A Clean Heart
Pastor Zach Pummill • September 05, 2021
Sermon Overview
PSALM 51
Psalm 51 is one of the most famous psalms in the Bible. How does it speak to the self-absorbed and show us the symptoms of the self-absorbed life? David shows us in his psalm what he lost sight of and came to see anew through repentance.
Sermon Transcript
If you're a guest with us today, we are really glad to have you. You find us really in the middle of a short series that we were doing on the Psalms. And our psalm this morning is one of the most well-known Psalms in the Bible: Psalm 51. I
t's a psalm that gives us a window into the moment of David's greatest failure. It's also a psalm that gives us a picture of how God met him in that failure. It's a psalm that gives us a window into the transforming, life-changing, renewing power of repentance.
And that story of David's failure is told in 2 Samuel 11 and 12. And it opens by saying that it was the time of year when kings would go out to wage war. And Israel was off at war. Israel and its armies were off warring against the Ammonites. But instead of being with his men to rally them, to support them, to encourage them, David's at home in Jerusalem, he didn't go. He decided to stay home. Even though we don't really know why he decided to stay home, the story is pretty clear about what's really going on - David is only thinking about David. Instead of thinking about the welfare of his kingdom and his responsibilities, he's checked out. Instead of seeking the face of God on behalf of his people, his armies, and his kingdom in these trying times seeking wisdom, he's pursuing his own desires. David is only thinking about David. And he's spiraling downward into a completely self-absorbed life. And it's all about to come to a head.
There's no one around to entertain him. There's no generals to honor him. The city is essentially emptied of his praising subjects. The barracks no longer have the soldiers that praise and adore him. And when we do meet him, perhaps the way to think of him is that he's, you know, not showered in days, roaming around his palace just in a bathrobe. He's watched everything on Netflix. Nothing interests him anymore. He's already scrolled through his Instagram and Facebook feeds a dozen times already, but he just keeps reaching for his phone out of habit. He checks his email one more time just in case he got something really important since he last checked it five minutes ago. He's tired of all his trinkets and toys. He's been there and he's done that, he just wants a thrill. David just wants to feel alive. David wants to feel like the man. David wants to feel like a king.
And then David goes up on his patio and he sees Bathsheba bathing on a rooftop not too far away, enough to know that when he sees her he wants her and he takes her, he sends for her. And it's safe to assume that Bathsheba didn't have a choice in the matter. And instead of focusing on the conquest of Israel against their enemies, David is working on his own conquests. He's waging a war against his own people.
And a few weeks go by and then he gets word from Bathsheba, she's pregnant. So for David the wheels start turning and he begins a new campaign to try and come up with a plan to cover his tracks. So he sends for Uriah. Uriah was Bathsheba's husband, who was a soldier off at war. And not just any soldier. He was one of the most loyal soldiers to David. He was listed among the 33 men that were David's mighty men. They that would do anything for their king. Men that would do anything to please him to honor him and they would lay down their life and all he had to do is ask for it. So he sends for this Uriah under the guise that he just wants a report about how things are going. And so when Uriah returns he updates David on the affairs and how things are going on the battlefield and then David says, "Hey, great, thanks. Man, I tell you what, why don't you head home? Why don't you go get cleaned up? You've had a long journey. I'm sure Bathsheba would love to see you."
But he refuses to go see Bathsheba. In fact he refuses to even go inside his own home, why? It's because during times of war God commanded that all the men in Israel, all the soldiers would remain celibate even if they were married. He requires them to give themselves fully, completely and to consecrate themselves and to set themselves apart for God's agenda and God's agenda alone. "What you want, put it on the back burner. I want all of you not just a part of you for you are holy unto me." And Uriah wants to be obedient to that. And he tells David, he says, "I'm not going to go see Bathsheba, I'm not going to go see or sit in in my house and sleep in my bed when all of my brothers, my army, while they're on the battlefield sleeping in tents." So Uriah sleeps on the steps of the palace. And Uriah's obedience is a big problem for David.
