Show Notes
Psalm 51
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would bless us now that we might hear of Jesus, that we might be assured of our salvation in him as we come to know him more.
[00:00:19] And as we have your grace revealed through the Son and by the Spirit.
[00:00:26] We pray that that grace and the power of the Gospel would be made effective in our lives, that we might repent, that we might confess our need for Jesus, that we might daily turn to you in the knowledge of your grace and of your forgiveness and our salvation in Christ.
[00:00:45] Give this to us now as we hear your word read and preached, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:00:55] Let's remain standing and turn to Psalm 51.
[00:01:19] So we're reading Psalm 51 this morning because we've been going through God's word in 2 Samuel and have recently read about David's sin with Bathsheba, the adultery there, and other things which I'll mention again in the sermon.
[00:01:35] For now let's hear David's reflection on this moment and his repentance as he pours his heart out before the Lord.
[00:01:45] Psalm 51 to the choirmaster a psalm of David When Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.
[00:01:56] Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my sin and cleanse me. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
[00:02:12] For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
[00:02:16] 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.
[00:02:26] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
[00:02:31] Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
[00:02:38] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than the snow.
[00:02:44] Let me hear joy and gladness.
[00:02:47] Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
[00:02:50] Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
[00:02:56] Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
[00:03:02] Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
[00:03:07] Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
[00:03:13] Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God, of my salvation and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise, do good to Zion in your good pleasure, build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings, and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar.
[00:03:56] May God bless his word to us.
[00:03:59] You may be seated.
[00:04:26] So here we have, as I said, a psalm of David.
[00:04:30] A psalm sung, prayed, composed after David had sinned, after Nathan the prophet had been sent by the Lord to reveal for God to put his finger on this sin.
[00:04:47] And David confesses and repents, and David prays this. And in it we see David seeking the forgiveness and mercy of the one he sinned against, God.
[00:04:59] In the midst of this mess, David turns to the Lord and makes a number of requests. It starts right in verses one and two, a sort of summary of the whole psalm.
[00:05:10] Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercies, according to or mercy, blot out my transgressions, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.
[00:05:23] David is reading his heart in light of reality now.
[00:05:29] Instead of pretending, instead of hiding, instead of covering up, he is confessing.
[00:05:36] He is revealing.
[00:05:38] He's saying the truth.
[00:05:42] And not only the truth about his sin, the truth about his sorrow and his brokenness, but also his desire that God would turn to him in grace and not in judgment.
[00:05:56] Because God owes him judgment.
[00:05:58] It would be totally fair for God not to hide his face from his sins. God not to blot out iniquities.
[00:06:10] David has transgressed the law. David has broken it. And he's broken it not just as an individual, but he's broken it as the king, as the shepherd of his people, as the one that God has called to rule and to reign in his name, in righteousness and justice and in wisdom.
[00:06:34] Many of you know that not just David who prays this prayer, but it's God's people as well. It's you and me, right? We have taken these words of David on our lips and applied them to our hearts, understanding what it means and its significance.
[00:06:54] We ask ourselves, how does this apply to my life? As we do with every scripture, right? And one of the ways it applies is we see I need to repent.
[00:07:06] I, too, excuse me, am a sinner who has transgressed I too am someone who has sinned, who has done what is evil. I am someone who needs desperately God's grace if I am going to be saved from God's judgment.
[00:07:23] And that's true of all of us.
[00:07:25] So these requests can be our requests as well.
[00:07:30] Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than the snow.
[00:07:35] Those requests are attached to promises that God makes, promises about who God is, confessions of his capability that he can cleanse sin this perfectly, this wonderfully. And so we can take on our list on our lips these same words.
[00:07:53] Of course, we have to apply them correctly.
[00:07:56] We have to think about them rightly. So, for example, when we come to the end of the psalm and David says, do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Bring up, build up the walls of Jerusalem, we have not in our minds, we're not asking for God to build up the city that David ruled in right. We are asking him to build up the city to which that first city pointed to, that God would build up his kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, that God would establish us and people all over the world on Mount Zion.
[00:08:33] And these sacrifices that are mentioned right, when we pray verse 19, when we sing verse 19, our hope is not that burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings will be altered in the old temple again.
[00:08:46] Because the Scriptures tell us that Jesus has fulfilled these things, that Jesus has raised up a new temple, and that we are that temple. And the sacrifices to God are our worship and our praise.
