SUNDAY SERMON - What Is Godly Sorrow？ ｜ Psalm 51 (Part 1)
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1 hour and 16 minutes
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9
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36
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Summary
Pastor Ken reads from Psalm 51:1-5, "Have mercy on me, O God; according to your steadfast love, blot out my transgressions; cleanse me from my sin; wash me thoroughly from my iniquity; and cleanse my sin from before me; for I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against 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 sin, and in sin did my mother conceive me; This is the Word of the Lord."
Transcript
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Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
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would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?
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This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do
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to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
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this is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate
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if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.
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One final time, our text for today is Psalm chapter 51, verses 1 through 5.
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Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.
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According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
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Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
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For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
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Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
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And Father, we pray that this knowledge of who you are,
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propelling your people into a right response of love.
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That our minds would be filled with the right knowledge of your truth
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so that our hearts would be fueled with a proper and full affection.
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That our hearts would love the God that our minds have come to know.
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Father, as we love you from the platform of a right knowledge of who you are,
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Father, we pray that our love for you would not just be in worship and in adoration.
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and our overall manner of life that as we love you, we would seek to do that which accords
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with real genuine love for you. That is, we would seek to obey your commandments. We pray these
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things ultimately that you might be glorified in all the earth, but we also pray these things for
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the good of those people that you're saving across the globe in our city. And perhaps if you would
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be so kind, even in this very room, especially among our children, we pray these things in Jesus
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name. Amen. I want to provide some context for Psalm 51 at the outset of the sermon today. In
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your notes I've written the following. Psalm 51 is another psalm that is pinpointed as to its exact
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historical origin. The heading of the psalm states this, to the choir master, a psalm of David when
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Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Uriah was murdered, his wife Bathsheba
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was defiled and her baby was sentenced by God to die. All this is clearly seen in 2 Samuel chapter
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11. And yet when the prophet Nathan confronts David, he says this, the Lord also has put away
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your sin. You shall not die. That's 2 Samuel chapter 12 verse 13. It is true therefore that
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god put away david's sin but we must recognize that god did this at great cost to himself see
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god sees from the time of david down the centuries to the death of his son christ jesus who would die
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in david's place romans chapter 3 verse 23 through 26 says this for all have sinned and fallen short
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of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift. No one is justified as the wage
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for their work. The work that you and I have done is sin and the wages of sin is death. So the only
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wage that you and I deserve is the wage that we have merited by means of our work. And the work
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that you and I have faithfully and sufficiently performed is the work of sin. It is the work of
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offending God. It's the work of rebellion. So any man who wants to reap the wage for his work is
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ultimately asking God for help. However, there is an alternative. You can receive wages for your
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work, which is death for your sin, or you can receive the gift that is the wage of grace. That's
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what romans chapter 3 verse 23 through 26 says we're justified that is we are pardoned we are
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declared by god in his divine courtroom as righteous and and guiltless of all charges
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levied against us we are declared righteous justified by what merit on what basis on the
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basis of human work no but what about the basis of human will justified by grace but you have to
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choose to receive that grace no the scripture is clear it is neither by the work of man nor the
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will of man but by the grace of God alone so we are justified by his grace as a gift so that no
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man can boast as Ephesians says through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus so we're
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saved by grace but what is the source of that grace how can God administer grace to rebels
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like you and I without compromising his perfect justice. God can minister to you and I the grace
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which we do not deserve without compromising his own righteousness and justice on the basis by
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means of the finished work of Jesus Christ. The wages of sin is death, but Jesus died. He fulfilled
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those wages Jesus took upon himself your sin and he took from God what your sin deserved
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namely your death he took your sin and he took your death and through faith by grace we take
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his righteousness and the wages of righteousness which is eternal life you and I receive salvation
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eternal life eternal fellowship and communion with the father the son and the spirit that reward
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that wage is ours because it is the wage for righteousness and you are righteous because you
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have received not by your own work but by grace through faith you have received the righteousness
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of Christ and so through faith we receive Christ's righteousness and therefore the wages of
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righteousness which is life and christ by grace received our sin and therefore the wages of our
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sin which is death this is the great exchange this is double imputation this is the gospel
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of jesus christ and it is by this means by the life death and resurrection of jesus that the
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prophet Nathan was able to say with all fidelity, with all truthfulness, and all confidence that he
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was able to approach to confront King David at that time, who had radically sinned and offended
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the holiness of God, and yet he could say without blinking an eye, without any ounce of guile or
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deception, he could say to David, your sin has been put away, and you shall not die. Such a profound
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thing that the prophet Nathan says to David he says you shall not die and now I think the
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profundity of that statement is lost on us because we forget the context and we're not familiar with
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the culture but the reality is that David was the king of Israel so the prophet Nathan he's
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confronting a king who is seated on his throne with all of his guards surrounding him and yet
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here's the reality of all kings. All kings are ultimately underneath a higher authority,
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namely the law of God. And so although David was king in Israel, the anointed king, anointed by
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the prophet Samuel himself, although David was God's chosen king in Israel, David is not superior
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to God himself there is a king greater than David the king of all kings and the lord of all lords
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and even if a king as mighty as David is to transgress the king of king's law the penalty
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is death so when the prophet Nathan says to David the lord has put away your sin you shall not die
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this is an immense relief to David David doesn't laugh at this statement there are many kings in
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our day that if a prophet were to go to them and say the Lord has put away your sin you shall not
