The Path of True Repentance

I'm going to read for us scripture now.

We're going to read from the book of Psalms, Psalm 51.

I'm going to read the passage and then David's going to come up.

He's going to preach to us from this passage.

This is Psalm 51.

To the choir master, a psalm of David,

when Nathan the prophet went to him after he'd gone into Bathsheba.

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.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being

and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

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

Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore me to the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.

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

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God.

O God, 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 a contrite heart, O God.

You will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then will I delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

Then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Amen.

This is God's holy word.

I've decided not to make the long climb to the pulpit this morning.

It's good to be with you.

My name is David Court.

I'm the associate minister here.

We're going through in the mornings a series in the Psalms.

And we turn this morning to Psalm 51.

Let me take you back in time to the summer of 1974.

It was my first boys' brigade camp.

And if you don't know what the boys' brigade are, then you can speak to me at the end.

It was my first extended period away from home and family.

And the campsite that we were located on was situated on a farm near Kirkcaldy in Fife.

I was joined at the camp by a number of my school friends.

Among them was John.

His father owned the local chip shop in the village.

But unfortunately for John, the camp was not a great experience.

One afternoon, he found himself escorted back to camp by two police officers.

He'd been caught shoplifting in Kirkcaldy.

Now, it transpired that there was a single in the charts by the perils.

It reached, I think, number 10 in the charts in June of that year.

And it had just a one-word title.

And that title was this, Guilty.

And that song, with its chorus, reverberated all around the campsite.

It played on the radio.

It even had a record player.

It was listened to there.

Its chorus was sung repeatedly all across the campsite.

The words of the song simply could not be avoided.

You have been found and convicted of a serious crime

because you're guilty, guilty, guilty.

And just as all those years ago, my friend John could find no hiding place

from those accusing words, guilty.

So, that was surely true of the author of Psalm 51.

That man, of course, was David, King David.

And even though no one had been singing those words to him,

he had heard them nonetheless.

Because you're guilty, guilty, guilty.

It wasn't that David had been caught shoplifting in Woolworths.

No, his theft had been on a far grander scale.

Indeed, for a long time, his crime or crimes had gone unnoticed.

He had appeared to have…

He'd got off scot-free.

So, what brought him to this point,

to this famous prayer petition, Psalm 51?

Well, we can read the story more fully for yourself.

2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12.

2 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

We didn't have time to do that this morning.

It began with a careless and lustful glance at a beautiful woman.

Bathsheba was her name.

And unfortunately for David, she was already married

to one of his own army officers, Uriah the Hittite.

And perhaps David only meant it to be a brief fling,

a one-night stand.

But Bathsheba fell pregnant by him.

And that's when things really started to get complicated.

Uriah was away from home.

He was serving in the armed forces.

A scandal was sure to break.

And so, David sought to cover things up.

He had Uriah sent back home to his wife.

But Uriah wouldn't play ball.

And because his fellow soldiers were still on the front line and fighting,

he did not go to his wife.

And so then David conspired to have Uriah killed in battle.

And David's operation cover-up went really smoothly, without hitch.

And it wasn't long before Uriah was just another casualty of war.

With the husband out of the way, David was free to marry the grieving widow,

adopt her unborn son as a royal prince,

and they could all live happily ever after.

I have little doubt that David hoped that his catalog of sin, adultery, deceit, lies, murder,

would all end there.

He may have broken at least four of the Ten Commandments,

but at least he hadn't broken the eleventh.

Thou shalt not get found out.

He'd covered his tracks well.

The few that were in the know could be relied upon to keep their mouths shut.

It had been an unfortunate episode, but it was now over and done with.

It was in the past.

It could be forgotten.

Life goes on.

And so David, as it were, shut the cupboard door,

turned the key, walked away,

hoping to leave this festering skeleton of sin out of sight and out of mind.

But in doing that, David made a great mistake.

Because in reality, sin cannot be dealt with in such an easy and painless fashion.

It cannot really be locked away in the cupboard and forgotten.

Even if it's not penalized by the law,

even if it's not exposed by the press,

even if it's buried and hidden away from prying eyes,

even if we continue as if nothing had happened,

as I suspect David himself did,

the skeleton still remains,

rotting away in the cupboard.

And sooner or later,

the stench seeps out under the door,

through the cracks,

and begins to suffocate us.

It's impossible to cover up the skeleton of your sin and guilt.

No matter how hard you try,

it cannot be done.

The smell lingers,

and before long,

the odor permeates every room in the house.

There's only one thing to do with that skeleton.

You need to get someone in to clean out the cupboard.