[00:09:00] The sacrifices to God are our worship and our praise. And they're grounded on the sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
[00:09:11] So these are some examples of the ways in which we take Psalm 51 on our lips and then apply it rightly, sing it rightly, pray it rightly.
[00:09:22] When we pray Psalm 51, we're not actors pretending to be David for a moment. We are ourselves saying these words as they apply in our own lives.
[00:09:43] One of the reasons that we can do that is because Jesus did that.
[00:09:50] This is what I want to spend the rest of our time thinking about this morning.
[00:09:55] What does it mean for Jesus to sing and pray? Psalm 51?
[00:10:03] What does it mean for Jesus to say, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, cleanse me from my sin?
[00:10:13] How do we think about that?
[00:10:16] We know that Jesus often took the language of the Psalms as his own.
[00:10:22] Psalm 22. And on the cross when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Was not acting as the Psalmist he was saying things that were true of his own heart.
[00:10:37] He took the words of the psalm on his lip and said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:10:44] In Psalm 31 or from Psalm 31, Jesus says, into your hand I commit my spirit.
[00:10:52] Many other examples of this. In Hebrews 2:12, it indicates that Jesus sang among his people.
[00:10:58] And when it quotes Jesus saying from Psalm 22 also 22, in the midst of your congregation I will sing praise, quoting a psalm.
[00:11:10] So Jesus, in praying and singing and confessing the Psalms, does the same thing we do, right? He sings and prays them and applies them to his own particular situation, not just according to any old desire, but according faithfully to God's word. According so what would it mean for Jesus then to pray this psalm, to say, cleanse me from my sin? When we know and our hope is totally built on the fact that Jesus doesn't sin.
[00:11:46] Hebrews 14 says, he was tempted, as we are, yet without sin. First Peter 2:22 says, he committed no sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says he knew no sin. Verse First John 3:5 says, in him there is no sin. Even Judas says, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.
[00:12:06] Matthew 27:3 4.
[00:12:11] So, and these are a few. There's more.
[00:12:14] The Bible says this over and over. It's testified explicitly, implicitly. It's made clear from many doctrines. Our hope is built on the fact that Jesus is righteousness is imputed to us, and our sin is imputed to him.
[00:12:30] So how is Jesus confessing sin when he never sinned?
[00:12:34] Well, I'll tell you the answer.
[00:12:36] He confesses it as our high priest.
[00:12:39] He confesses it as our mediator.
[00:12:43] Second Corinthians 5:21 says, for our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
[00:13:00] The reason we are forgiven of our sin is because Jesus takes it on himself.
[00:13:08] He is our mediator. He stands in our place. And when he confess, when he prays this psalm, when he sings this psalm, he prays it not as you and I would pray it in confessing our personal sin, but he prays it, confessing your sin and my sin. He is our mediator.
[00:13:32] He is both the high priest who represents the people before God. And he's also the sacrifice, or like the goat in Leviticus 16, on which the sins of the people were placed, and then the goat was sent out into the wilderness on the day of atonement.
[00:13:51] The goat didn't sin, right? The Goat was representative of the one who would come, who would take on the sins of God's people. That's what he does. That's how he is praying. That's how he's confessing. Jesus takes on our sin and brothers and sisters. He takes on a lot.
[00:14:11] A lot.
[00:14:13] David preserved and helped by God, blessed in so many ways, writing psalms like this, glorious psalms prophesying about Christ, glorious songs, speaking from his heart of the beauties of God, the wonders of God, the joys of God.
[00:14:33] Hardly anyone has been more devoted to the Lord, in worship, in courage, in zeal.
[00:14:41] David, a man to be admired and followed in these ways, and yet a man whose flesh, like yours, vigorously waged war against the Spirit.
[00:14:59] This psalm addresses one of these instances, and we know of others as we've been going through. 1 Samuel and there will be more to come.
[00:15:09] David ran to his enemies outside of Israel two times, seeking safety in them.
[00:15:16] He acted faithlessly towards Jonathan and Mephibosheth. This is coming up, sorry to say, when he takes the false accusations of Ziba, doesn't hear anything, and kicks Mephibosheth out of the house, totally undoing the promises that he had made.
[00:15:35] Psalm 51 is focused on Bathsheba. We could think about Michal, his first wife, Abigail, his second wife, Ahinoam, his third wife.
[00:15:45] We can think about Maakah, his fourth wife.
[00:15:49] Not only a fourth wife, which is a problem in itself, but a woman from Geshur, a forbidden place where he shouldn't be marrying from. And if four was not enough, we add haggith and abital and Egla and ten concubines, and Bathsheba, eight wives, ten concubines. When the Scriptures explicitly say in Deuteronomy 17:17 that the king shall not acquire many wives for himself, And then the way in which he acquires this wife is awful.