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die they would mock that prophet I shall not die I was never threatened to begin with of course I
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shall not die you can't kill me no one can harm me right that's the way that Herod thought and then
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God struck him dead and he was eaten by worms that's the way Nebuchadnezzar thought look at
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this great kingdom that I have established by my power by my strength and the Lord caused him to
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have a depraved mind and to get on all fours and to drink the dew of the grass and to eat locusts
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and insects and to behave as a wild beast for seven years until he is humbled to the point
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where Nebuchadnezzar himself when he's restored to his right mind and restored to the kingship
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he says surely God is sovereign he exalts who he wills and he humbles who he wills there is a king
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greater than I Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest king in that day Babylon was a superpower in the
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same way that the United States of America has been at least a superpower back when we had courage
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and things like that you know but but in the same way whether it be Babylon or whether it be Rome
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whether it be king herod with rome or whether whether it be america and the president of the
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united states the reality is this that there is a king above them all and he has a law and he will
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exact justice and there is no escaping his justice and the wages of sin is death and more particularly
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the wage for the specific sin of adultery was death and is death it is still the law of God
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and it is still relevant today David deserved to die and that's precisely what Nathan says to him
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Nathan says it doesn't matter that you're king of Israel it doesn't matter your status it doesn't
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matter your authority there is an authority greater than yours you have transgressed that
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authority and that authority has a law and his law says that you deserve to die you have murdered
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Uriah you have defiled his wife and committed adultery you are a transgressor of the law of
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God and the wages of sin is death and so Nathan would have been well within his rights as a prophet
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of god to confront even the king of that day and say this is who you are this is what you've done
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off with his head now whether david's generals and soldiers would have responded to nathan
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and actually carried it out is another thing but nathan would have been righteous in saying so
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you have transgressed god's law the penalty is death and the king is not immune to justice
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And yet, Nathan says to the king, the Lord has put away your sin.
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He confronts the king, as we'll see later in the sermon.
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He confronts the king and says, your sin is not minuscule.
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So this is not David, or Nathan rather, backpedaling.
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Nathan is not saying, oh snap, maybe I came on too strong.
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So let me go ahead and backpedal here after the confrontation,
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And, oh, king, you're above the law, and it's not going to cost you your life.
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This statement does not reveal Nathan's cowardice.
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This statement reveals Nathan's understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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The Lord has put away your sin, and you shall not die.
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Because Nathan is afraid to carry out the justice that God's law demands,
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No, because Nathan understands the gospel of Jesus Christ,
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Nathan's not saying, hey, the wages of sin actually aren't death.
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God's decided that that's a little bit too severe.
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And he's also not saying, hey, the wages of sin are death for your average Joe, but you're the king.
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No, Nathan is saying the wages of sin are death for anyone and everyone.
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It's Jesus Christ who was crucified, the scripture says, before the foundations of the earth.
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And God, in his mercy, is looking forward from you, David, to the time of his son and the death that he will die in your place.
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The Lord has put away your sin, but he has not put away your sin lightly.
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The Lord has put away your sin, but it was not an easy thing for him to do.
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but there are things that God cannot do precisely because he is God.
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Turning a blind eye to wickedness is a wicked thing to do.
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So if we think of good and evil as two opposites,
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Paul Washer once said long ago, and I like the quote,
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he said, one of the most terrifying truths in the universe is this,
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That's what I want to hear from my pastor every single week.
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But when we begin to flesh out the scriptural and logical implications of the goodness of God,
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In light of God's goodness, part of being good is punishing all that which is a threat and contradiction to goodness.
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You cannot be good and allow wickedness to have free reign.
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Part of the goodness of a father is protecting his children.
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And part of protection at times is to vanquish evil.
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Not just to some, we always, you know, we think in these superhero idealistic terms, right?
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Well, why didn't the police officer just shoot the gun out of his hand?
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Well, because it's not Halloween, because we don't live in a make-believe,
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You shoot for the kill because we're human beings.
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And the chief way to subdue evil is to actually vanquish evil.
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You know why in Gotham City everything's under distress all the time?
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You put him in prison, he keeps getting out.
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Well, to ultimately protect the city from evil,
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evil and this is the very thing that God has promised to do in his goodness in God's goodness
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he has promised that he will vanquish all that which is a contradiction to goodness and the
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standard and definition of goodness is God himself right so there's not some kind of
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universal standard of goodness that stands outside of God himself that God is God because God is
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living up to this standard of goodness. No, God himself is goodness. He is all that is good and
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he only does that which is good. So God upholds goodness by upholding his own essence, his own
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character. God is the standard of all that is good and God only does that which is in line with his
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own nature. And part of what is in line with God's nature of goodness in doing acts of goodness is
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vanquishing and destroying anything that is outside of goodness. Punishing the wicked,
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therefore, is a good thing to do. That's the point. To punish the wicked is not something
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other than goodness, but it is precisely one of the attributes of goodness. Punishing the wicked,
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aka executing justice preserving justice upholding justice is what a good person does
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so the goodness of god is in fact one of the most terrifying attributes and so god's pardon of david
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is is not simply the lord has put away your sin aka because he's god he gets to do whatever he
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once, and he's decided to forget about your sin. Now, if God ever did that, he would cease to be God.
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He would not be good. His justice would be compromised, and therefore his goodness
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would be compromised. God doesn't put away people's sin lightly. In fact, that's one of the
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indictments, one of the corrections and rebukes that's offered to the false prophets in the days
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of jeremiah you have healed the wounds of my people lightly meaning what you haven't actually
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dealt with their sin you haven't dealt with sin in in in the manner of how severe how serious
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it actually is you have healed the wounds of my people lightly you're putting band-aids
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Not peace between nations, although that's important.
