Psalm 51:1-11 New Living Translation
Psalm 51
For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time Nathan the prophet came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
2 Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
3 For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.
4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say,
and your judgment against me is just.[a]
5 For I was born a sinner—
yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
6 But you desire honesty from the womb,[b]
teaching me wisdom even there.
7 Purify me from my sins,[c] and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
11 Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit[d] from me.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
There’s a progressiveness In God’s Dealings with the sinfulness of His Children.
In the course of our spiritual history God deals with us in ever-deepening ways.
Down, down, down, He goes, He reaches, keeps reaching until He touches what He alone knows our “bottom,” to have our so called “true things” “revealed.”
He undercuts all of our professions, doctrines, assumptions, pretensions, all of our illusions, and customs.
There is no mere formalism about this; no mere Jewish ritual in this; no mere outward observance of rites and ceremonies in this!
No! This has got to go deep, right into our inmost beings, in the inward parts.
God works toward that.
God is ever working toward the most inward parts.
Do any of us recognize that?
Do we understand what He is doing with us?
Oh, He will happily meet with each and every one of us with blessing on a assured, sure, certain level, as we walk before Him, like the man in Psalm 1.
He will meet us with His gracious provision when we transgress and trespass and fail, and do wrong – He will meet us there in grace.
But, without hesitation, God is going to pursue this matter to the most inward place of our being, and will register there His work of grace and redemption.
“Thou desirest truth in my innermost being …”,
and David did not come to that conclusion until he reached the profoundest, the deepest place of need, of failure, of conscious weakness and his worthlessness.
Then he cried.
It is not enough to just please God in ordinary ways;
it is not enough to observe the ritual of the Law, and go to the ceremonies, and carry out all that which is external.
God is after truth in the inward parts, right down into the depths of our being.
Why? Why?
Because truth is a major feature and constituent of the Divine nature.
God is called the God of Truth; Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Godhead, called Himself the Truth – “I am… the truth”; “To this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth”; the Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of Truth – “when He, the Spirit of truth, is come…”.
The Godhead, God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, are characterized by this one feature – truth!
And God desires and has set His heart upon having people who are partakers of the Divine nature, and so He is working ever more deeply toward this end:
what is of the uppermost true of Himself shall be true of His children – those begotten of Him – that they should be true sons of the true God in this sense.
God Desires Not to Hear About Our Innermost Lies
Part of growing into mature Christian is the constant confession of sin, with both God and with others.
But in the individualistic society in which we live, people don’t always confess the the actual heights, lengths, depths and widths and breadths of their sin.
In fact, if they fall away from having their daily quiet time with God, it can be months or even years since they’ve confessed sin and been forgiven by God.
When this happens, the habitual sins which they find they are constantly repeating become even bigger (or less) than they originally thought because they deceive themselves into thinking lies about the sin.
If you find yourself stuck in habitual sin that you can’t get out of, is it possible you’re believing lies about it that is causing a foothold to stay in your life?
We believe the enemy’s lies, which can allow sin to remain, creating a hardcore hindrance between ourselves, our connection, relating, community with God.
Here are five of the many unmitigated lies sin tells you:
1. It’s No Big Deal
When we first commit a sin, such as lying, our conscience informs us we have made the wrong decision.
We feel guilt and shame, among other emotions.
That is, until we inevitably lie again.
If we continue to consciously, unconsciously commit the act, we easily deceive ourselves by telling ourselves it’s no big deal.
We may even minimize those lies into what are called white lies, which society sees as less than otherwise.
But the reality is lying is just as bad as any other sin.
It causes us to distort the truth about a situation, ourselves, or others.
It also causes people not to trust us if we get caught.
Soon, inevitably there is always going to be a big deal on everyone’s horizon, and every growing, maturing Christian needs to have a mature accountability partner with whom they can talk to and genuinely confess their sin regularly to.
This person can help them with the work of confession and repentance, to move past this particular sin.
2. No One Will Find Out
Secrets are not always a bad thing.
Matthew 6:4 says, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
In the garden, God told Adam all about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, before he made Eve.
But in a later chapter, we quickly realized Adam told Eve all about it too.
Does that mean God kept a secret from Eve?
Secrets are bad only if the nature of them is rooted in sin.
Keeping a sinful secret, however, can be detrimental to a healthy spiritual life.
In chapter three of Genesis, God gives Adam and Eve the opportunity to confess their sin before him.
Although they didn’t take responsibility for their sin and instead blamed each other, God still wants us to openly speak to him about our sin.
