THIS COULD ONLY HAPPEN IN A DREAM, but go with me on this. Imagine it’s August in Florida. It’s Saturday morning. The humidity level is about 95 percent. The temperature is already in the mid-80s. You are outside, with the mid-morning sun burning down on you as you finish mowing the lawn. And you smile as you think to yourself, “Ahh, this is great. This is exactly why I moved to Florida.” You’re covered with dust and dirt and yard clippings and glad no one is close enough to get a whiff of your sweat soaked shirt.
Suddenly, a black suburban pulls into your driveway and a couple big men in black suits and sunglasses invite you to step into the car. You ask if you can go clean up first but they bluntly respond, “Sorry, no time for that,” and escort you to the back seat of the suburban. No explanation is given as they put you in the back seat. After a short drive, they deliver you in your stinky, dirty, sweat-soaked, finery to a meeting with the President of the United States. Television cameras are rolling. Everyone you see is wearing a nice tailored suit except you.
How do you think you’d feel as you stood there before the President and all the news cameras? Out of place? Embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Ashamed?
Something like this actually happened to the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah. In a vision, he found himself standing before God’s throne in heaven. The manifestation of God that he could see was blindingly beautiful. God was surrounded by terrifying angels and there was smoke and an earthquake.
“And I said: Woe is me. For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5).
An ordinary man, suddenly and unexpectedly found himself standing before God in all his majesty and holiness. He felt dirty, terribly uncomfortable, terrified, and deeply ashamed.
When we come to worship on a Sunday morning, we gather in a comfortable, air-conditioned room, with a group of people we know. We say we are gathering in the presence of God to worship him, but we can’t see him. We can’t see God in all his holy splendor or those terrifying angels around his throne. Instead, we see our friends, sitting politely nearby looking quite proper.
On most Sunday mornings in most churches, people rush in at the last minute. Some look like they just rolled out of bed. Some look a bit upset because they came in late and had to sit closer to the front because the back row was already full. Some even look a bit upset because they can’t believe someone took their seat.
What do you see when you walk into your church building? Most church buildings in this country look a lot like a concert hall or theatre or lecture hall: all the seats are arranged to face a platform. So it’s easy to assume we, the people who gather, are the audience watching a few people giving a kind of religious performance. We’re spectators.
But in biblical thinking – every person in the congregation is on the platform. There is only one person in the audience. The musicians and the pastor are there to help you by reminding you of your lines. The pastor calls you to worship: “Come, let us worship and bow down…” The musicians invite you to respond to God by giving you words to express praise to the King. As he preaches, the pastor reminds you of who the King is and what it means to belong to him by God’s grace. In biblical imagery, God, the King, is the audience. He is the one watching as we worship.
If you really understood that you are sitting and standing and kneeling in the presence of God when you gather for worship with God’s people, how would that make you feel? It might feel like you showed up in dirty, sweaty, stinky yard-working clothes for an interview with the president. But the contrast is far, far greater than that.
God is infinitely holy. He is absolutely all-knowing. No word you spoke, nothing you did, no thought, no desire, no attitude you had this day, yesterday, or any other day of your life is unknown to him or hidden from his sight. Before him we are absolutely laid bare. It is impossible to hide…anything.
It’s no wonder that in older traditions in the Church, worship began with personal confession of sin. The Didache (a document that is not in the New Testament but dates from the first century, giving instructions for the church based on apostolic teaching) has this line: “In church confess your sins, and do not come to your prayer with a guilty conscience” (Didache 4:14).
What you need
What do you, a sinner, need most when you stand before God? You need a Savior. And that is where worship has to take us: to a Savior for sinners. God pardons those who come to him in repentance and faith. God does not treat us as our sin deserves or repay us according to our iniquity. In love, he has shown us grace and mercy. That’s why some of the New Testament letters begin like this: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 1:2). Before we say anything else, we need to know that God forgives us and welcomes us.
There should be a kind of gospel flow to the worship service. In some ways, a worship service is a kind of gospel re-enactment. It moves from confession of sin to a reminder of pardon. Then it moves to praise and thanksgiving. When you are assured of pardon for your sin, the result should be joyful expressions of thanksgiving and praise, a new willingness to hear God speaking to you through his Word, and a renewed commitment to give your life to him in obedient service.
Only God can forgive sins. And for those who know they are sinners, this is the starting point of worship. God loves truth, so if we’re going to worship him honestly, if we’re going to sing hymns and songs that talk about love for God and devotion to him, we need to start by being honest about the sin that is there in our hearts.
If you are going to ask God to forgive your sin, you need to be aware of what your sin is. You need to be specific: what exactly do you need God to forgive? How have you sinned against him?