And there's only one person who has the power to do that.

There's only one person who can clean out the skeleton of our sin,

erase the stench of our guilt,

and disinfect our hearts.

And that was the lesson that David had to learn.

He learned it through the ministry of the prophet Nathan.

One day, Nathan confronted David

with what was lurking behind the cupboard door.

And Psalm 51 is the song he wrote

in the wake of that door being flung open

for all to see in his guilt being unmasked and uncovered.

It's an intensely personal composition.

Unlike some of the Psalms,

it's not as carefully crafted and structured.

It's raw.

It's emotional.

In the light of his sin being exposed,

a torrent of different feelings cascade to the surface.

Here is David facing up to what he has done,

to the kind of person he really is.

And it turns out to be an excruciating discovery.

Here is David casting himself,

throwing himself on the mercy of God.

Thomas Chalmers,

one of the founding fathers of the free church,

observed,

this is the most deeply affecting of all the Psalms.

And I am sure the one most applicable to me.

Psalm 51 is perhaps the most famous of the seven,

they're known as the seven penitential Psalms.

It was written because David wanted others

to learn from his experience.

Look at verse 13.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways

and sinners will return to you.

Here is what we need to do

with our own festering skeletons of sin and guilt

that we're often tempted to bury and forget.

Here is David teaching us

the path of true repentance.

And I want to summarize, really,

the message of the Psalm under three headings,

three things from the Psalm

that David wants us to learn.

And the first is this.

There's something that we need to acknowledge.

Something we need to acknowledge.

What is that?

It is our own sin and guilt before God.

I know my transgressions, verse three,

my sin is ever before me.

Before, David had covered it up.

He'd concealed it.

He'd buried it.

But now it has been exposed.

His sin is before him.

He cannot avoid it.

The cupboard door has been flung open.

And he's been forced to acknowledge what lies within.

And in the opening verses of the Psalm,

you'll notice David uses a whole variety

of different words to describe the truth about himself.

He talks, verses one and three,

about his transgressions.

It's a word that conveys the idea of rebellion.

He speaks of iniquity in verse two and five.

That word suggests something of being twisted out of shape

or made crooked.

He mentions sin in verse two and four.

That word means to miss the mark, to fall short.

And then again in verse four,

he uses the word evil.

He openly and publicly acknowledges

the uncomfortable truth

that he had discovered about himself.

And what was that?

It was this.

It was he was a sinner.

I came across this quote from the late Professor MacLeod.

He says,

evangelicalism is not first and foremost

about belief in an inerrant Bible.

Rather, it begins with a certain kind of self-understanding.

The knowledge of our own guilt,

our own depravity,

our own alienation from God.

Before David's guilt could be dealt with,

he had to acknowledge,

admit what he had done.

He had to look into his own heart.

He had to face the awful reality of what he found there.

Now, that's not an easy thing for us to do

because it calls for brutal honesty.

It can be an uncomfortable,

a profoundly unsettling experience.

It can be a shock to ourselves

to see ourselves naked in our sin,

to see ourselves warts and all,

to see who and what we really are.

I've discovered over the years

that people will go,

frequently go to enormous lengths

to avoid acknowledging the truth about themselves.

Why?

Because it's a painful thing to do.

We much prefer to make our excuses,

to rationalize our behavior,

anything to avoid facing personal responsibility.

Did David do this?

Well, I suspect he probably did.

It's what we all do.

I mean, how could Bathsheba have been so careless

as to get pregnant?

How could Uriah have been so honorable?

If only they had done things differently,

it would all be okay.

It's really their fault, not mine.

How readily and easily we spray our excuses

to cover up our sin.

And of course, today we live in a culture

where people are increasingly encouraged

to move responsibility away from themselves.

Huge attitude shift in the past couple of generations.

We are now a society of victims.

It's always someone else's fault.

Now, I'm not saying there are not victims,

and I'm not saying that on occasion

it is someone else's fault,

but it's always someone else's fault.

And that's a very dangerous way of thinking.

Why is that?

It's because without an acknowledgement

of personal responsibility,

there can be no repentance.

There can be no change.

You can't repent of that

which you don't feel responsible for.

And if people continually believe themselves

to be innocent victims

rather than guilty sinners,

then their repentance is impossible.

But then, of course,

perhaps there are others of us here

who are more inclined to take the moral high ground,

to bolster our sense of self

by telling ourselves how much better we are than others.

We run down others.

We assassinate their characters,

all to enhance our own feelings of moral superiority.

It makes us feel a little cleaner.

And who of us here has not done that?

