51 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Introduction
Let’s get started with a parable. (2 Samuel 12:1-4)
Nathan, the prophet, shared that parable with King David about a year later. The parable confronted David about his sins. The injustice outraged David, and rightly so, but it’s nothing compared to what David did.
Here is the parable…
“There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very large flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised her, and she grew up with him and with his children. From his meager food she would eat, from his cup she would drink, and in his arms she would sleep. She was like a daughter to him. 4 Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.” (2 Samuel 12:1-4)
David became angry. He even said that the rich man should be sentenced to death. Finally, David realized this parable was about him. David was struck to the heart and cried out, “I have sinned against the Lord.” As a result, David didn’t die, but his son with Bathsheba did.
Let’s review the sins of David….
He sent his armies into battle but stayed home. One day, as he was taking a walk, he saw his friend Uriah’s wife bathing. He sent for her, committed adultery, and she became pregnant. David called Uriah home from the battle and tried to cover his sin by sending him to his wife. But Uriah’s loyalty to his brothers in combat kept him away. So, David wrote a letter to his commander and sent it back with Uriah. Inside the letter, which Uriah never opened, were David’s instructions to set Uriah in the front line, draw back, and let him die. David committed adultery, committed murder, and went on about life. But God saw, and God knew.
We see here, guilty as charged! But, we can’t cast a stone, because we are also guilty as charged!
What do you do when you know you’ve done something wrong but you don’t know the path forward. You feel helpless and lost. You can’t undo what you’ve done but you can’t live with it either. What do you do? You repent.
Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of repentance. And it tells us two things: What repentance is and what repentance does.
First, what repentance is.
Repentance is not only turning from your sin. It is turning to God. It’s not just feeling sorry. It’s being convicted, becoming inwardly humbled and visibly reformed. It’s a directional change in your life from sin to God.
Proverbs 28:13-17 KJVHe that covereth his sins shall not prosper: But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Happy is the man that feareth alway: But he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.
For those of you who trust Christ for salvation, this isn’t new. But as the Reformer, Martin Luther said, the whole of the Christian’s life is to be one of repentance.
It’s one of the foundations of Christianity. It’s mentioned over 60 times in the NT. Jesus’ first words in his ministry were “Repent, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). You can’t understand Christianity without it.
For those who don’t yet trust Jesus for salvation, let me ask you, what do you do with your guilt? What do you do with the bad things you’ve done? How are you going to change? The Christian gospel has the answer. I’m pleading with you, listen to David’s story, David’s words, and David’s Lord.
So, what repentance is. Repentance is three things.
First, repentance is turning from sin.
Look at verses 1-5.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
It’s not just adultery and murder that separate us from God. Every sin is treason against our Creator. So, lest we think we are better than David, let us see that our sin is just as wicked in God’s eyes.
Seeing the sins of others is easy. But seeing our own sin is hard. It took David nearly a year and a prophet from God to fess up! When he does, he uses strong words about himself. He turns. He refuses to blame-shift, or make excuses. He owns up. In verses 1-5 he admits his sin: “my transgressions,” “my sin,” “my iniquity.” In transgressing, he knowingly steps over the law. In sin, he misses the mark of righteousness. In iniquity, he twists what God has made straight. He calls these acts what they are: evil. In verse 5, he admits he’s always been a sinner. He was born with it.
Repentance begins when we start using I and my. Personalizing our sin creates sorrow over it. And we start hating our sin when we see what it does to our relationship with God. You’ll never turn from a sin you don’t hate.
So, we need to see that sin is always first against God. Every sin you’ve committed is because you loved something else more than God. That’s why in verse 4 David says his sin is against God alone. God is right to judge him. Notice what he’s saying. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, but the first sin of adultery he committed was against God.
David didn’t go from perfection to murder. It never happens that way. We sin step by step, smaller to greater. The first step is always cheating on God. What if David repented of his lust before he sent for Bathsheba? What if he repented of his self-assurance before he stayed home alone? What if he repented of his pride before he overlooked the city he ruled? The earlier we repent, the safer we will be.
Second, repentance is turning to God.
If we think of repentance as only turning from sin, we won’t ever do it. We can’t. It’s too ingrained. What we need is a power greater than our sin. And there is no greater love than God’s love.
We need to understand God’s heart toward sinners. David understood. That’s why he could come to God in this moment of brokenness and plead, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love and abundant mercy.”