As we saw in the last chapter, King David had been brought suddenly to an almost overwhelming awareness of how deeply he had offended God by his sin. As he begins to pour out his heart before God in Psalm 51, there is a very keen awareness of what his sin deserved. David did not offer God a general prayer of confession – “Please forgive me if I have sinned.” He was honest about his sin.
You have probably had people apologize to you in a very general way: “If I have offended you or upset you, I am sorry.” That’s not very helpful and not very sincere. If someone is coming to you to ask your forgiveness, you want them to be specific with you. You want to know that they truly understand specifically what was offensive or hurtful. And for the good of our own souls, we need to learn to repent of “particular sins particularly.”
David was guilty of adultery, murder, and covering up his scandalous sin. Through the prophet Nathan, God said to David, “You have despised my word… you have despised me…you have utterly scorned me…” David didn’t defend himself. He didn’t offer excuses. You see the truth of the Bible’s claim that David was a man after God’s heart in the way David responded: he was contrite, that is, he was genuinely sorry for what his sin had done to God. In David’s case, his sin was public. His confession needed to be public for David’s own spiritual wellbeing and to teach others about God’s grace.
You also see in Psalm 51 a genuine repentance. David turned from his sin toward God. More than anything, he wanted to be restored to a right relationship with God. His repentance made it clear that he did not have the power in himself to change his heart. He came to God in dependence, asking God to change his heart.
David’s prayer
Let’s look at the words David used in his prayer.
First, notice the words he used to describe sin:
“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 iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
“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.”
That’s quite a list: transgressions, iniquity, sin, evil. To understand what he’s saying, we need to define those words.
A transgression is a violation of a norm or standard that is done knowingly, not by accident. David did what he knew was wrong. He crossed a moral boundary that he knew God had established clearly.
The word, iniquity, means to twist or bend something that is straight or to deviate from a standard.
Sin means to fall short or to miss the mark. Sin is an offense that disqualifies. It is a relational term – it is an offense against someone with whom you have a relationship, ultimately, against God.
Evil is a term most of us rarely use to describe our actions, thoughts or desires. We don’t like to think of anything we say or do as evil. For something to be evil means it is devoid of good – it is unrighteous.
Cry for mercy
David is standing deep in a hole, dug by his own choices, looking up and seeing his need for God in a way someone who doesn’t see his sin could ever understand. And he pleads with God, “Have mercy.” He’s asking God to show him favor that he has no right to demand or claim. He appeals to God’s character when he asks for mercy, “according to your loving kindness.” He knows God is full of unfailing love. He pleads for “abundant mercy.” God’s mercy is more than compassion for someone who is hurting. He shows mercy even to people who spit in his face. By crying out for mercy, David is admitting his crimes and acknowledging the punishment he deserves. He can’t demand forgiveness from God. He can only plead.
Notice the petitions he uses as he asks God to forgive him: “purge me, wash me, blot out my transgression.”
Sin deserves punishment – it is a legal or judicial matter. A standard has been violated, laws have been broken. Knowing his guilt, David asks for mercy. But sin also defiles the human heart, so you find David asking God for cleansing, for inward washing so he can praise and worship God. And sin disrupts relationship, so he pleads with God to blot out his transgressions and restore a right relationship. His guilty conscience is like dirty clothes, so he asks God to launder his conscience: “wash me thoroughly.”
When you are really contrite before God, you don’t pull up your track record of good deeds to kind of offset the weight of present guilt. You don’t say to God, “I know what I did is bad, but I want to remind you of all the good things I’ve done.”
Furthermore, a contrite person doesn’t blame others for their part in his sin. David doesn’t say anything in this prayer about Bathsheba. How guilty was she in all this? When you read about David seeing her bathing, sending a messenger to bring her to him, and of David’s adultery with her, you don’t find any evidence of Bathsheba saying no to David. As far as we know, she didn’t refuse to come when the servant came to invite her to meet with the king. She didn’t try to tell her husband what had happened when she had the opportunity. She seemed to cooperate in David’s attempt to cover up her pregnancy.
I’m not blaming Bathsheba. In that time and place, she may have felt like she had no power to deny the king. I’m just pointing out that David doesn’t blame her at all in his prayer. He’s talking about his own sin, not hers. He makes it personal: “I know, my sin, before me.” Since sin by definition implies a standard that has been violated – God’s standard – all sin is ultimately against God, though it involves and impacts others. And only God can judge and forgive sin.
David’s confession
We looked at the beginnings of David’s confession in the last chapter. Let’s consider the rest of it.
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart” (Psalm 51:5-6).
David is not blaming his parents or saying there was something sinful about the way he was conceived. He’s not saying his mother was a sinner. He’s admitting his own moral powerlessness. He was born a sinner. From an early age, he was aware of right and wrong. But from the moment he was conceived, he has had a sinful heart.
