“Soul Talk: Mercy Me”
Ps. 51
It had been a painful time for David. Yes, he had married Bathsheba, but only after committing adultery and murder. He may have fooled some of the people in the kingdom but he had not fooled himself. He was living with tremendous guilt. And he had not been honest with, nor fooled God. So God sent the prophet Nathan to David to tell a story about a rich man stealing a poor man’s lamb. David was irate, ready to severely punish the rich man – and Nathan pointed his finger at David and said, “You are the man I’m talking about!” And David got the message. Psalm 51 records his reaction.
David prayed “MERCY ME.” (1-2) “Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” He began with AN OPENNESS TO HIS SIN. He admitted he not only knew his sin, but that it was also in his mind, heart, and consciousness all the time. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” The reality was that he had never been free from his sin. He knew first- hand the greatness of his sin and wretchedness. So now, before God, he called a spade a spade – he admitted he had sinned. No shifting of the blame, no denial of responsibility, no excuses for his behavior.
He covered all the possibilities: “I know my transgressions…my sin…my iniquity…” Transgression is crossing over the lines and boundaries God has drawn; it is breaking away from and setting oneself against God’s lawful authority. Sin is missing the mark God had set for him. Iniquity means he yielded to his twisted sinful nature. As the New Living Translation puts it: “For I recognize my shameful deeds – they haunt me day and night.” WE CANNOT ASK FOR MERCY UNTIL WE RECOGNIZE WE ARE SINNERS. We live in the presence and under the judgment of a holy God.
That’s who David pointed to as the OBJECT OF HIS SIN (5-6): “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” Or as captured in The Message: “You’re the one I’ve violated, and you’ve seen the full extent of my evil…” “You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair.” Every sin is against God. The magnitude of sin is THAT IT OFFENDS GOD, IT STANDS IN UTTER OPPOSITION TO HIM. Remember Joseph when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him? He responded, “How can I do this great sin against God?” The man
Jesus portrayed as the prodigal son came back to his father and said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.” The truth is that even if no one else knows our sin, God does – and He’s rightly offended.
That’s why David continued by speaking about the OMNIPRESENCE OF SIN. (5) “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. The older I grow, the more I minister, the more I am convinced of the concept of ‘original sin.’ WE ARE BORN WITH A BENT TOWARDS SINNING. The Message portrays it, “I’ve been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born.” It was the Apostle Paul who went from calling himself – at the beginning of his Christian life – the least of the saints to – at the end of his life – calling himself the chief of sinners. Periodically I share a scene from Pinocchio to underscore the point. Gepetto has taken a wasted old table leg of no use to anyone and is using his best knives to carve a little doll whom he would wish were a decent son. As he carves Pinocchio’s eyes, they snap alive and dart viciously around the room. There is something so mischievous in those newly carved eyes that, if Gepetto would, he’d throw the whole table leg away. But he doesn’t. Instead he carves on until he sets one arm free. And no sooner has he set an arm free that Pinocchio’s free arm reaches up and grabs Gepetto’s wig, pulls it from his head and throws it aside. Gepetto holds the table leg out as a reluctant father and says, “You’re not even made and already you are a bad boy!” As Bob Dylan sang years ago, “Stone cold dead as I stepped out of the womb.” (1) That’s precisely what the Heidelberg Catechism states (Q & A 7): “Then where does this corrupt human nature come from? The fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are all conceived and born in a sinful condition.”
You and I have been, and are, out of step with God. And He desires truth. This morning we stand in the shadow of the cross, face to face with Christ. Each of us has a choice to make – will we be honest with God or not? He already knows the truth about us; the only issue is whether or not we want to face up to that truth. Are you willing to face up to what stains your heart – to what sin needs to be confessed? Are you willing right now to keep your sin before you so you can be honest before the Lord? Are you ready to pray, “Have mercy on me, O God?”
Judge Kaufman presided at the trial of the Russian spies, the Rosenbergs. They were charged with and convicted of treason against the United States and sentenced to death. In his summation at the end of the long and bitter trial, the lawyer for the Rosenbergs said animatedly, “Your Honor, what my clients ask for is justice.” Judge Kaufman replied calmly, “The court has given what you ask for—justice! What you really want is mercy. But that is something this court has no right to give.”(2) David, in spite of his sin, knew God intimately. He knew he had blown it; he understood there would be consequences; he recognized God was always firm, but fair in his judgment. David did not have the luxury of looking at his sin through the shadow of the cross. He knew there was nothing he could do to undo what he had done, nothing to pay the price for his sin. But he also believed God was filled with grace and mercy.
So he prayed “RESTORE ME.” (1) “Have mercy on me, O God, according to you unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” He repeats his plea in verse 7: “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.”
David APPEALED FOR RESTORATION. Just as David covered all the possibilities in confessing his sin, he does the same with his appeal. “…blot out…cleanse…wash.” To blot out is to pay-off and thus remove a debt. To cleanse is to remove dross from metal, to get rid of impurities. To wash is the cleansing of things dirty. In Jewish society to wash and change clothes marked a new beginning. Have you mothers ever said, upon seeing your children come in filthy, “How will I ever get those clothes clean?” David is asking God to find a way to do so. Eugene Peterson captures the meaning in a contemporary way with, “Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.”
