Monday, February 25, 2008

By Faith... David, Part 14 of 15

TEXT: Psalm 51

IDEA: The most profound evidence of whether we are people of faith or not may come from how we pray.

PURPOSE: To help listeners understand what it means to live in faith before God.

Have you ever stumbled on someone who is praying out loud and that person was not aware of your presence?

How do you feel?

I. God allows us to listen to a man who was pouring out his confession of sin to God, Psalm 51.

As you listen to that psalm, do you have a similar feeling that this is not something to take lightly? You feel as if you shouldn't even touch it.

Yet the ascription tells us that it's for the director of music to be used in public worship. What do you make of that?

Commentators have found this psalm difficult to outline. That's not surprising! When we are really desperate before God, we pour out our hearts and we don't necessarily put our agony into outline form.

II. What is it that we are prone to do when we have sinned and hurt someone else badly?

We minimize what we have done. We try to defend ourselves against our feelings of guilt by saying to ourselves at least that it really “wasn't that bad."

We blame our circumstances: "I did wrong, but it was because…"

We may admit that we've done wrong, but we want to give gifts to make it right somehow – flowers, an automobile, jewelry, etc. But where there has been genuine hurt, gifts just don't cover it.

III. David in his prayer shows us how to pray.

He admits that he has sinned. He uses almost every word in the Hebrew vocabulary to talk about what he has done. He has rebelled, he has stepped over the line, he has committed a moral evil.

In the first 2 verses, the image is of a papyrus scroll on which God had recorded David's sins. When he talks about blotting out my transgressions, washing away all my iniquity, it's as though what David did had been written by the hand of God on a scroll, and there was nothing that David could do to erase that scroll. Only God could erase it.

He says that he has considered giving sacrifices—animals of every sort—but he realizes that gifts don't make up for what he has done. The Old Testament makes no provision for presumptuous sin. God wants a broken, contrite heart. It's only after he has been forgiven that he can offer the sacrifices.

He also says that if God will do this for him, God will not only forgive him for what he has done, but will create in him a clean heart and a right spirit, and he will tell everyone about what has happened. He will do it openly and publicly.

IV. Listen to the psalm in which David begs God to forgive him (from the New Living Translation):

"Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love.

Because of your great compassion blot out the stain of my sins.

Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin.

For I recognize my shameful deeds—they haunt me day and night.

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.

For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.

But you desire honesty from the heart, so you can teach me to be wise in my inmost being.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me—now let me rejoice.

Don’t keep looking at my sins.

Remove the stain of my guilt.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me again the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you.

Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you.

Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.

Unseal my lips, O Lord, that I may praise you.

You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them.

If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it.

The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit.

A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise.

Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will be pleased with worthy sacrifices and with our whole burnt offerings; and bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar" (Psalm 51).