When You Feel Unclean - Psalm 51:1-7 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 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6 Surely 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: Spiritual Dirtiness = Being Repulsive to God

Have you ever felt spiritually dirty - like you were just disgusting on the inside? David did.

Psalms 51:2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me

He was dirty - but what does that mean exactly, to be dirty on the inside? If I asked for a show of hands of who has ever felt that, probably most everyone would raise their hand. But if I asked for a definition of exactly what that means, I might not get any hands. It’s funny - we can all relate to it, but we can’t define it. Obviously it is a figure of speech, so let’s see if we can figure out what it means. When you sin, something happens to you that is similar to being physically dirty - but similar in what way?

What is bad about being physically dirty? The only reason being dirty is bad is because it makes a person repulsive. If someone has not had a shower in six months, you don’t want to get to close to that person - why? Is it because you have a prejudice against dirt? No - dirt is all over the place on the ground and that does not bother you a bit. The reason you are repulsed by a really dirty person is because that person is unpleasant to the nose and to the eyes. They look bad and smell bad, and in that condition they generate disgust in your eyes.

When we commit sin, and we feel dirty, what that means is we feel ugly and repulsive. Ugly and repulsive to whom? We feel ugly and repulsive to whomever we regard as our God. For most people, their god is themselves. So when they feel dirty, it is because they have done something to make themselves repulsive in their own eyes. For others, their god is other people. So they feel dirty when they do something that makes them repulsive in the eyes of others (or would make them repulsed if they knew about it). For those who fear God and not men, we feel dirty when we do something that makes us repulsive in God’s eyes.

And that is what true spiritual dirtiness is. Feeling dirty means you feel like you are repulsive. Being dirty means you actually are repulsive. When we sin, something happens to us that causes us to become unpleasant for God to be around - unpleasant for Him to look at, unpleasant for Him to interact with us. The reason God designed this world such that we become smelly and ugly and repulsive and disgusting if we don’t bathe enough is to teach us what it is like for God when we sin. And so when we sin, we provoke God to withdraw His presence from us.