It reminds me of the classic tale by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. Jean Valjean, the ex-convict, under a new name, had buried his past and became the prosperous mayor of a provincial town. But one day he learned that in a neighboring village an old man arrested for stealing apples had been identified as the notorious and long-sought ex-convict, Jean Valjean. That news precipitated a crisis in the soul of the real Jean Valjean. Should he keep silent, or should he reveal his identity and be sent back to the gallows? Should he remain in paradise and become a demon, or go to hell and become an angel? His first impulse was to say nothing and do nothing. Out of a secret closet in the wall he drew a blue linen blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge cudgel shod with iron at both ends. These were the last ties which attached him to the old Jean Valjean. He threw them into the fire, and then seized the candlesticks which the Bishop had given him and flung them into the flame. But a voice said, “Jean Valjean, there will be many voices around you which will bless you, and only one which will curse you in the dark. All those benedictions will fall back before they ascend to God.” This made him take the candlesticks out of the fire and replace them on the mantel. All through the night he fought his awful battle, until, in the morning, his servant told him that the carriage he had ordered to take him to the town where the old man was on trial waited at the door. The next day as the president of the court was about to pronounce sentence, the true convict stood up before the court and said, “I am Jean Valjean.” Some thought that he was mad, and others pitied him for the sacrifice he had made. As he left the courtroom, he said: “All of you consider me worthy of pity, do you not? When I think what I was on the point of doing, I consider that I am to be envied. God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that suffices.”(3)
David knew the heart of God was unfailing love and therefore knew he could count on God to somehow, someway, restore him with mercy. Even prior to the coming of Jesus the assurance of forgiveness was real. Truthful living includes an awareness of God’s grace. David already knew nothing could separate him from God’s love. Not that David took God lightly; rather he understood God had every right to keep him in misery, to crush his bones, to cast him away from God’s presence, to take away the special divine influence God showered on his life. That’s why he pleaded with God. But he believed that God would be gracious, that the mercies of God were new every morning. So he brought his sin before God and laid it at his feet. He turned it over. He emptied out his heart.
Yet David wanted more than restoration – he also APPEALED FOR RENEWAL. (10) “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” This is an amazing request for a TOTAL MAKEOVER. The word that begins this section is the Hebrew verb bara, which is used in Genesis 1 for the creation of the heavens and the earth by God. Strictly used, this word describes what only God can do; to create ex nihilo, out of nothing. He’s asking foe what only God can provide – a new heart and spirit. It’s a foreshadowing of when Jesus would tell Nicodemus (Jn. 3:6) that he must be reborn from above. Moreover, Jesus identifies this as God’s miracle when He continues, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). What David asks of God comes fully with the Messiah.(4) It led Paul to write (2 Cor. 5:17) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
In essence David was appealing for a TOTAL MIRACLE. (11-12) “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” God had given the Holy Spirit to David when Samuel anointed him, and David didn't want to lose the blessing and help of the Spirit, which is what happened to Saul when he sinned. The phrase "willing spirit" (12) refers to David's own spirit; a "willing spirit" is one that is not in bondage but is free and yielded to the Spirit of God, who ministers to and through our own spirit. It isn't enough simply to confess sin and experience God's cleansing; we must also let Him renew us within so that we will conquer sin and not succumb to temptation.(5) Once again, the Heidelberg Catechism summarizes it succinctly (Q&A 8): “Are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil? Yes, unless we are born again, by the Spirit of God.” Holy Spirit, mercy me.
David’s motivation was for more than mercy and restoration – he wanted to be free from guilt so he could return to even greater service for God. He prayed “USE ME.” (13) “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.” David did not pray for a change in his circumstances, but for a radical change within himself – so he could declare God’s wonderful grace to others. David wanted to be empowered to INFLUENCE OTHERS FOR GOD. He was so moved by the grace of God he couldn’t wait to share it with others. The Apostles would, years later, have the same motivation (Acts 4:20), “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” The new life is one of ushering others into the presence of God. This must be the goal of our worship today. Certainly we want to be forgiven, we want to be made whole. But if we hold it all to ourselves, we sin all over again. When we are blessed it’s to be a blessing; when we’re forgiven it’s to be forgivers.
And David promised to LIVE A LIFE OF GRATITUDE (14-15): “Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.” In a few moments you’ll be given the chance to be honest, to admit your sin. It will be a sacred time. You will have an opportunity to bring your sins to the foot of the cross, to claim the promise that there truly is nothing that can separate you from the love of God in Jesus Christ, to experience the miracle of forgiveness. When you do, you will be amazed at how you will not be able to hold it all in! You will be so filled with the Spirit of Christ your life will be song of praise. As Paul wrote the church at Ephesus, you will “…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”
It begins in your heart; it happens at the cross. Let’s go there now.
(1) Williams, D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1986). Psalms 1–72 (Vol. 13, p. 389). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
(2) Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 530). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.
(3) Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (pp. 1130–1131). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.
(4) Williams, D., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1986). Psalms 1–72 (Vol. 13, p. 391). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
(5) Bible Exposition Commentary (BE Series) - Old Testament - The Bible Exposition Commentary – Wisdom and Poetry.