Indeed, David himself exhibited this very characteristic.

On that occasion,

when the prophet Nathan told him the story,

the famous story of the poor man

who had his ewe lamb taken from him

by his rich neighbor,

we're told there in 2 Samuel 12, 5,

David's anger was greatly kindled against the man.

He said to Nathan,

as the Lord lives,

the man who has done this deserves to die.

Friends, how often we do the same.

Our anger is greatly kindled

against this and that and the other.

And yet much of it is a smokescreen

to deflect from our own sin and guilt.

It was Robert Burns who famously said,

Oh, what some power the gift of Gias

to see ourselves as others see us.

But what about the power to see ourselves

as God sees us?

This is what happens to David.

He comes to see his sin as God sees it.

He comes to acknowledge it

for the awful thing that it really is.

Verse 4,

Now that may at first glance appear

a very strange thing for David to say.

I mean, what about Bathsheba?

What about Uriah?

Hadn't he sinned against them

in a most despicable manner?

Well, yes, of course he had.

But what David came to realize

and acknowledge was that ultimately

his sin was against God himself.

That's a really important thing to understand.

Sin is not primarily a sociological

or psychological category.

It is theological.

It is to do with our relationship with God.

Our guilt before God is something

real and objective.

It is something that stands

between us and God.

When we sin,

we are doing more than just

flouting a social convention.

We are offending the living God

who made us.

We are expressing a rejection

of the one who created us

and the one to whom,

in the final analysis,

we are ultimately accountable to.

Sometimes you hear people saying,

you know,

I've let myself down.

Or, you know,

I'm angry with myself.

I should have done better.

It's never enough

just to be angry with ourselves.

We have to realize

that God Himself is angry.

Our sin has injured Him,

provoked Him,

placed us under His

just judgment and condemnation.

And so we need to take sin seriously.

We need to understand it

as an offense against a holy

and righteous God.

And unless we're prepared to do that,

we can never be free from it.

Because the God of the Bible

desires truth in the inner parts.

Verse 6,

Behold,

you delight in truth

in the inward being.

You teach me wisdom

in the secret heart.

Here is where we need

to be made clean.

Here is where we need

to be renewed.

And for that to happen,

the truth must be acknowledged.

What lies within

must be exposed

and opened up

so that God Himself

might deal with us.

There's something

we need to acknowledge.

I wonder this morning

if you acknowledged

that you're a sinner.

And secondly,

I think we have here

something we need to ask for.

What is it that David asks for

in this psalm?

Look at verse 1.

And 2,

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,

cleanse me from my sin.

A little later on,

verse 7 and following,

Purge me with hyssop,

I shall be clean.

Wash me,

I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones

that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins,

blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart,

O God.

Renew a right spirit within me.

There's something to ask for.

Most of us,

by nature,

don't like asking for things.

It's often a kind of last resort.

We sense that in some way,

asking can be viewed

as an admission of weakness.

In asking for help,

we're tacitly admitting

that we don't have the resources

to cope with

or manage on our own.

Asking, therefore,

can often be a sign

that we've come

to an end of ourselves

and an end of our resources.

And here in Psalm 51,

David asks,

what does he ask for?

Well, having acknowledged

the reality of his sin

and guilt before God,

he asks God

to clean him up.

He doesn't ask God

to make him feel better

about himself.

He asks God

to deal with the heart

of the problem.

Clean out the cupboard

of my sin.

Remove that rotting,

festering skeleton of guilt.

And what David

had come to realize,

of course,

was that his sin

went far beyond

the particular circumstances

of his affair

with Bathsheba,

his conspiracy

against Uriah.

Look at verse 5.

Behold,

I was brought forth

in iniquity,

and in sin

did my mother

conceive me.

As you see,

sin is no minor flaw

in his character.

It's something

deeply embedded

in his heart

and mind.

And friends,

that's true

for all of us.

Sin

is the moral defect

that we're all born with,

a corruption

of our nature,

the very heart

and core

of our human personalities

are twisted

and misshapen

by sin.

There is no part

of us

that remains

unaffected.

It is an all-pervasive

influence

in our lives.

This is what the Bible,

this is what theologians

talk when they talk

about human depravity.

It's not that we're all

as bad as we could be.

It's rather that sin

has tainted

and touched

every aspect

of us.

And this idea,

again,

a common one today,

that all human beings

are intrinsically good,

is one that is

fundamentally flawed.

I think it was

the American preacher,

Dale Ralph Davis,

who commented

that he was always glad

when he had,

it was in American context,

when he had members

of the highway patrol

or local police

in his congregations.

