“Forgiveness - Psalm 51”
Two little brothers, Harry and James, had finished supper and were playing until bedtime. Somehow, Harry hit James with a stick, and tears and bitter words followed. Charges and accusations were still being made as mother prepared them for bed.
The mother instructed, “Now James, before you go to bed, you’re going to have to forgive your brother. James was thoughtful for a few moments, and then he replied, “Well, OK, I’ll forgive him. He then knelt to say his prayers:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Then he looked over at his brother and said,
“but if I don’t die before I wake up, you’d better look out in the morning.”
Do you know anyone like that? We humans struggle with the concept of forgiveness. Dr. James Dobson reports seeing a sign on a convent in Southern California reading:
“Absolutely No Trespassing--violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.” Signed, “The Sisters of Mercy”
What is this concept of forgiveness really all about? Where is the balance of mercy and compassion and vengeance and judgment? The truth is that we struggle with forgiveness because of our humanness, because we all have a sin nature. Yet, as we look this morning at God, we find that He loves to forgive. He desires to offer his forgiveness to us.
In Exodus 34, God appears to Moses and reveals himself. We find these words written:
Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
The basis of our forgiveness comes from the very nature of God. He loves to forgive his people.
But we struggle as his people because we all have bad days. Some days are worse than others, and some days are better than others. You know, it’s a lot like that in our spiritual lives as well. Some days we live victorious over sin, and other days, it seems that we yield time after time to temptation. We gather great encouragement from the Bible, for as we read of the great saints of old, we remember that they were human just like us, filled with days of victory and days of defeat. Remember Solomon, the wisest man alive--he’s the one who started worshiping idols, letting his heart be turned from worshiping the true God. Remember Elijah, standing on Mt. Carmel calling down fire from heaven one day, and the next running for his life, telling God to just let him die. Remember David, the man after God’s own heart--he’s the one who sinned with Bathsheba, killing her husband Uriah so she could be his wife. We want to talk about David’s example this morning. Join me in turning to Psalm 51.
We all face failures in our lives spiritually. This morning, I want us to remember that God knows us perfectly, and he knows all about our sin. We can never hide our sin from God. What is it that you think you are hiding from God? It may be that someone here is struggling with living a double life. You come out to church and everyone thinks you’ve got your life together, but deep down inside, your life is a mess.
*Someone here may be thinking about leaving their husband or wife; not for unfaithfulness, but you just want a change. You’ve grown tired of the monotony of the daily routine.
*Someone here may have a problem with alcohol: you say it just loosens you up, but you know you get totally out of control.
*Maybe you are addicted to something: you say you can stop any time you want. But the truth of the matter is that there is no way you can stop outside of the direct help of God.
*Maybe you struggle with lust. You feed the lust through what you watch on TV or through the books and magazines that you hide so no one else will know. Maybe you look on the internet and you think there’s never a trace of what you’ve done.
*Maybe your problem is gambling. You say it’s only a harmless little dollar on a lottery ticket. But that was months ago. Now you’re up to $30 a week on tickets. And you’re spending more each week, hoping that any day now you’ll win the big one.
It doesn’t matter what the sin is. What matters is sin is wrong. It is an offense to a holy God who says “be holy, for I am holy.” And remember this morning that God sees you. He knows what you’re doing. He hates the sin! But he loves you. He wants you to admit what you’re doing. He wants you to admit the sin, and let him give you the help to gain the victory.
So many times we think, I just need a little more time. I can cover my tracks. I can make changes in my life. I can do better. But we never do. It does no good to try to make a moral change in your life apart from the power of the Spirit of God. You’re just doomed for failure. We end up covering our sins with lies. We cover our tracks so we can keep on sinning, hoping that no one will ever know. But God knows.
What is it in your life that you are most ashamed of struggling with today? God already knows about it. We so often try to hide our sins. But God calls us to make them open. He already knows. And he is a God full of forgiveness.
Psalm 86:5 - You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.
Nehemiah 9:17 - But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.
Instead of trying to hide our sins, we need to bring them out into the open and confess them to our God. He loves to forgive us. He loves to come to his children and give us hope for a different tomorrow. We have been going through the OT, and we have come to the period of the kingdom. Saul was the first king, but he fell because of his pride. David becomes king next, and he is a man after God’s own heart. But even a man after God’s own heart can fall when he gives in to the sinful desires of his heart. Not one of us here is above sin. There is not a sin that any one of us here would fail to do given the right circumstances. None of us is above sin. David sinned with Bathsheba. He stayed home when he should have been leading his people. He sinned by lusting after Bathsheba when she was bathing. He sinned by his adultrous affair with her. He sinned by deceiving Uriah when he brought him home from battle for the night. He sinned by having Uriah killed. One sin led to another which led to another.
But David is confronted by Nathan the prophet. Nathan comes, tells the story about the man who wronged his neighbor, killing his pet lamb. David is furious, and says the man deserves to die. Nathan points his finger and says to David, You are the man!
David is found out. But his heart is broken. He knows he has sinned, and he chooses to repent. Saul was confronted, and hardened his heart. But David, when he is confronted, chooses to repent. We find David’s record of his plea for forgiveness in Psalm 51. When he was confronted with his sin by the prophet Nathan, David’s heart was pierced. Out of this pain he wrote Psalm 51.
We want to look at this Psalm this morning and gain insight about forgiveness. --READ PSALM 51--
PRAY --
The first lesson we see learn in this Psalm is the
1. Request for forgiveness: No sin is too great for God to forgive. - vs. 1-2
Here David knows he has sinned, and he begs for forgiveness. But his request is based not on his position as king, not on his sorrow, but on the nature of God. He knows God to be a loving and forgiving God. He says, “have mercy on me” - to show pity, to be gracious, to show favor. Why? Because God has an unfailing, abundant, great, overflowing love. The word “love” here is the word “hesed” which is the idea of “covenant loyalty.” David knows that God has made a special investment in David. He has made a commitment to him. On the basis of that commitment, David begs for God to show him His favor.
