Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Continuing in the Psalms, our Songs of Faith.

These are not just historical curiosities, these are precious songs and prayers for God’s people to use.

But, we use them through Jesus.

Jesus is our worship leader.

He is our Great High Priest and our anointed King.

All the Psalms find their fulfillment in him either on Jesus lips, or with him leading us in worship.

What do we do with Psalm 51 and other psalms of repentance?

Jesus never sinned!

How can he lead us in a prayer of repentance?

Well, although Jesus himself never sinned, as God incarnate he can still teach us what good repentance looked like.

He can

We’re going to look at this Psalm in 3 parts.

The first part is really just understanding the context of the Psalm and then we’ll look at the body of the Psalm in two parts.

The Context (title)

We don’t always get the background to Psalms.

Dunno about you, but if I’m ever listening to a musician talking about the lyrics to their songs, one of the most infuriating things they can do is say that their lyrics are open for each person to find their own meaning.

I know what they’re trying to do, they don’t want to minimize the meaning of the words to a particular set of circumstances.

That’s one of the things about the Psalms without titles that is good for us, not that it’s up to each of us to find our own meaning, but that they have a certain timeless quality.

It’s easier for us to identify with the words in worship and prayer.

But when there is a clear circumstance that was the basis for a psalm, like Psalm 51, we should sit up and pay attention.

We’re being signalled that there is something about the context that helps us to understand the Psalm and use it better.

Psalm 51 was written after a very specific sent of circumstances, see what it says:

We read some parts of this story earlier.

These events are recorded in 2 Samuel 11 & 12

King David was hanging out at home instead of going off to fight.

He was spying on a woman taking a bath, and he liked what she looked like, so he used his authority set up private rondevous.

Where he had his way with her.

This is clear cut adultery.

The word is out of fashion these days, we like to say “cheated” or “had an affair.”

All sexual activity outside of a man-woman marriage is sinful - the bible calls it sexual immorality.

However, adultery is "worse” per-se because not only is it sexual immorality, it is breaking covenant vows and inciting the other person to break their vows.

We don’t know how willing Bathsheba was, but it is very clear that David was the instigator and the one at fault.

When it becomes clear that David got Bathsheba pregnant, and that the one-night-stand would be found out, David tries to get Bathsheba’s husband Uriah home from war to spend some “special” time with his wife to make it look like the child was Uriah’s.

All the scheming comes to nothing, because Uriah is a more upstanding man than David, and so to cover his tracks David has Uriah killed, but made it look like a heroic death on the battlefield.

Although it looks like David got away with it, God sees it all, and he is not happy: “the thing David had done displeased the LORD.” 2 Sa 11:27.

So God sent the prophet Nathan to speak to David.

David is convicted of his sin.

And a very interesting exchange happens:

The Lord has taken away your sin.

But!

There will still be consequences for your actions.

There was irreparable damage caused by his sin.

God forgave him, and saved his life but he still had to live with awful effects of his actions.

It’s in the midst of these circumstances that Psalm 51 is set.

David is penitent and looking to God.

God will save his life.

This shows us that whatever we have done, we too can come before the Lord in repentance and find cleansing.

I’m pretty sure that none of us have used our authority to have and affair and then have the spouse killed so they won’t find out.

But, even if you had, you could still come and find forgiveness.

Our deepest most shameful sin can be forgiven.

We can have our sin taken away.

We can find eternal life!

Lusts, coveting

Sexual immorality

Adultery

Murder

Misuse of power

Planning cover-up for sin

All of it can be cleansed.

The Cleansing (v1-9)

With the context in mind we can now look to the body of the Prayer.

One of the first things you should see is that this prayer arises out of a covenant relationship.

David belong to the LORD, and the LORD to him.

David is one of God’s people, chosen, and anointed with the HS.

Although he should be kicked out of God’s kingdom and disinherited, David makes his appeal to God’s mercy and love.

David pleads for mercy.

He knows he deserves otherwise.

He has no “rights” only reliance on God’s grace.

Where does this mercy come from?

God’s unfailing love (hesed), his great compassion.

And he wants this character of God to blot out his sin.

So that it can’t be seen.

Whats another was to talk about this?

Purity.

Sin is like filth or a stain on our hearts, so Dadiv pleads for washing and cleansing.

Much like the picture we saw yesterday in baptism!

He wants to be clean before God.

This is our plea too.

Our hope.

Because otherwise we will not be able to stand before the Lord.

David goes on to flesh out his need for forgiveness...

Have you ever experienced this in v3?

When your sin is always in front of you.

You know what you’ve done and it is always on your mind.

It is eating you up.

You have no peace!

There’s two ways to deal with this, either push it down and try to cover it up, or bring your sin before the Lord.

One way is the way to have your conscience dulled and the other is the way to eternal life!

David says something quite hyperbolic - against you only have i sinned.

Now obviously he sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, but sin is ultimately against God and in rebellion towards Him, having done what is evil in God’s sight.

Because David has sinned against God’s holy law, God can justly bring a guilty verdict and all it’s consequences, even the judgment that the effects of his sin would cause generational strife.

David knows that he is trapped in his sin, that it pervades his life:

This doesn’t mean His mother was sinning when David was conceived, it means that David has been a sinner from birth.

Although there is “innocence” in youth, we are still radically effected by sin to our core.

We are totally infected by sin.

It is passed generation to generation from Adam.

Yet, despite being totally depraved David knows that God calls us to righteousness.

God desires that we turn away from sin and be faithful, even from the womb!

God delights in truth in the inward being, and he will teach that wisdom to us.