Why?

Well, he said,

because you don't need

to convince them

of the depravity

of human nature.

You see,

if we don't understand this,

we're going to be

destined to experience

disappointment

and disillusionment.

Sin is the great problem

we have as human beings.

The evil habits

we cannot break,

the selfish desires

we must gratify,

the weight of guilt

we cannot escape.

By nature,

we stand in opposition

to the purposes of God.

We're in rebellion

against His authority

as our Creator.

We're in defiance

of His will.

We're in disobedience

to His law.

And before a holy God,

we all stand

stained,

dirty,

and unclean.

That is the extent

of our human plight.

And so,

it's not a minor

repair job

that's required.

It's a complete overhaul.

We need renewal,

total renewal,

and regeneration.

David asks in verse 10,

create in me

a clean heart,

O God,

renew a right spirit

within me.

He's asking for

heart transplant surgery.

He's asking the Lord

to give him

a renewed heart,

a clean heart,

a pure heart.

He's asking God

to wash away the dirt

and change him

from within.

I wonder,

have you ever

asked for that?

Have you really,

ever really asked God

to change your heart?

Truth is that

many people

don't want to take

those words

on their lips.

Why?

Because they're radical.

They're scary words.

I mean,

we don't mind God

sticking a little bit

of spiritual elastoplast

on our lives.

We don't mind

Him patching us up

a bit

or giving us

a religious tonic

to pep us up.

But a new heart?

That's way too radical.

Why,

that might mean

everything would have

to change.

Who knows where

all of that might lead?

That's scary.

We much prefer

our cover-ups.

We like things

the way they are.

We like to be

in control.

We don't really

want to change.

And if truth be told,

we don't really

want to be clean.

We're often much

happier wallowing

in our own filth.

for even the smell

from the cupboard

isn't that bad

when you get used to it.

I remember visiting

in a flat

in WrestleRig

many years ago.

And

this guy's flat

was in a horrific state.

It was the smell,

the stench

that made me wretch.

The smell

was unbearable.

He,

however,

was utterly

oblivious.

He'd become

accustomed to it.

For him,

it was

absolutely

normal.

friends,

the desire

to be clean

is something

that God alone

can give us.

Only when

His Holy Spirit

is active

in our lives

can we ever

come to the place

of asking

for a cleansed

and renewed heart.

Will you dare

to ask God

for a new heart

this morning?

Will you dare

to ask Him

to cleanse you

and wash you

and forgive you

and change you?

Something to acknowledge.

Something to ask for.

And then thirdly here,

something

to accept.

Something we need

to accept.

What is that?

Well,

we need to accept

the promises

that God has made

to us

on the basis

of His own character.

We have to take

God at His word.

We have to believe

what He tells us

about Himself.

We have to trust Him

and throw ourselves

upon His mercy.

Look at what David says.

The sacrifices

of God,

verse 17,

are a broken spirit,

a broken

and contrite heart,

O God,

you will not despise.

How could David

be so sure?

How did he know

that God wouldn't

just kind of slam

the door in his face

and tell him

to take a hike?

How did he know

that God would hear

and answer

his prayer?

After all,

God would have been

quite justified

in telling him

to get lost.

So, maybe there's a clue

in the words

of verses 11 and 12.

Cast me not

away from

Your presence

and take not

Your Holy Spirit

from me.

Restore to me

the joy

of Your salvation

and uphold me

with a willing spirit.

God

was no stranger

to David.

In the past,

he had enjoyed

a deep,

a real,

a vital relationship

with Him.

And deep down,

David knew

that God's character

was one of steadfast love

and abundant mercy.

And it's only

on that basis

that he is able

to speak to God.

Yes,

David knew full well

that God

in His righteousness

and justice

could have banished him

forever,

cast him into hell.

But he also knew

that a broken

and contrite heart

he would not despise.

And so,

in faith,

he casts himself

on the mercy

of God

and turns

towards God

in repentance

and faith.

Friends,

that's what we need

to do as well.

If our sin and guilt

are to be cleansed

and forgiven,

if we're to be made new

and stand in a right

relationship with God,

there is no other way.

Repentance,

you see,

occurs not only

when we see

the horror

of our own sin,

but also when,

if I can quote

the words

of the Shorter Catechism,

we have an apprehension

of the mercy

of God

in Christ.

Turning from sin

and towards God

involves us

seeing

that with Him

there is forgiveness.

How can we be sure

that if we come

to Him in repentance

that He will

welcome us,

receive us,

forgive us?

How can we be sure

He will accept us?