As we confess our sin to God or to others, it offers us the opportunity to be forgiven and to take responsibility for our actions.
It is necessary for every person to have someone they can talk to about their sin.
By confessing it outwardly, the bondage with which Satan holds us and the shame that comes with it can be broken when we confess our sins openly.
3. God Can’t Forgive This
Some sins in our mind are so severe, we think God can’t possibly forgive us.
For example, if the sin is habitual, like some form of lust (pornography, for example) we realize that sin not only deals with lust but also with adultery, especially if the person looking at it is married.
Matthew 5:28 says, “anyone who even looks lustfully in another woman has committed adultery in his heart.”
But there is no sin God can’t forgive.
By Jesus’ death on the cross, he covered over every sin we have committed or will commit in the future.
We can be assured God forgives us when we confess our sin and repent of our behavior.
But sometimes the person we can’t forgive is ourselves.
We struggle with the process of forgiving ourselves for the difficult sins we have committed.
Don’t believe the lie that you can’t stop doing what you’re doing.
With God’s help anything is possible.
4. It’s Not as Big as Other People’s Sin
In Galatians 6:4-5, Paul encourages the church to restore someone gently, especially if they are in sin.
He then continues, “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.”
It’s easy to get into the trap of comparison and allow pride to enter your heart.
One of the most under-handed, sneakiest sins we commit is pride because it’s so easy to go unchecked, so easy to hide, so easy to lie about.
We then compare our sin to the person who needs to be restored, and believe we are somehow .01% better people because our sin is not nearly as bad as theirs.
But again, we deceive ourselves into thinking certain sinners are worse than other sinners and certain sins are worse than others.
All sin separates us from the love of God.
All sin needs to be confessed and forgiven.
All behaviors must be repented before freedom can be achieved.
The next time we hear the words of someone else’s sin, the genuine feelings behind their confession, don’t be quick to allow pride to enter your heart.
Show gentleness, meekness of heart and humility, helping that person and praying for them so they can achieve the same freedom you’ve come to know.
5. I Can’t Stop
When we are entangled in sin, and repeat the same behavior again, it becomes more difficult to break free.
This is especially true of sins still considered shameful in front of society.
We can easily lie to ourselves and lie to others, we can so easily, irreparably hurt others with our lies, saying we don’t have the willpower to be able to stop this.
But willpower is not the key to freedom; only Jesus is.
When we lie to ourselves and tell ourselves we cannot stop, we put God in a box.
We underestimate his power and presence in our lives.
If Jesus can raise people from the dead, then he can certainly stop a sin from dominating our lives.
A good place to start is confess your sin to someone.
Tell them you need help to stop.
Through a renewed reading of the word, prayer and constant accountability, freedom is possible.
It may be hard at first and you may stumble, but don’t give up.
All freedom is possible to those who believe.
We live in a society where people don’t want to be judged for their sin.
Therefore, it gets easier for us to conceal our sin and allow it to become a stronghold in our lives.
But through open confession, prayer, reading the word and renewing our minds, reliance on Jesus is key.
When we rely on Jesus and trust him to remove the sin, we can experience freedom in ways we never have before.
Confronted by the True God to Truthfully Confess
It took a special visit from the prophet Nathan to confront King David with the consequences of his sin and bring him to confession.
The story is found in 2 Samuel 11-12.
David had taken someone else’s wife, and to cover up the sin, he arranged for her husband to be killed in battle.
Then it was business as usual for David—until the prophet of the Lord, Nathan, confronted him.
That confrontation led David to write Psalm 51, a confession of his sins.
“I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”
The psalm is also a plea for mercy: “Have mercy on me, O God.”
The Psalm is also David’s plea that he not be so afraid, so hesitant, of both inwardly and outwardly telling the truth – even if that truth upends him.
5 For I was born a sinner—
yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
6 But you desire honesty from the womb,[b]
teaching me wisdom even there.
David also asks the Lord to create in him a pure heart and a steadfast spirit to keep him from sinning, to keep him from lying to himself, others and to God.
Sometimes it takes a special confrontation to bring us to confession.
Perhaps someone needs to confront us with what we have done.
Perhaps, like David, we have carried on as if nothing happened.
Perhaps we need to confront a relative or friend who does not realize how he or she has sinned against God.
Whatever it takes, we need to come clean, confess, and ask for a new beginning.
When we do, we will experience God’s mercy!
If that is what we genuinely, truthfully want above all other things except God.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 139:23-24 New Living Translation
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 