So the gears keep on turning. And so Uriah is sent back to the battlefield. David sends him back, but he also sends back a secret note to Joab, his general, and he says, "I want you to put Uriah on the front lines. And when the fighting gets intense, I want you to pull off support." He sends Uriah on a death mission and he's killed. And then David brings Bathsheba into his house. He marries her to provide for the grieving widow, to care for her. And everything's going according to plan. Nobody will ever know, mission accomplished. All hail the compassionate king.
But then nine months later, Nathan, the prophet comes to David. He walks into his throne room and he says, "O greatest of kings, there's a certain city where a rich man who has lots of flocks and herds and lambs lives. And there's also a poor man who only has one lamb and it's all he can afford. And that lamb is very precious to him. In fact, he treats it as though it were his own daughter. And this rich man in that city had a guest at his house, but he was unwilling to give up one of his own lambs. And so he went to the poor man, stole his lamb from him and offered it to his guest.
And when David hears this, he flies into a rage. He is untethered because he, David, the shepherd at heart - well, that's personal. And he says, "Who is this man? Has he no pity? I want you to bring him to me. I want him dead. I want him to pay for what he's done." And Nathan delivers the greatest one-liner of all time, "David, you are the man. You are the man. The Lord, your God knows what you have done, David. And you have despised Him." David thought that he had built a fortress and all it took was one little story about a little lamb to make that whole house of cards come tumbling down. And in four simple words David is undone. "You are the man." For we know the Lord uses the simple things to confound the wise. And it's in that place that David sat down and he wrote Psalm 51.
So how do we connect with this psalm? How can we connect with it this morning? Maybe the most obvious way would be that, you know, it's a moment to speak to those who are stuck in guilt and shame about something they've done. Or those who've just done something really bad this week and they feel guilty. Or those who come here this morning really feeling the depth and weight and gravity of the sin in their life. And that would be fine because it does speak to those things. But that's not who I want to talk to today. Instead, I'd rather talk to those who don't feel that way. I want to use this psalm to talk to the self-absorbed.
And maybe you just thought, "Sweet, I'm off the hook this week. I'm so glad my spouse came today. And Lord, I know that person over there needs to hear this. Speak to him Lord! Be glorified! He not me!" No, friend, the truth is you are the man. You are the man. And so am I. We all struggle with the self-absorbed life. It's what sin does. It turns us inward upon ourselves to where all that we can see is ourselves. And if it can happen to a man who was after God's own heart, what makes you and I any different?
Now, we have to recognize we live in a world that only encourages and reinforces the self-absorbed life. You are given endless distractions to choose from. And so quickly we get caught up in tunnel vision and we get blinders with busy schedules. We're always on the go. We get caught up with our own issues, our own plans, our own needs, our own lives, our own affairs, and we lose sight of what really matters. You stop taking the time to consider what might really be going on beneath the surface of our lives. The self-absorbed life can happen so quickly and it can last for so long. And David reminds us of how dangerous it truly is.
So how does it begin? How does the self-absorbed life begin to take root within us? And how can you know if that's the space you're in right now?
Because you still might think, "You know, I didn't really commit the greatest mistake of my life this week, I'm good." But no, it completely misunderstands the point. Don't do that. Psalm 51 is not there just for those who feel really guilty to swing by and feel better about themselves. Because the reality is, is that David didn't just wake up that day and decide, "I think I'm going to take another man's wife and I'm going to murder one of my dearest friends and most loyal soldiers." No, that process started somewhere long before. David invested in being this type of man. And it's in this psalm, that David is saying to you, "I want you to know how I got there. I want you to see what I lost sight of. I want you to see what I didn't consider that led me down such a dark corridor. I want you to see the symptoms of the self-absorbed life."