Notice how

in the opening verse

David speaks

of God's steadfast love

and abundant mercy.

That's the very

basis and foundation

of His request

for cleansing,

for forgiveness,

for renewal.

Have mercy on me,

O God,

according to

Your steadfast love,

according to

Your abundant mercy.

Blot out

my transgressions.

It's not,

have mercy on me

because I'm important,

I'm very religious,

because of my social

standing,

because of all,

look at all the good

things I've done.

It's,

have mercy on me

according to

Your steadfast love.

And friends,

in this regard,

we have far more

to go on

than did David

because we have

nothing less

than the cross

of Jesus Christ

because it's at the cross

we see most clearly

a God of steadfast love

and abundant mercy.

One of his books

may have told this story

before,

I can't remember,

can never remember

where I've told him

stories,

these stories,

but anyway.

In one of his books,

David,

a man called David Redding,

he relates a story

told to him

by a prison warden

and it involved

a friend of his,

a fellow warden

traveling by train

in the United States

and he's,

the person next to him

is in a pretty poor condition,

very shabby,

very woebegone

and as he got into

conversation

with this young man,

the young man confessed

that he just,

he just got out of prison.

And he,

his whole life

had cast a shadow

over his family,

his criminal record

had brought them shame

and his grace

in the community.

And over the years,

he'd almost lost

complete contact

with them.

And he'd hoped

that the silence

of the years

meant that they were

just too poor,

maybe too illiterate

to write.

So before his sentence

was up,

he hatched a plan

to find out

how they really felt

about him.

And he wrote a letter

explaining,

home explaining

that he would be

on a train

past their little farm

on the outskirts

of town.

And in the letter

he said,

if they were able

to forgive him,

they were to hang

a white ribbon

on an old apple tree

near the tracks.

If it was not

hanging there

when his train

went by,

he wouldn't bother them.

He'd never see them again.

And so as the train

approached the familiar

haunts of his childhood,

the suspense,

the anxiety,

was more than

he was able to bear.

And so he exchanged

seats with his companion

and asked him

to watch and to report

what he saw.

Within a few minutes,

the tree came into view

and his companion's eyes

filled with tears.

He placed his hand

on the young man's shoulder.

In a hoarse whisper,

he said,

it's all right.

The whole tree

is white with ribbons.

And friends,

isn't that what the cross

of Jesus Christ tells us?

Isn't that the message

that this table

this morning

proclaims to us?

The cross is the tree,

white with the ribbons

of God's grace

and forgiveness.

A tree that shouts

to us to come home.

A tree of steadfast love

and abundant mercy.

A tree that tells us

of God's welcome

for prodigal sons

and daughters.

Because here is the God,

you see,

who blots out

our transgressions,

who hides his face

from our sins,

who washes us

and cleanses us,

who restores us,

who doesn't cast us away,

but welcomes us

and embraces us.

We see this God

and his love for sinners

in the cleansing blood

of Jesus Christ.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing.

Nothing but the blood

of Jesus.

Here is a cleansing

deeper than that

of any ritual

or ceremony.

Because on the cross,

Jesus was pierced

for our transgressions

and crushed

for our iniquities.

There the Lord

laid on him

the iniquity

of us all.

Can you believe

and accept that

this morning?

That the God

of the Bible

delights to welcome

sinners?

That he is a God

rich in mercy,

abundant in grace?

Do you really believe

that God is like this?

Well, here's the test.

If you do,

you won't run away

from him.

Instead, you will run

towards him.

And in Jesus Christ,

you will come to discover

for yourself

the God who is running

towards you.

Augustine says

of this psalm,

listen to David

crying out

and cry with him.

Listen to him

groaning and groan too.

Listen to him

weeping and add

your tears to his.

Listen to him

corrected

and share his joy.

What is that joy?

It's the cleansing joy

of divine forgiveness

and salvation.

What are you doing

with your sin?

what are you doing

with your guilt?

Are you one of those

who's just content

to bury it,

cover it up,

hide it away,

pretend it never

happened,

point the finger

at other people?

Or are you going

to learn from David?

Will you acknowledge

that you're in the wrong,

that before God

you're a sinner?

Will you ask God

to forgive you,

cleanse you,

change you?

Can you accept

that he really is

a God of steadfast love

and abundant mercy?

Have you come

to understand

that while your sins

are many,

his mercy

is so much

more?

Will you take

and travel

the path

that David outlines here,

the path

of true repentance?

Let's pray together.

Lord, our prayer

is simply this.

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.

And we pray this

in Jesus' name.

Amen.