He’s not demanding something from God but pleading something from God. He pleads God’s own promises using covenant language, God’s “steadfast love”—the love he promised to have for his people for all time. He pleads for God’s abundant mercy, the kind of tenderness a mother has with her child.
The lower we go in repentance, the clearer we see God. Sin clouds our vision. Repentance cleans the window.
Verses 6-12:
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Repentance itself is a grace. God came as unexpectedly to David as David did to Bathsheba. Both encounters held serious consequences. But whereas David’s actions led to death, God’s actions led to life. That’s how he always works. You may not see what you need to repent of right now. But in God’s timing, he will reveal it. The prime mover in your relationship with God is God, and he loves you too much to let you remain unrepentant. God created you; he loves you; he’ll bring you back to himself.
Thank God for his chastisement! God will never leave us in our sin, because our sin separates us from him.
Third, repentance is believing the gospel.
Repentance always moves us closer to God. That’s why we must do it constantly. The gospel alone compels us to repent and has the power to change us. Only in the gospel do we have a message that says, “I know you’ve sinned, but your sin can’t keep my love from you because I paid the penalty for it.”
We can deny our sin,
we can beat ourselves up over our sin,
or we can believe the gospel that God’s love has covered our sin.
The greatest power for change is always love. So, here’s the goal. Let’s be a church stirs loved. As we hear the word of God in scripture and from one another, he’ll call us to repentance, and we’ll have to think it through, and we’ll have to change, but we’ll have a power to change because the gospel never changes.
Second, what repentance does.
Verses 13-19.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Repentance does two things.
First, repentance changes us.
I left something out of the story at the beginning. Immediately after David said, “I have sinned against the Lord,” Nathan replied, “The Lord has put away your sin.”
How?
David had no idea what it would cost God to forgive him, but around a thousand years later, Jesus entered the world, lived the life David should have lived, and died the death he should have died. God didn’t demand payment from David because he planned before the foundation of the world to pay it himself in Jesus Christ. The only way to escape the wrath of God is to accept the free gift of grace in Jesus Christ.
So, how did Jesus pay the penalty?
Jesus was perfect and had no sin in him.
Jesus took the wrath of sin upon the cross to grant forgiveness.
The problem is solved in the person and work of Jesus Christ!
What kind of love is this? That God himself would pay the penalty for David’s sin. -for our sin?
Oh, how great the love of God!
He cares! He saves! He justifies!
He forgives!
He unites!
The joy that sin robbed you of is restored by the hand of God!
Why? Because he delights in you! Jesus did not do this begrudgingly. He did it in love. For the joy set before him he endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). The Joy!
But repentance isn’t easy. Even though forgiveness from God comes instantly, it may take a while for healing to come. That’s ok. If you are in a season of repentance, you might be quiet. David was. Look at verse 15, “O Lord, open my lips.” His lips were closed. He lost credibility. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t speak. When the Holy God confronts us with our sin, that’s the appropriate response.
We expect God to despise us. But if we will be honest with him about who we really are, and plead with him for mercy and grace,
we find that he doesn’t shame us.
He redeems us.
Second, repentance changes our community.
The kingdom of God is built through repentance. Psalm 51 is proof. Can you imagine having your greatest sins recorded and read forever? But can you imagine the Bible without Psalm 51?
When sinners come into the gospel with a foundation of gospel doctrine, the result is praise. Sin always ends in sorrow, but repentance always ends in praise. How could it not? God has saved us!
Conclusion
One final thought. What did David do to get this grace? He didn’t work his way into it. He couldn’t bring Uriah back from the dead. He couldn’t bring his son back from the dead. He couldn’t undo the adultery he had committed with Bathsheba. He couldn’t change anything in his past. He couldn’t do anything in the future to make up for it. All he could do was go low enough before God to be forgiven by him. And that’s exactly what happened.
What that means for us is that there is never a point in which we have sinned our way so far from God that we can’t return to him. We are never so far or so bad to be saved by Christ. Because that’s what he does. He saves sinners. And so, what we must do to be saved by God is admit that we’re sinners, and plead for his grace. If we’re willing to do that—if we’re willing to go to the low place, to call ourselves evil, to identify in the first person with David, that we have sinned—then we can receive with David the same grace that David received from God, and we can have the joy of salvation. Jesus always meets sinners with grace. The only sinners he ever turns away are those who have no need for him. Through repentance, God will create us into a refuge for other sinners just like us that can come to God. We will bring the word of God to others who may or may not know him, but need him.