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not even peace within our family or with our friends or peace in our marriage or peace in
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our homes with our children. But the greatest enmity, absence of peace that you and I possess
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apart from Jesus Christ and his finished work on our behalf is a lack of peace with God.
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That's your greatest problem. The greatest problem of humanity is that God is their enemy.
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And guess what? In a war between man and God, man never wins. He does not stand even
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an ounce of hope we don't have peace with God we need reconciliation with God we need forgiveness
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from God we need to be restored in right fellowship and relationship with God and God
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here's the problem we have sinned and God is good which means in his goodness and therefore justice
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he cannot lightly heal the sin of his people he cannot merely put away our sin so when Nathan says
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to King David the Lord has put away your sin you shall not die this is not an exception made for
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David because of his kingship and this is not representing a light healing from the Lord that
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the Lord is is sovereign and he gets to do whatever he wants even if it contradicts his
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attributes of justice and goodness no what it represents is a declaration of the gospel
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the lord has put away your sin and you shall not die is nathan in essence saying jesus died in
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your place nathan is preaching law to david in his confrontation and then he heals the wounds
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inflicted by the law of god not lightly but sufficiently with the gospel you are the man
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you have committed this heinous sin this radical cosmic treason against the god of heaven a king
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far above yourself that's law but then he begins to apply the soul the healing balm of the gospel
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the law inflicts the wound ultimately sin causes the wound the law reveals the wound that's already
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there from sin and then the gospel begins to heal it you are the man you deserve to die law
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and yet the lord has put away your sin you shall not you shall not die gospel this is the gospel
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of Jesus Christ. And so what we see in Nathan's confrontation in 2 Samuel 12, verse 13, we see
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Nathan's confrontation of King David. And when he says, the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not
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die. Ultimately, what we're seeing is two things. I want you to think of it like this. There's the
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objective theological truth, and then the subjective personal reality. So the objective
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theological principle that we see, when Nathan says, the Lord has put away your sin, you shall
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not die it is the objective theological principle of justification by grace alone through faith
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alone and christ alone nathan's statement the lord has put away your sin you shall not die
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it is the objective reality the reason he can make this statement with confidence and with no guile
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is because he is making it on the basis of the objective theological reality of romans chapter
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3, verses 23 through 26, that Christ died for David. However, what we see in Psalm 51,
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our primary text, is not the objective theological reality of how God, in fact, was able to put
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away David's sin and allow him to live without compromising his own justice. That's the doctrine
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of justification. That's Romans 3. But what we see in Psalm 51 is a subjective reality of what
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David felt and what David did in order to lay hold of that grace that is found by justification.
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So the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die. In an objective theological sense,
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But Psalm 51 is the process, the interpersonal process,
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the gut-wrenching emotions and feelings and the prayers and the confessions,
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the climb to the table of mercy that we see David experience.
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It's the subjective reality of how David comes to feel forgiven.
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You shall not die because of Christ dying in your place.
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But Psalm 51 shows us how David comes to feel forgiven.
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Now, one, I would argue, is more important than the other.
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By grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
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But how does David come to a sense of interpersonal confidence
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So Psalm 51 is not outlining for us the doctrine of justification.
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Psalm 51 is outlining for us the process of how a man comes
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to lay hold of the subjective reality of justification.
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because although christ does the work for our forgiveness there is a work that you and i must
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do in order to come to that sense of confidence the feeling of forgiveness christ does the work
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to accomplish our actual forgiveness in objective terms but we have a work to do to arrive at the
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confidence of feeling forgiven and there are many christians who do not do that work and so although
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they are forgiven in an objective sense they do not feel forgiven in the subjective sense so there
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is nothing that man does to accomplish the forgiveness of God objectively but there is
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something that man does in order to come to that place of assurance and the feelings of forgiveness
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and if you while knowing in your head theologically that you're forgiven by grace through faith in
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Christ alone, if you know this theological truth, but you do not feel loved by God, you do not feel
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forgiven, you do not, your conscience is still overburdened with a sense of guilt that you can't
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quite get rid of, that you can't quite absolve. It's probably because you have not done the work
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of Psalm 51 to arrive at the subjective feelings and confidence of forgiveness. So what is that
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work? I believe that in Psalm 51, we see four clear steps. And I'm sure that we could look at
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the text and come up with five or perhaps six, but I think that at least very, very explicitly,
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very clearly, there are at least four steps that David takes in coming to the place of the subjective
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confidence and assurance of forgiveness. Again, I'm laboring the point because I don't want anybody
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to walk away believing a heresy. These are not four steps in Psalm 51 that David takes in order
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to actually, in objective terms, earn God's forgiveness. David gets God's forgiveness. He
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receives it objectively, not by any steps that he took, but by the steps that Jesus took to the
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cross. The steps that Jesus took to Calvary is what earns and merits David's forgiveness in
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objective theological terms. But there are steps that David takes in Psalm 51 that you and I should
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follow the model that he sets that we also must take not to earn forgiveness in objective
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categories, but to feel the assurance and confidence of that forgiveness and in subjective
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categories. Here are the four steps. Number one, we must ask for forgiveness. Well, I'm already
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forgiven. That's what you've been laboring, Joel. You've been laboring the point that we're saved
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and therefore forgiven by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. That's right.