And the first symptom he wants us to see is that we stop taking our sin seriously. So listen how David opens the psalm, he says, "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." Now that's quite the difference. This David in Psalm 51 is totally different than the David that we just heard about in the story. What's the main difference? It's how he's come to a deep awareness of the sin that's within him. And he uses vivid language to talk about it. He talks about 'my transgressions, my iniquity, my sin.' He talks about them like it's something that he can't deal with. It's a spot that he can't remove. It's a stain that he can't take away. It's something that he can't fix. Now he sees it as a deep infection that requires him to be washed and cleansed and renewed. Now he sees it for what it is. Now he's taking it seriously, but that wasn't the case before, was it? No, it was the complete opposite.
All throughout the story, every step of the way he minimizes his sin. He minimizes what he's done. He makes it less than it is. He doesn't consider the consequences or the casualties of what he's done. He stops taking it seriously. When he saw Bathsheba and he wanted her: "It's fine. I'm the king. Why can't I have what I want? People don't know how hard it is to be me." And then when she gets pregnant he thinks that it's something small and insignificant that he can hide and just sweep under the rug. When Uriah doesn't do what he wants him to do he sends him on a death mission and he thinks, "You know, I send men into battle all the time that get killed. Why is this time any different? Bad things happen on the battlefield." And every step of the way he minimizes it and he doesn't take it seriously.
We also need to point out the fact that when Nathan comes to him and tells him a story about another man's sin, he flies into a rage and he demands justice. Because one of the biggest symptoms of self-absorption is being able to see how big everybody else's sin is while having no understanding of your own. And we've all been there.
We know that version of David, why? Because it's the very nature of sin to hide itself. That's what it does. It hides behind our excuses, it hides behind our blame-shifting, it hides behind our self-righteousness, it hides behind our comparisons with others it hides behind our justification. And instead of seeing it for what it is, we minimize it and stop taking it seriously and we think, "You know, my struggle is not as bad as that guy's. Just look at Marq." Or well, "I wouldn't have done what I did if you hadn't done what you did." Or think, "Well, you know, I made a mistake, but that's not really who I am. I can't be held responsible for that. I'm not the man." Or, "Well, you know, everybody struggles with that, don't they?" The truth is our self-absorption will always make us think and act as though our own sin is just a simple infraction. So we come to it as though, "Well I've broken some laws, but they're really more like guidelines anyways. It's like getting a speeding ticket. Everybody does that. Everybody does it." You pay the fine, you do your best not to do it again, you try and be careful and you go on. And on the whole we consider ourselves a law abiding citizen. Everything's just fine. There's nothing to see, move along.
But the truth is, if that's how we approach ourselves, then we have a big problem, why? Because if our sin isn't that bad, then why did Jesus have to die for it? If that's all that we think our sin is, is just breaking some laws that really aren't a big deal, then we have to really ask and see that that just makes the gospel the dumbest story on the planet. Because who dies to pay for someone's parking ticket?
In the end, when we treat our sin that way, the cross is no longer an expression of God's unending love for us in the midst of our brokenness, our sin, and our shame. Now it just becomes a story of overkill. And we can't say our sin isn't that bad on one hand, while also claiming the truth of the story that says our sin problem require the very death of God. So how can we intimately know the Christ on the cross without knowing the reason why he's there in the first place? The cross constantly challenges us and communicates to us that we have a far bigger problem than we understand.
And it's in this song that David is asking you, "Friend, are you willing to see it? I want you to see your sin for what it is. It's painful, it's hard, but not nearly as hard and not nearly as painful as pretending as though it's not there. Are you willing to see it for what it is?"
There's a great show that came came out of like, three, four years ago. It's called "Chernobyl." And it's a five-part series that dramatizes the story of whenever there was the nuclear reactor meltdown in Chernobyl, back in 1986. It's a show that got rave reviews for it's historical accuracy in the way it tried to pay attention to detail. And one of the things it establishes very early on is that one, the world had never faced a problem like this because it had never happened before. But secondly, once they started to realize there was a problem, everybody pretended like it wasn't. Everybody tried to minimize it. Everybody tried to say, "Everything's fine. There's nothing to see here. It's all under control. There's no need to evacuate. Go home you have nothing to worry about."