Confession involves honesty before God. This is the truth: we are born with a sinful nature that leads us inevitably to sinful choices. God has built into all of us a basic sense of right and wrong. But we choose to violate our own consciences.
“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).
“Purge me with hyssop” is an allusion to Old Testament rituals of cleansing. A priest would dip a branch of the hyssop plant into water (or sometimes blood) and sprinkle the water on the people as a sign of cleansing. David’s sin defiled him and made him unclean before God. He’s asking both for forgiveness for the guilt of his sin and for cleansing from the stain of sin.
The rituals of atonement in the Old Testament foreshadowed the sacrifice Jesus would make on the cross. And the New Testament picks up the imagery of priestly cleansing from sin through sprinkling of blood:
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19-22).
As an Old Testament believer, David didn’t know how God would accomplish atonement through the substitutionary sacrifice of his own Son, but he is expressing his faith in God’s atoning work: “cleanse me like this, and I will be clean.”
“Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice” (Psalm 51:8).
On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would lay his hands on a goat and confess the sins of Israel, symbolically transferring Israel’s sins to that “scapegoat.” The goat was then driven out into the wilderness, away from the camp of the people of Israel. In this visual symbolism, God taught his people that their sins would be laid on a substitute and carried away from God’s presence. The priest then took a second goat’s blood into the most holy place in the tabernacle and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat.
The people couldn’t see the mercy seat, since only the High Priest was allowed to enter that room in the tabernacle (and later, the temple). But this symbolism taught them to understand how God saves. We deserve to die for our sin. Payment must be given to God for sin because God will not participate in any injustice. To overlook our sin as though we were not guilty would be unjust. But God accepts the death of a substitute in our place. When the priest sprinkled blood on the mercy seat, blood came between God and the sinner. On the basis of God accepting the blood of atonement, the priest could pronounce pardon. Those who looked in faith to God for forgiveness could know they were forgiven and accepted.
When you know you are guilty and deserve punishment for your sin and then hear God’s pronouncement of pardon, the response is joy and gladness.
David is alluding to God’s atoning work when he says, “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.” He’s saying, “Let me hear words of pardon and know that I will not be judicially crushed for my sin.”
Restored relationship
“Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities” (Psalm 51:9).
David’s concern is not just to escape the punishment he deserved. He cared about what his sin had done to his relationship with God. He wants nothing to stand between himself and God. If God does not turn his face away from David’s sins and put them behind him, David’s sin will continue to mar his relationship with God.
If I say something to my wife that hurts her feelings, she doesn’t suddenly stop being my wife. She doesn’t stop loving me. But if I don’t come to her and acknowledge the wrong I’ve done, it wounds our relationship. I can’t feel close to my wife or expect her to feel close to me if I am unwilling to seek her forgiveness and be reconciled.
God doesn’t stop being your Father when you sin. You don’t lose your status as an adopted child of God. But you won’t feel close to God when you hold on to sin. It will distance you from God. So David asks God to blot out his iniquities. Let there be nothing to mar his closeness to God.
Honest repentance is concerned about a restoration of an open and close relationship with God, not just about what other people might think of you if they know how you have sinned.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
This is where repentance is different from just confessing your sin.
The prophet, Nathan, had told David that God forgave his sin and that he was not going to die, as he deserved, for his sins. But, just hearing an announcement of pardon is not enough to purge his deeply stained conscience. He needs inward spiritual grace from God, grace to believe God accepts him because the guilt of sin has been turned aside. He needs the grace to believe God has forgiven him. So he asks for inner transformation. He asks God to give him a changed heart and a right spirit.
People who confess their sins certainly feel a sense of relief. It feels good to not have to hide failure any longer. But a repentant person recognizes his weakness and inability to change. A repentant person knows his need for God to change his heart.
David says, “Create in me a clean heart…” If you don’t know that God cleanses you from the defilement of sin, that he washes away the dirtiness, you’ll still feel dirty. You’ll keep brooding on your failure, and your sin will define you. If your sin continues to define who you are, that is likely to produce repeated failures.
God is the Creator. We can’t create a clean heart in ourselves, but God can. He can do what we are incapable of doing for ourselves.
“…and renew a right spirit within me.” A right spirit means an internal attitude that is firm in purpose rather than a stubborn, rebellious spirit. He’s not asking God to give him the gift of salvation (regeneration – a new heart). That God had regenerated his heart is evident in his repentant attitude. Instead, he’s asking God to restore the kind of steadfast disposition he once had.
Intimacy with God
“Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).
In the ancient world, to be cast out of the king’s presence meant being banished from the realm because you’ve displeased the king. For David to be cast away from God’s presence would mean David’s relationship with God was over. If God had cast him away from his presence, we wouldn’t be talking about this psalm.