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In an objective sense, any Christian, if you're truly in Christ and born again, any Christian who
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ask God for forgiveness is asking for that which they already have. That's true. And you still need
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to ask. But I already have it. Well, why ask for that which I already have received? You're not
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asking to receive it in an objective sense. You're asking so that God might remind you in a subjective
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sense that that forgiveness is yours. You're not asking to be forgiven because God withholds
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forgiveness from his children until they pray a prayer, a petition asking for forgiveness, right?
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So we do a prayer of confession. I'll use this as an example. Every Lord's Day in our liturgy,
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we do a prayer of confession. That is not meant to convey that when you walk in here on the Lord's
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Day, that until we get to that prayer of confession, that you haven't actually been forgiven,
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right? Because I always give the assurance of pardon from 1 John chapter 1 verse 9. He, if we
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confess our sins, if being a conditional prepositional phrase, if we confess our sins,
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then that's the implication. Then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us
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of all unrighteousness. And so if we're not careful, we can, we can exegete that text in
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first John chapter one, verse nine, and say, there's a condition for being forgiven and being
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cleansed from all unrighteousness. Meaning until I meet the condition, I am not forgiven and I am
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not cleansed of all righteousness. So until I confess my sins, I haven't been forgiven. That is
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not what first John is saying. It's not. No, what first John chapter one, verse nine is saying
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is that there is a subjective sense of feeling forgiven. I don't have time to go into all this
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today, but I've, I've written a book on first John and I go into great links on first John
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chapter one, verse nine, talking about the reality of if we confess our sins, he is faithful and
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us to forgive us our sins and cleanse that that's actually a past progressive verb of cleansing
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meaning you've already been cleansed and you're being cleansed but what's actually taking place
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is you in the confession of your sin coming to a new and restored assurance and confidence
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of that forgiveness and cleansing so what i don't want you to take away from this is that we must
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confess our sins, and until we do, we're not forgiven. No, the Christian, upon the moment of
00:32:16.960
conversion, is forgiven of all their past, present, and future sins. So the moment that Christ saved
00:32:23.900
you, all the sins, not just that you have already committed, and that you are committing, but all
00:32:29.740
the sins, future tense, that you haven't even yet committed, all those sins you've already been
00:32:35.260
forgiven for at the moment of conversion so the moment that any man comes to christ and is born
00:32:41.160
again receives a new heart by the power of the holy spirit and the process of regeneration
00:32:48.420
at that very moment of conversion all your sin past present and future is forgiven it's all
00:32:56.700
forgiven so when we ask for forgiveness in an objective sense an objective theological sense
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we are asking for that which we have already received.
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And yet, it is vital, as David demonstrates in Psalm 51,
00:33:17.000
Although we have already received the forgiveness of God
00:33:20.060
by grace of faith in Christ alone at the moment of conversion,
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it is imperative that we ask for that which we've already received.
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that we ask God for the forgiveness that he's already granted.
00:33:43.240
There's something in the pleading, something in the petition,
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something in the confession, something in the dialogue between man and God
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that does not accomplish something objectively,
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but it does radically change something in our hearts subjectively.
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So, Romans 3, that's the objective reality of how the Lord puts away our sin.
00:34:06.180
And the objective reality of why God, without compromising his justice, does not have to put us to death,
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even though we are sinners and the wages of sin is, in fact, death.
00:34:18.440
But Psalm 51 is the subjective reality, a descriptive text, where we see David, as it were, wrestling with God for assurance.
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What does David do in order to come to this sense of confidence and assurance?
00:34:54.640
Number two, he confesses, not merely confesses his sin,
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But what we see in Psalm 51 is he confesses without any minimization, without any disclaimers, without any excuses.
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Number two, he confesses the severity of his sin.
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Number three, he doesn't just ask to be forgiven and confess the severity of his sin, but he also asks to be restored and preserved.
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But it is another to say, and would you also restore me?
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And number four, he possesses what the Bible calls,
00:35:48.620
and what we see in Psalm 51 explicitly, a broken and contrite heart.
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contrition which i think is one of the most absent virtues in our culture and in our churches today
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contrition that is a profound humility and brokenness over our sin a profound realization
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of our sin and the severity that it actually is
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Number three, he doesn't just ask to be forgiven,
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Now, we'll look at number three and number four,
00:36:51.980
the plead, the petition for restoration and perseverance,
00:36:56.140
and the possession of a broken and contrite heart.
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We'll look at those two, number three and number four,
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in the second half of Psalm 51, next Lord's Day.
00:37:06.400
But for today, we're going to look at the first two steps that David takes,
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and the confession of the full severity of his sin.
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We'll look at that in the first half of Psalm 51.
00:37:23.040
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love,
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according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.
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He's asking God to do this not according to anything inherent in David
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But we see it in Exodus chapter 34 very, very clearly.
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Exodus 34, verses 6 through 7, God said to Moses this,
00:38:21.140
The Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious,
00:38:26.800
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
00:38:30.540
See, that's the very language that David is using in his prayer,
00:38:40.600
The Lord, the Lord, he is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
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Some translations that I prefer to the thousandth generation.
00:39:00.000
Again, that's the second part of what David's asking for in Psalm 51, verse 1.