[00:16:28] My aim is not to pile on David, but to give you a sense of the kinds of sins that Jesus pays for, the kinds of sins that he pays for, the weight of them, the number of them, and David himself confesses that there are both more sins that he's committed than these, and that there's even sins he's forgotten.
[00:16:51] If I ask you to go home today and write out the top 10 biggest sins you've committed in your life, that doesn't sound fun.
[00:17:00] But if you wrote down the top 10 biggest sins you've committed in your life, my guess, if you came back in half an hour, it'd be easy to add another five more and more and more and more. And when you start thinking about it, it can make you cry because they're awful and they strike against the most fundamental thing and one that we love, the things of God, and of course, God himself. It grieves us, it hurts us to know that we have done these things.
[00:17:35] This isn't just David's list. It's a list that's represented by many people, including Abraham, Paul, Peter and, of course, us.
[00:17:46] This is important to think about, because when Jesus takes on the sins of the world, he doesn't just take on the concept of sin or sin in some sort of general, abstract sense. He takes on the specific sins, every single one of them, every single sin of every single soul that the Father gave to him.
[00:18:12] All of our sins are imputed personally to Him.
[00:18:18] The most perfectly holy, beautiful, blessed Son of God took on a tsunami of stench, of defilement, of evil, not personally as having committed them himself, but in our place.
[00:18:43] To give the tiniest little example of what I'm talking about, imagine that you decided to personally take on not the moral debt against God, but just the financial debt against man of the whole world.
[00:18:59] Right, Brother Scott?
[00:19:02] Right. Pick a nick. No. No. He's shaking his head no.
[00:19:05] Who. Who among us would stand up and say, I will take on all of the debt?
[00:19:12] It would be weighty.
[00:19:14] And it was weighty, not just in the thorns that pressed into his brow.
[00:19:18] It was weighty, not just in the accusations and the false things that came at him, but it was weighty on his soul.
[00:19:26] He was our mediator. This was costly. It cost him not only in physical pain, but in the anguish of his soul.
[00:19:36] Pastor Scottish Pastor Hugh Martin. He says this.
[00:19:43] It's wrong for us. He says that we're ready to suppose. I'll just read it. Sorry. We are ready to suppose that however hard and terrible to bear, must have been the wrath and death which were the wages of sins for which he suffered. Yet we deny or don't think about the imputation of these sins to him in this other way.
[00:20:04] The anxiety it would have cost him, the sorrow it would have cost him. So no wonder Isaiah says in Isaiah 53, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
[00:20:22] So this is how we think about Jesus praying this psalm, not personally, not confessing his own sin, but. But taking on our sins and the sins of all his people.
[00:20:33] When he says, cleanse me, he's saying, cleanse me as the mediator who has been chosen to represent the people.
[00:20:41] And this is an amazing thing to think about, because when you think about not just the way in which he's asking for the forgiveness of sin, but the mercy that he's appealing to and the grace that he's appealing to, and the steadfast and the faithfulness of God that he's appealing to.
[00:20:58] So, for example, have mercy, O God, according to your steadfast love.
[00:21:03] Just stop there.
[00:21:06] Jesus understands God's steadfast love better than anyone.
[00:21:12] When Jesus prays according to your steadfast love, the more and more we understand that thought which we could never fully understand, but the closer we get to it, the better we will be praying. Psalm 51 when we say, have mercy on me according to your steadfast love.
[00:21:30] And you imagine Jesus praying like he prayed in John 17 and in other places where he talks to us about him abiding in the Father, and the Father abiding in him and us in him, and all in the love of God. In the love of God in which we have been predestined in Christ before the foundation of the world.
[00:21:52] In love, God sent his Son to pay for our sins.
[00:21:56] Jesus knows about this love. He is this love. And so when he says, as our mediator, have mercy according to this, this thing that he not only knows about, but is and executes and brings and overflows into this world, you can have every confidence and guarantee that God is going to answer that prayer.
[00:22:21] Jesus is talking about what he knows about, what he knows about personally and what he has been existing and living in from all eternity.
[00:22:32] The steadfast love of God.
[00:22:38] When we hear Christ praying this prayer, it gives us confidence to turn to him in our own repentance.