And what is God’s presence? In one sense, every human being lives every moment of life in the presence of God. This is an inescapable reality. But for the people in the time of David, the presence of God was located in the tabernacle. In the Exodus story, when the tabernacle was completed, the glory of God came and settled over the tabernacle visibly. The glorious cloud that went before the people settled over the tabernacle. That meant God’s presence was in the midst of his people. For David to be cast away from God’s presence would mean being sent away from Jerusalem, away from the tabernacle, no longer welcome to come before God in worship.
When God showed David his sin, David’s greatest concern was that he might lose the closeness of relationship with God that he longed for more than anything. That’s the attitude of a repentant sinner – not just avoiding punishment, but a broken heart over what has been done to the relationship with God. There is an intimacy with God in this psalm that few other psalms can touch. Whatever temporal punishment would follow from his sin, he’s asking God to keep him near the place where God’s presence dwelt with his people.
“…and take not your Holy Spirit from me.” The possibility of God removing the Holy Spirit from David did not mean taking away David’s salvation. When David was anointed as King, God’s Spirit set him apart to that calling and empowered him for that task. So David is asking that God not remove that empowering spirit that made him king.
To ask, “Do not take from me” implies that God had not done this. When King Saul sinned, God removed that anointing power from him. When Samson sinned, God took away his power. David is asking God not to do that in his case.
A willing spirit
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12).
If David is going to keep on as king, with all the fallout that will result from this public sin, he needs a willing spirit, a kind of strength that comes from God to sustain joy in God’s grace. He wanted a willing spirit – not being forced to suck it up and carry on as king – but a joy in the calling, a desire for it, and a willingness to serve God in that capacity.
What we need when we repent of our sin is a willing spirit to do what God says. We can’t work up that kind of willing spirit by our own resolve and determination. We need God to give us that willing heart. Repentance involves an awareness of our own inability to do what we know God commands. All our resolutions and determination to do better will fall flat. We need God to continue to stir up a desire to obey him.
“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” (Psalm 51:13-15).
At first these words seem out of place in a prayer of confession and repentance. David is the big transgressor. But he’s talking about teaching other transgressors about God’s ways and helping sinners return to God. Why does he talk about teaching others God’s ways?
A truly repentant person cares more about God’s reputation than he does about his own. A repentant person is not self-absorbed and worried about what other people will think of him if they know about his sin. He’s concerned about God’s glory. Having been forgiven much, David had something to offer to other people who had fallen in sin and longed to be forgiven. If God could pardon David for adultery and murder, how much more would he forgive the sins of other people?
“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” (Psalm 51:16-17).
We usually think of someone with a broken spirit as having lost all vitality and energy for living. To break a horse’s spirit is to subdue him, to break his wildness so he can be ridden. David is saying his entire disposition has been humbled under God’s mighty hand. A humble spirit is there in someone who knows he is helpless without God’s grace. A person with a broken and contrite heart is the opposite of a self-made, hard-hearted person.
“Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar” (Psalm 51:18-19).
Again, David’s concern is for God’s reputation and glory. If Jerusalem flourishes, its influence on the world increases, which brings greater glory to God. That’s the desire of a person whose heart has been made tender to God by God’s grace.
Finding mercy
When you hear people offer confession for some failure or sin, it often feels like it’s all a self-centered show: I want to feel better. I want relief. I want my reputation restored. David was concerned more about God’s glory. David knew his sin had provided an occasion for God’s enemies to mock God and blaspheme. That broke his heart.
When you love someone selfishly, your focus is on what they can do for you. When you love someone well, your focus is on what is best for them. David’s love for God is evident in his longing for God’s name to be honored and glorified, despite the damage he had done to God’s reputation.
When you are made aware of the depths of your sin, you know what it is like to stand before God in his terrifying holiness and feel ashamed and dirty. What you need most when you are aware of your sin is a Savior. You need to know that Jesus has bridged the gap that separates you as a sinner from God in his holiness. You need to know that he took the punishment your sin deserves and bore God’s just wrath in your place that you might be washed, cleansed, sprinkled clean.
Jesus told a story about two men who went to the temple to pray. One told God about all the good things he had done and why he was worthy of God’s love. The other could only say, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” Jesus said it is sinners who find mercy – those who are honest about what is in their hearts, honest about their guilt, transgressions and sin. It is sinners who come to God asking for mercy who find righteousness before God.
When you know you’ve been forgiven much, love for God grows stronger and praise for God becomes more joyful. Repentance is a gospel grace. It doesn’t mean cowering in shame and guilt. It means running to God for grace and finding peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The more God in his grace leads you to see your sin and repent of it, the greater your understanding of what Jesus has done for you will be, and that means wonder, joy, and gratitude will grow as you repent and believe the gospel over and over again.
May God make us repentant people.