00:39:08.960
he's the one who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin but it finishes by saying
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who will by no means clear the guilty or some translations say by no means pardon the guilty
00:39:23.600
so what David is doing in the very first verse of our text psalm 51 verse 1 is he is doing the
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first of these four steps in in trying to achieve lay hold of the subjective feelings of confidence
00:39:37.860
and assurance of having been forgiven and the first step is this asking for forgiveness asking
00:39:45.320
for mercy and David asks for this mercy and he pleads for this forgiveness not on the basis of
00:39:53.060
his own person not on the basis of his own words or his own deeds or what he might deserve but
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rather what David appeals to in his petition the petition is asking for forgiveness asking for
00:40:05.020
mercy. And David makes this request on the basis of God's character, not his, not David's character,
00:40:13.100
but he makes his request with confidence on the basis of not who David is and not what David has
00:40:20.240
just done, but rather on the basis of who God is and what God promises to do. That is to be
00:40:26.940
steadfast in his love, steadfast in his faithfulness, and to have mercy to the thousandth
00:40:34.860
generation of those who fear him. That's what David is appealing to. He's appealing to the mercy
00:40:42.260
of God. This is what God had promised to do for all his people in Exodus chapter 34. Just as Moses
00:40:50.400
understood, David also knew that there were guilty sinners, because we see this at the end of Exodus
00:40:56.160
34, that there were guilty sinners who would not be forgiven. Their iniquity would not be blotted
00:41:02.800
out. Their transgressions would not be put away. And yet there were also guilty sinners who by some
00:41:10.100
mysterious work of redemption would not be counted as guilty, but would in fact be forgiven. So
00:41:16.900
David's prayer in Psalm 51 is his way of laying hold of that mystery of mercy. As New Testament
00:41:24.080
believers, we know immensely more of this mystery of redemption than David did. We know Christ.
00:41:31.360
However, we lay hold of this mercy in precisely the same manner which David did. See, Christ has
00:41:38.940
purchased our forgiveness. He has paid the price in full. But Christ's finished work on Calvary
00:41:44.160
does not replace our asking for forgiveness. Instead, Christ's work of redemption is the basis
00:41:52.900
It is the reason that we can ask with confidence,
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because he asked with an appeal to God's character,
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David is echoing the very words of Moses when the Lord revealed to Moses his own character.
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David is saying, I am asking for forgiveness with confidence because I'm asking on the basis of your own character.
00:42:33.360
And I know your character because you revealed yourself to Moses.
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You revealed yourself to Moses as one who is steadfast in love, as one who is steadfast in faithfulness.
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And yet in your revelation of your steadfast love to Moses, you still said that you will by no means pardon the guilty.
00:42:56.340
He knows, I know there are guilty sinners who will not receive God's forgiveness.
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And yet I also know that there are guilty sinners by some means of mysterious redemption
00:43:20.300
And he knows, to be fair, a bit more than that.
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You and I, this mystery of redemption has been completely revealed to us.
00:43:43.960
We see it clearly, this side of the cross, in Christ.
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We see it in his work, in his life, in his death, in his resurrection.
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The mystery of redemption has been revealed to New Testament Christians
00:43:58.340
through the work of Jesus and the writing of the apostles.
00:44:10.020
but the way in which the source of salvation remains the same.
00:44:14.220
David was saved by grace through faith in Christ, looking forward to the cross.
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You and I are saved by grace through faith in Christ, looking back to the cross.
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And for those of us who are looking back, we look back with more clarity.
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It's not the size of our faith, or even necessarily the clarity.
00:44:36.520
of the eyes of faith, but it is the object of our faith that saves. It's the object. And David was
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looking forward to the very same object. He had faith in the same person, namely Christ. And
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therefore, David was forgiven. But what we see once more in Psalm 51 is not just how David was
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forgiven, but the process by which he lays hold subjectively of this reality of forgiveness.
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And you and I, whether this side of the cross or before the cross, as David was, that has not changed.
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The process by which we lay hold of the subjective feelings of forgiveness are still the same.
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We ask on the basis of not our works, not our person, but God's character, that he is merciful.
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And therefore we ask with confidence that the answer to our request for forgiveness will in fact be yes.
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The second thing, and that's all we're going to look at for today, is the first two steps.
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Asking for forgiveness, we've covered that, that's verse 1.
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And confessing our sin, that's verses 3 through 5.
00:45:55.620
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
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David's sin, according to David, is ever before him.
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In other words, the tape of his failure keeps playing on an unstoppable loop.
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Meaning, David has not yet found a way, and I think we're meant to assume, I think what's implied in verse 3,
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is that he has not even attempted to find a way to somehow forget his sin.
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David has not found a way, nor do I believe he has even attempted to try to find a way
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to somehow distract himself from his egregious rebellion and betrayal of the God that he loves.
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David is haunted. He is profoundly and continually and incessantly aware of his sin.
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My sin is ever before me. I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
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So the first thing that I think we see a principle or I should say a characteristic of Christian confession is that the Christian is torn apart by their sin.
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Paul writes, he talks about godly grief and worldly grief, godly sorrow and worldly sorrow.
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a profound and deep godly grief over their sin.
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The person who has never been plagued by their sin,
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they've never said and never really even could say,
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as David said, I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. That is a person who has
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never really been burdened by the reality of their sin. And a person who has never been burdened by
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the reality of their sin, I sincerely question the reality of their love for God. Because that's
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precisely what causes us such grief. That's the source of godly grief. The source of godly sorrow
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is affection for God. It is the man who loves God truly that is so truly broken over his sin.
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The person who is not broken by their sin, the person who doesn't really deeply grieve their sin,
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the person whose sin is not ever before them, is likely the person who has never come to truly love
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God. And as we already talked about in 1 John 4, 19, the person who has never come to love God
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is a person who has likely never been loved by God.
