words, what should our prayers look like when we approach God after we have sinned? If you take that word “confess” and blow it up so you can see all the nuts and bolts of what it looks like, what you will see is Psalm 51. This psalm gives us a beautiful and moving example of the right way to confess your sins to God.

Step 1: Rend your Heart

And we found last week that step 1 is brokenness and contrition.

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

The word translated contrite is the normal Hebrew word for “crushed.” So step 1 is a broken and crushed heart. Or in the words of Joel, a heart that is ripped and shredded.

Joel 2:13 Tear your hearts, not just your clothes

If you feel like you are dirty and repulsive in God’s sight, you may be right. But if you have a broken spirit and crushed, torn up, contrite heart, then you do not have to worry about being dirty in God’s sight. He will not despise a heart like that.

Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is crushed and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the crushed.

God opposes the proud. People who think they are just fine - God is against them. But God will not despise the broken - even though they are broken because of their own rebellion and sin against God, And there is a number of ways to tear up your heart and bring about that contrition. In David’s case it came through exposure, consequences, and consideration. His sin was exposed by Nathan. Painful consequences ensued. And David spent time contemplating and thinking about and writing about all the various things that magnified his guilt.

Someone asked me this week about the exposure part, and that conversation highlighted again in my mind the value of making yourself accountable to someone. This is why we ask everyone in leadership at Agape - and I urge every member as well - to make yourself accountable to a brother or sister in the body every week. The best way for me to do that is to fill out a daily accountability sheet with pre-written questions that address my areas of weakness, and send that every Monday to an accountability partner. For you maybe something else will work better. But one thing that for sure will not work is privacy. Nothing makes you more vulnerable to sin than privacy.