And that narrative, that story, kept getting passed up the chain of command to where there's this scene where Gorbachev is meeting with all of his generals and all of his scientists and his ministers. And he comes to the end of the meeting and he says, "What's the update with Chernobyl? How are things at the nuclear reactor?" And a general stands up and says, "Mr. Gorbachev, everything is under control. Everything is just fine. We've done readings on the radiation and it's 350 roentgens. It's nothing more than what you'd experience getting an x-ray, everything's fine." Gorbachev says, "Great, meeting adjourned."
As everybody gets up to leave there was one man there named Dr. Legasov who stood up. He was a nuclear physicist and he said, "Stop. Please stop. You have no idea what you're dealing with. You have no idea how bad this is." He said, "The reason they are giving you a reading of 350 roentgens is because the meters they use to measure radiation at the power plant, that's as high as they go. They're not telling you the way things are. They're just giving you what they have. When I look at this data, I know that that nuclear core is exposed and the real radiation level is about 15,000 roentgens. That's the equivalent level of radiation of two Hiroshima bombs being dropped every single hour. And it's already been a day since the reactor exploded. That's 24 bombs that have, or 48 bombs that have gone off another 48 tomorrow and the day after that. And if you don't do anything that nuclear core is gonna melt everything around it. And when it does, it's gonna melt through that concrete foundation and get into the water underneath the reactor that's used to cool it." And he says, "When that happens, it's gonna vaporize 7,000 cubic yards of water. And there's gonna be a thermal explosion that blows up the other three reactors. It's gonna level everything in a 30 kilometer radius and the shockwave is gonna send out radiation in a 200 kilometer radius. It's gonna kill everything inside that circle. And there's gonna be incalculable rates of cancer, birth defects, and deaths. And that explosion will render the entirety of eastern Europe uninhabitable for the next hundred years."
And when he says all that, everyone goes silent and Gorbachev says, "Do whatever you have to do to fix it."
Are you willing to see your sin for what it is? In this psalm David is standing up and saying to you, "Friend, stop. I want you to see what's really going on. It's far worse than you think."
Are you willing to see how your anger radiates out of you and pushes everyone away? Are you willing to see how your lust disfigures real relationships and intimacy? Are you willing to see how your bitterness infects those you love? Are you willing to see the side effects of your greed, your gluttony, your obsession with your career? Are you willing to see it and see it for what it is? That's the beginning of repentance.
And this David in Psalm 51 was willing to see it for what it is and he owns it. That's why he gives us what he says in verse 5. He says, "I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." What's he saying? He's saying my sin isn't just some moment of indiscretion, it's my very condition, from the moment I took my first breath. So why did I do what I did? It's because I wanted to. That's what was in my heart and repentance is that willingness to see it and to own it. It's that opportunity to stop saying, "Everything's fine. There's nothing to see here. Everything is under control." And it's an opportunity to start saying, "It's not. Jesus wash me, cleanse me, do whatever it takes."
And the second symptom that David wants us to see is that when we don't take our sin seriously, the deeper reality is that we stop taking God seriously. Because when David awakens to the sin in his heart it allows him to see his relationship with God in a new way. What's he saying in verse 4? He says, "Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight." Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Now, part of you might think, "Well, given what David has done, like what about Bathsheba? And what about Uriah? Didn't you sin against them?" Maybe it sounds like he's trying to minimize it and saying, "Well, God, I've just only sinned against you. I will apologize to you and just kind of ignore everything else." But that's not what he's doing. He's not trying to minimize it. He's actually putting a magnifying glass on it and seeing the deeper realities of it.
He's recognizing the truth of what Nathan said to him. When Nathan went and said, "You have done these thing," and what? "You have despised the Lord your God." And now David can see it. Now we can see the deeper heart of what he has done in his mistakes. Now he can see how he despised the Lord his God who alone declares what is good and right, and true and precious and virtuous and beautiful and right and wrong and just. Now we can see those deeper layers how he despised his God who gives life, who made man and woman in His own image and gave them dignity and honor, but David treated Bathsheba and used her like a puppet for his own satisfaction. He trampled on the life of Uriah for his own protection. He despised his God who gave him and all of us marriage as a gift yet David treated it like trash. He despised his God who says, "Love your neighbor," but David thought it was best to kill his brother.