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and we might add further from Psalm 51, verse 3,
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if we're seeking to obey God out of love of God
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we are grieved we're grieved in all the ways that we offend god precisely because we love him and we
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love him because he first loved us so the first thing we see the first characteristic of christian
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confession that is a confession of sin is that the christian does not seek to minimize the severity
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of their sin. And the Christian is broken over their sin. And the Christian cannot easily wave
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off, distract themselves from, or forget their sin. But rather, the Christian, because of their
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profound affection for God and seeing their sin as an offense against the God they love,
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the Christian is haunted by their sin. I say that to encourage and to comfort you.
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if you are haunted by your sin, there is a sense in which that is good.
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Now, for the Christian, David says, my sin is ever before me.
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Now, really what David means by that is, thus far, my sin has been ever before me.
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But for the Christian, there is a point at which the sin is no longer before us.
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And it's no longer before us because it's no longer before God.
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that the Lord has put away our sin as Nathan said to David that the Lord has forgiven our iniquity
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and because we've been forgiven because the Lord has put away our sin we should no longer
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torture ourselves over the memory of it that we can forget our sin but not in a way that makes
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light of sin that we forget our sin only after grieving it and receiving the assurance of pardon
00:51:06.220
from it. See, there are many who profess Christ today who have never really grieved their sin.
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They put away their sin, but not biblically. See, the biblical way to put away our sin
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is to have it first to plague us, first to haunt us, first our sin is ever before us,
00:51:26.520
as David says in Psalm 51 verse 3. See, a lot of us, we want to skip that. We want to go right to
00:51:32.760
1 John 1 9 we want to go right to Romans chapter 3 we want to go right to the doctrine of
00:51:38.320
justification the objective theological reality that our sin has already been forgiven before
00:51:43.420
we even committed it right we received all the forgiveness we'll ever need at the point of
00:51:48.000
conversion so before I even committed this sin post-conversion as a Christian it was already
00:51:53.180
forgiven but but one of the marks of a Christian is that although this sin is not news for God
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it is in fact news for me and so although God has already forgiven me of this sin I am still
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haunted by it I am still broken over it and I want to go through the subjective process
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of going before the Lord with a contrite and broken heart with godly grief godly sorrow
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And I'm sorry for the false accusation I've made about you.
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Because see, all sin, I've said this several times,
00:52:44.680
When we sin, we are ultimately proclaiming something false
00:52:51.220
when we sin we're saying god's not sufficient he's not enough he's not good and great and glorious
00:52:59.240
and gracious we're we're telling a lie about god when we covet we're saying god has failed
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to be a provider he has not given me what i need right like psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd i
00:53:15.260
shall not want well when i want that is when i long for that which god has not given me and i long
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selfishly in a carnal fleshly way what i'm ultimately saying is that god is not a good
00:53:25.540
shepherd that god doesn't lead us besides still waters that he doesn't make us to lie down in
00:53:30.820
green pastures and so i recognize the christian recognizes their sin as a personal assault against
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god a lying accusation against his character to sin is to lie about god and for the christian
00:53:58.080
And so for the Christian, although we've already been forgiven,
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when the Christian sins, although that sin is not news to God,
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and although God has known about that sin and already forgiven you,
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it is news to us as fallen and finite creatures.
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And the Christian, therefore, should immediately begin to grieve over that sin,
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And there is a sense in which the Christian should cry out, as David does in Psalm 51, verse 3,
00:54:26.360
my transgressions, my sin, it's ever before me.
00:54:30.900
I'm grieved by it. I'm plagued by it. I'm haunted by it.
00:54:37.100
So that's the first characteristic of contrition or confession is this sense of being broken over our sin.
00:54:45.640
Verse 4 of our text, David says, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.
00:54:52.640
This does not mean that Uriah and Bathsheba were not sinned against by David and profoundly affected by his sin.
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I mean, you could just kind of hear Uriah from heaven saying, really, David?
00:55:12.800
Seems like you kind of, at least in some way, sinned against me too.
00:55:18.140
I mean, Bathsheba is saying, you took my husband from me.
00:55:29.780
Part of the story is that the child that was conceived by David and Bathsheba died after seven days.
00:55:35.480
and God was very clear in the way that he spoke to David saying that the death of the child was
00:55:41.140
a direct consequence of David's sin so there's a sense in which David sinned against Uriah
00:55:47.140
Bathsheba and even this child Uriah died and so did the child and there's also an indirect sense
00:55:54.880
but still very real that David sinned against the whole kingdom because as the king of Israel
00:56:00.340
the king of God's nation it falls to him to uphold righteousness and he failed to do so
00:56:08.060
so David he says I sinned against you and you only and you could almost just hear everyone
00:56:14.460
if anyone was to to overhear David's private prayer of confession before the Lord in Psalm 51
00:56:19.900
you would assume that just about everyone would be offended against you and you only have I sinned
00:56:25.340
And the whole kingdom of Israel would say, nope.
00:56:35.040
I don't know if there's anybody that you didn't sin against, David.
00:56:48.180
And the consequences of your sin, although for some directly like Uriah
00:56:54.980
but everyone, whether direct or indirect, has been affected by the consequences of your sin.
00:57:00.860
And therefore, David, you have not only sinned against God, you sinned against everyone.
00:57:08.680
It doesn't mean that he hasn't actually sinned against Uriah or Bathsheba or the child or the kingdom.