[00:22:47] If these are the kinds of words that our mediator says, if these are the kinds of things in which he appeals to God for on our behalf and ultimately dies for. As we think about them and meditate on them, our confidence grows that if we pray in the name of the One who's praying for us like this, we are fine.
[00:23:14] Our sins are going to be forgiven.
[00:23:16] Sometimes when we pray prayers of repentance, they're kind of half hearted, they're kind of unbelieving.
[00:23:22] We sort of hope that God will forgive us, but counting on it, knowing for a fact that it is going to happen, that God will create in us a new heart that God will not cast us away from, from his presence.
[00:23:40] I'll admit, at least in myself, there's some hesitancy there sometimes.
[00:23:47] But to know that Jesus intercedes on our behalf in these kinds of ways brings us a lot of hope.
[00:23:59] Knowing that when Jesus says and asks for a clean heart to be created in his body, in the church, in the people of God, it is ours, it is yours.
[00:24:14] The mercy of God, the tenderness of God is the same mercy and tenderness with Jesus looks out throughout his ministry on the lost and the downtrodden.
[00:24:24] We think about the vigorous action out of which a blotting happens out of a cloth, the rubbing and the scrubbing and removing. It's not a gentle wash. And the cross of Christ was not a gentle death.
[00:24:43] Jesus confessing on the behalf of his flock our transgressions, all the violations of God's law, the rupture of the relationship, seeking not only the removal of all sin, but this is remarkable when he seeks not only the removal of all sin, but also the justice of God.
[00:25:03] In some ways he's praying about his own death.
[00:25:07] Because that's how our sins are removed and that is how we are justified. It's how Paul can say that he is both the just and he is both just and justifier of the ungodly.
[00:25:21] And Jesus confession is not surface level for us. It's not just this or that sin that we commit, but it goes down to our very nature, the brokenness and rebellion into which we were all born.
[00:25:37] What are the promises that we have in Christ in this psalm?
[00:25:43] Well, it's that we will have in repentance as we turn in his name to God, that we have a clean heart, that we are not cast away, that the joy of our salvation, the joy of the salvation that comes from God, verse 12.
[00:25:57] These things will belong to us.
[00:26:02] When we think about the end of the psalm, we can think about it this way as well.
[00:26:08] The kingdom of God is built on faith and repentance. And David prayed this in a particular way. As God would forgive him and uphold him and strengthen him as king. That temporal city of God which pointed to the great and heavenly kingdom would be built up. Do good design in your good pleasure, build up the walls. And as that foundation of faith and repentance is laid, well, that's what Jesus is doing for us, right? We pray as citizens of Zion. We pray as those building blocks of the temple, those living stones, because of what Jesus has done, because of the foundation he has laid. These are the kingly results of the psalm that are guaranteed for us in Christ, the Prince of David.
[00:26:56] Jesus, the Lord of David, Jesus the great king over God's people, gives this to us and so this is what our faith and repentance is built on. And that's why we can take these, the words of the psalm on our lips, not just following David in his actions.
[00:27:19] Here's a man who repented, and it's good to repent, so I follow him.
[00:27:24] You know, good as far as it goes.
[00:27:27] But we take faith and repentance and these kinds of words on our lips, believing in David's greater Son, who is our mediator, our high priest, and our perfect sacrifice. I'll end with these words from Hebrews 7:23 through 25.
[00:27:47] The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. But he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.
[00:28:00] Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
[00:28:12] Jesus, the Son of God, who died for you, intercedes from you, intercedes for you, and because of that, nothing can separate you from the love of God. Because of that, you can stop hiding in shame. You can pour out your hearts to him, and you will be forgiven.
[00:28:33] Let's pray.
[00:28:36] God be merciful to me and to my brothers and sisters here according to your steadfast love, according to your mercy. Blot out our transgressions because of our Lord and Savior, our great High priest, Jesus Christ, who took on our sins so that we would not have to who paid all our debts so that we would not have to.
[00:28:58] Lord, we ask that you would that you would impute our sin to him and impute his righteousness to us.
[00:29:10] We would never dare to ask such a thing except for the promise of your grace, the glories of your love, and the permanency with which Christ is our priest and continues to intercede for us forever. That's why, Lord, we draw close to you. That's why we are praying to you now. That's why we are asking for your forgiveness and asking that as you forgive us and create in us a clean heart and a broken spirit, that you would receive our worship and our praise in our lives, that you would perfect our works as they're done in your name, and that you would build up your kingdom, all on the foundation of Jesus Christ, our cornerstone, who lives forever. We pray this in his name. Amen.