And he's come back to this place where he recognized why we have laws in the first place. It's because God's laws for his people were meant to provide a standard for life that reflect the heart and character of God. The law and His commands reveal who He is, which is why David can say, "When I have disregarded your laws, I have disregarded you. I have acted instead as my own standard. I decided the value of others, I decided their place in my life, I decided who should live and who should die, I decided who was most important." Now he sees it.
And he says, in verse 3, he says, "Now I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me." So now he can see it with all of its effects, why? It's because he's come back to God and placed His law back over his life again. And now because of that, he can see all of the ways that he had fallen short and to recognize that he didn't just break some laws, he broke the heart of his God.
And when we live the self-absorbed life it's so easy. Just like David, we become our own standard. And we too disregard God in doing that. We decide the value of others, we decide our importance, we decide how we should live and how others should live. We convince ourselves that we see in 20-20 and that we are the voice of what is right and what is wrong. But yet when you come back to God and you lay His standards over your life, then your sin will always be before you too. I mean, just think about a few of the commands that we're given in the New Testament. "Love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy, bless those who curse you, wash one another's feet, do not envy, do not boast, do not judge outdo one another and showing honor, forgive one another, be reconciled to one another, be kind, be patient, be gentle." I mean, who walks in here and is like, "I crushed that list this week. Check." Right.
Now, do those commands, not express the heart and character of God? They now communicate who He is and what He's like. And how can we say that those are the standards of my life and yet repentance is so infrequently upon our lips? The truth is when we act like our own standard, repentance will never happen because we'll always find a reason for why it doesn't apply to us. And yet when God draws us back to Himself, there's that painful reality of seeing the weight of what we have done, but God has a greater desire in doing that.
And he gives David the language to express it in verses 10 and 11. He says, "Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit within me, cast me not away from your presence, taking out your Holy Spirit from me." What's the significance of that? He's saying, "I give up, I give up control, I give up living on my own terms, I give up living by my own standards, I give up my excuses, I give up my blaming, I give up my dishonesty, I give up my hiding, I give up my minimizing, everything that I do, God, I want you to take over. Wash me, cleanse me, do whatever it takes. I need you to make me new. And when I pursue joy on my own terms, ironically, I only find myself miserable. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation. I want to know the joy of life in you."
And friends there is no greater way to take God seriously in your life than to make that request of Him. Because the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart He will not despise," even when we have despised him.
Lastly, I do want to close saying something to those of you that do feel the heavy weight of sin in your life and the burden of your mistakes. Maybe you struggle every time you walk in this room with thoughts of how filthy and how broken and unworthy you are to even be here. Or maybe that's why God brought you here.
I want you to think about this, who were the three people that wrote the largest portion of the Scriptures? It's Moses, David and Paul. And what do all three of them have in common? All three of them are murderers. They're murderers. But God was not done with them, was He? In fact, He was really just getting started. He was beginning to tell a new story through them because for each one of them their best days happened after their greatest failures, why? Because He is rich in mercy and abounding in steadfast love.
Which means that the one thing that cannot be said is that there is a sin that you have committed or a mistake that you have made or something that you have done that has exhausted the compassion, grace, forgiveness, and mercy of your God. These stories aren't given to you as special cases, these stories are given to you so that you might know the character and desire in the heart of God towards you.
And how did their stories of life change begin? It began with conviction. It began when God met them in their failures and brought the conviction and a broken heart over what they'd done. And they saw it for what it was. And it was in that moment that each of them realized, yes, I am the man. And it was there that they met your God who desires to lead you beside the still waters of His mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and grace, so that you might know the joy of being made new in Him.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, let's pray.