00:57:15.340
It simply means that David is so profoundly affected by his own sin against God,
00:57:24.060
It simply means that David understood that what makes sin so truly heinous is that it is an offense against God.
00:57:34.620
See, when it comes to sin, hurting our fellow man by our sin is significant.
00:57:43.300
Ultimately, all sin is a direct assault against God himself.
00:57:47.780
David fully acknowledges this reality by saying,
00:57:59.340
So that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
00:58:07.560
If God chooses to damn David to hell, God will be righteous in doing so.
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he seeks to vindicate the character and righteousness of God.
00:58:23.040
This is the way that Christians should think and feel about their sin.
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Against you and you only have I sinned, this is verse 4,
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and done what is evil in your sight, the second half of verse 4 says,
00:58:37.220
so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
00:58:45.060
One, David is not saying that his sin has not affected others.
00:58:50.760
But what we are seeing in the first half of verse 4
00:59:03.820
The Christian is most concerned about their sin
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insofar as it ultimately represents a betrayal of the God they love.
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an offense towards God, the creator of heaven and earth, and not merely the creator, because for the
00:59:19.840
Christian, you're not just sinning against your creator, you're sinning against your savior.
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And if sinning against your creator was not a big enough deal already,
00:59:30.200
to sin against the one who gave his life to save you is much, much more significant. So first and
00:59:37.180
foremost one of the marks of christian confession is this brokenness over sin that's verse three
00:59:43.980
my sin is ever before me but then also verse four it's it's the profound sense that ultimately what
00:59:50.840
makes sin so horrible and heinous is that sin is an act of betrayal against not only our creator
00:59:58.340
but our savior so david is first he's saying when he says against you and you only he's not saying
01:00:04.120
my sin hasn't affected others, but he's saying, I am most profoundly grieved by how my sin is
01:00:10.520
directly against you. And that grieves me the most because I love you the most. David is saying,
01:00:17.000
as much as I loved Uriah, as much as I love Bathsheba, as much as I love my own child who
01:00:22.160
has died, I love God infinitely more. And because I love God infinitely more, all I can think about
01:00:29.260
right now, as I confess my sin before the Lord, is how my sin is against you and you only. That's
01:00:35.740
the first thing. That's the first half of verse four. But the second half is where he says, so
01:00:39.700
that you may be blameless in your judgments. So what David is doing is he's saying this, my sin
01:00:45.080
is against you. Therefore, you are blameless in whatever consequences you allow to take place.
01:00:52.300
see one of the marks of worldly sorrow as opposed to godly sorrow is worldly sorrow is merely
01:01:00.040
concerned with worldly effects of sin so worldly sorrow can say a husband could could commit
01:01:07.940
adultery and say i am so grieved by the way that i betrayed my wife and that's good and right but
01:01:15.560
But if that's the extent of his grief, it is only worldly sorrow.
01:01:20.900
And it will not lead, as the Apostle Paul says, to life, but rather to death.
01:01:26.420
Worldly sorrow is a concern for the worldly consequences of our sin.
01:01:32.660
I'm sorry, and most people aren't even that virtuous in our culture today.
01:01:37.680
They fall into an even more degrading form of worldly sorrow,
01:01:42.480
which is they're only concerned about how their sin affects them.
01:01:46.580
So the first stage is this selfish worldly sorrow
01:01:52.360
that says, I can't believe how I have to now experience these consequences.
01:02:04.780
And then beyond that, you might begin to be concerned
01:02:09.220
not just about your sin and how it affects you,
01:02:13.980
But even that still falls short of godly sorrow.
01:02:33.260
a worldly concern for how our sin affects us and others.
01:02:45.760
So what David is doing in verse four is he's saying,
01:02:53.300
I am overwhelmed and all I can really think of right now,
01:03:14.440
In our sin, we immediately try to think of ways to vindicate God.
01:03:21.480
So when we sin, immediately what we try to think of is,
01:03:24.660
yeah, but I've just been going through a hard time lately.
01:03:27.820
Or, yeah, but you should have seen what they did to me.
01:03:37.040
If somebody confronts me on the way I'm simply responding, the first thing I want to say is, yeah, but do you know what they did?
01:03:54.740
He is only concerned with vindicating, with exonerating, as it were, the character and justice of God.
01:04:05.960
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that, right?
01:04:12.800
So he makes the first half of verse 4, that statement, in order to make the second half.
01:04:17.300
He's saying, I really did sin against God, and my sin is only against God.
01:04:22.100
And what he's saying again is that my sin is first and foremost, in the greatest sense, the ultimate sense, against God alone.
01:04:29.320
I have done what is evil, objectively wrong and evil, in the sight of God.
01:04:34.200
And because of that, you are blameless in your judgment.
01:04:39.120
Part of what David's saying, now it depends on when he wrote Psalm 51.
01:04:43.240
We know he wrote it after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan.
01:04:46.340
I tend to think he probably wrote it after he was confronted by the prophet Nathan and after his son died.
01:04:53.260
Because that was one of the consequences for his sin.
01:04:56.020
Well, one of the things that was prophesied is that because of David's sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, murder and adultery,
01:05:02.100
is that his son, him and Bathsheba's son, would die.
01:05:06.120
And after seven days, the child did in fact die.
01:05:08.540
I think that it's very likely that Psalm 51 comes post the death of his son.
01:05:14.800
And what David is saying in the second half of verse 4 is essentially this.