He also asks on the basis of God’s great compassion - the word here refers to a mother’s womb. God loves us like a child he bore in the womb. What we often forget is that while God hates our sin - he detests it - it is a slap in the face to him--yet he loves us. He gave his only begotten son so that we might be able to be forgiven.
True repentance leads us to ask God for forgiveness, not because we deserve it, but because God loves to be merciful, to withhold the judgment that we rightly deserve. Next David goes on to demonstrate
2. Repentance from Sin - vs. 3-4
Dav id says, My sin is always before me. It certainly was. Every day he was surrounded by reminders of his sin. He would walk by the bed he lay on with Bathsheba. He would go by the stairs to the roof where he first saw her. He would see Nathan the prophet in the courtyard.
Sin looks so pleasing when we are considering it, but what we fail to remember is that we will face the consequences of sin for the rest of our lives. For while God can forgive the sin, the consequences remain.
David said, Against you and you only have I sinned. But he sinned against Bathsheba when he seduced her at his royal palace. He sinned against her husband, Uriah, when he plotted to have him murdered on the battlefield. He even sinned against the people of Israel because of his abuse of power. Given the fact that he caused so much pain to so many people, it seems strange that he would say he has sinned against God alone.
But David knew that his sin was an issue between he and God. It was David’s failure to follow God’s instructions that got him in trouble. So often, when we have sinned, we feel bad, but only about the consequences.
Now if you’re going down the road about thirty miles per hour over the speed limit, and then suddenly you see a colorful twirl of beautiful blue and red lights spinning to the sound of a siren, you might start feeling really bad about the fact that you were speeding. Your insurance rates will go up; you may even have to go to the dreaded traffic school! But if that police car suddenly goes around you to pursue another car, there’s instant relief — "Ah, thank you, Jesus!" As you continue down the road, your panic quickly fades. As negative consequences fade away, so does your remorse? That’s because you’re not really feeling remorse about the "wrongness of speeding," but rather the consequences of your speeding. When the consequences go away so does the remorse.
Here in this passage, David demonstrates an understanding of how wrong his behavior was. Even if he had not been caught, even if there were no negative consequences, David realized that his actions sprang from a pride which made him feel he did not need God, and could do it his own way. And he finally sees his sin as being evil. One of our biggest problems is we don’t see sin as evil. We see it as harmless, innocent, trivial.
David says his sin is evil, and that God is completely righteous when he judges sin.
The third thing we learn from David is
3. The Root of Sin
David writes, Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. It might have been easy for David to minimized his sin as a mistake in judgment, or a moral indiscretion. But this failure in the life of David forces him to take a long, hard look at his life. And he doesn’t like what he sees.
Where is the problem? It’s in his DNA! It’s part of his genetic makeup. It’s who he is. Here is the Biblical basis for what theologians have called "original sin." David comes to understand that his very nature is wrapped in sin. From birth all the way through life, we display a sinful nature.
A while back, a study was done by the Minnesota Crime Commission regarding rising crime rates. They came to the conclusion that crime starts at home:
Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it–his bottle, his mother’s attention, his playmates toy, his uncle’s watch. Deny him these once, and he seethes with anger and aggressiveness, which would be murderous, were he not so helpless. He is dirty, he has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. This means that all children–not just certain children–all children are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, given free rein to his impulsive actions to satisfy his wants, every child would grow up a criminal.
David already knew this. The man after God’s own heart realizes he has a wicked, sinful heart. And so do you. And so do I.
Understanding the true nature of his heart led David to a radical reevaluation of his life. He came to see that true forgiveness would come, not from anything he could do, but rather from what God only could do.
This gift of forgiveness is beautifully described for us in the book of 1 John 1:9 where we read, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
The word confess means "to say the same thing." We have confessed our sin when we look at our sin from God’s perspective and say the same thing that he does about it - it is evil and wicked.
But David realizes that his forgiveness comes only from what God does. In the next several vs. we see
4. Reliance on God -
David throws himself upon God with reckless abandon. He knows if salvation is going to be given, it must come from God. Notice that every one of the verbs in verses seven through ten points to what God has done for us. He cries out to God, Cleanse me (v.7), wash me (v.7), blot out my iniquity (v.9), create in me (v.10), renew within me (v.12) save me (v.14).
When we turn to God for forgiveness, we realize that we are asking him to do what only He can do.
But when God brings forgiveness, he also brings
5. Restoration from Sin.
David says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me (Psalm 51:12).
For those who have been forgiven, there is a joy when we can put our sins in the past. Joy is one key area of restoration.
Second, verse 13 speaks of the testimony we will share. Those who have been forgiven much will speak of it often. Remember the prostitute who anointed Jesus - the pharisees took offence - but Jesus said she who had been forgiven much loved much. When we understand what God offers us in forgiveness, it will motivate us to share a testimony with others.
Third, vs. 17 reminds us that there will be an inward change in those who have been forgiven. A heart that is broken about sin.
Verse 18 shows there will be outward influences as a result of forgiveness. Our circles of relationship will be influenced by the forgiveness we receive.
David reminds us in this Psalm of the great forgiveness of our God. Today, what is it that you need to be forgiven of? Don’t try to hide it. Don’t hold on to it. Instead release it to the God who loves you. You don’t need to hide from him. Let him hear your request for forgiveness.
Let’s Pray.