01:05:18.920
God is justified and blameless in killing my son.
01:05:25.100
Because see, David could be so tempted in this moment.
01:05:27.620
Even though his sin was great, his sin was egregious, right?
01:05:36.880
And it would be tempting for David to say, although my sin is egregious,
01:05:44.060
still, God, seems a bit harsh to kill the child.
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But in that, in that line of logic, in that line of reasoning,
01:06:02.220
Even though we're the ones who committed the evil,
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So I'm the one who sins, and here I am blaming God.
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David doesn't even attempt to point the finger at God
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I sinned against you and you only, and my sin is very great.
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And all the ripple effects, all the consequences,
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I mean, it goes all the way back to the garden, right?
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You think of Adam and Eve and the problem of evil,
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the problem of evil and suffering in the world.
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that's one of the marks of Christian confession,
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So when we see all the consequences of our sin,
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There are multiple rolling effects, rippling effects, and implications for one singular action of sin.
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The Christian looks at all those consequences and says, this isn't God's fault.
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The Christian doesn't give in to the temptation to somehow blame God.
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Rather, the Christian says, this happened, yes, God's sovereign over this, he could have made this not happen if he chose to, but ultimately, the source of all these consequences, these painful consequences, is not God, but me and my choice to rebel against him.
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So, number one, Psalm 51 verse 1, he asks for forgiveness, not on the basis of his own merit, but the basis of God's character, which is mercy.
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The second thing that David does after asking for forgiveness is David confesses his sin.
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and he recognizes that the ultimate, in the ultimate sense, what makes sin so heinous
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is not that we sin against our fellow man, and certainly not that we sin against ourselves,
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but first and foremost that we sin against God.
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And for the Christian, that's not only a sin against our Creator, but a sin against our Maker.
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And then furthermore, what David does is he says that anything that happens as the rippling effects of our sin,
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My sin is the source of all these terrible consequences that have taken place.
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Lastly, in verse 5 of our text, still on confession,
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Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Even those of us who choose to acknowledge the biblical doctrine of total depravity,
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we often use our inborn corruption as a way to diminish our personal guilt.
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For David, the fact that he committed acts of adultery, murder, and deceit are expressions of something far worse.
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He is by nature a sinner, meaning that if God does not rescue him from his condition of being a sinner,
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he will ultimately eventually do even more evil than what he has already done.
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So David does not merely possess remorse and resolve, but rather David realizes and repents.
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This is Nathan's confrontation, the exact words.
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There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.
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But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought, and he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children.
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It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.
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Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him.
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But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.
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Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man.
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And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.
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And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.
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When Nathan confronts David over his sin, he doesn't merely say, you did the deed.
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And so I think one of the final characteristics of a Christian confession of sin is this.
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We don't just have remorse and regret over the wrong deed that we did.
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but rather we have a profound humble realization of the man that we are. See the Christian doesn't
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just say I so regret this bad thing I did. No the Christian says I am horrified and profoundly
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concerned over the person that I am. So to make it kind of a painfully clear illustration if it
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comes to pornography. The Christian doesn't merely say, I can't believe I did that. No,
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the Christian says, what I did says something about who I am. It's not just, I did this perverse
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thing. The greater problem is that I am a perverse man. And so the Christian, and this is what we'll
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see next week, is he doesn't just stop with petitioning and asking God for forgiveness of
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sin, but he also asked God for restoration and transformation and preservation. The Christian
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recognizes that their deepest problem is not just the wrong actions they've committed, but their
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deepest problem is their condition of being a sinner. So the Christian recognizes that even if
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God were to grant my request of pardon for this particular sin, that doesn't solve the ongoing
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future problem that I'm still a sinner by nature and that therefore my problem is not just sinful
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actions but a sinful condition that will lend towards even greater sin if gone unchecked again
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sometime in the future and so Christian confession of sin doesn't just ask for forgiveness or pardon
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for the sinful actions that were previously committed but sinful confession of sin recognizes
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not just what we've done, but who we are apart from the grace of God, and therefore it doesn't
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just ask for pardon for past sin, but it asks for present transformation and future preservation
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to keep us from sinning again against the God that we love. So all that being said,
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we see these four steps in Psalm 51. We'll look at step three and step four next week,
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lord willing but what we saw today is that we must ask for forgiveness and ask for mercy on the basis
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of god's character that's the first step and then secondly we must confess our sin and as we do we
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must not minimize it we must confess the full severity of our sin we must recognize that
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ultimately our sin is an offense against god regardless of its effects against our fellow man
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We should, in our confession, have a desire to vindicate God, not putting any blame on him.
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And then lastly, in confessing our sin, we must recognize that the ultimate problem is not merely our wrong actions, but our own sinful condition.
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It's not merely what we've done, but who we are.
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And that the ultimate solution is not just that God would forgive that one instance of sinful action, but God must actually change and transform us as sinners into saints.
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And that all of this is accomplished by the work of his son, Jesus.
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We pray that you would bless it to your people.
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I pray that you would be glorified and that we too would follow in the example of David
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as those who are broken and contrite, confessing our sin to you in a way that honors you and
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ultimately a way that possesses godly sorrow, leading to repentance, ultimately leading
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That's the Theonomy and Post-Millennialism Conference, 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th,
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Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Theonomy and Post-Millennialism.
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We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
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That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin.
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But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
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If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
01:16:21.840
Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
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We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night
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where you'll be able to write in questions and get them answered.
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We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas-style barbecue meal on Friday
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Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.