Bible Guys Classics: Psalm 51:1–12

Show Notes

What do you do when you know you’ve messed up? In this episode of The Bible Guys, Jeff and Chris dive into Psalm 51, David’s brutally honest prayer of repentance after his sin was exposed.

The conversation explores confession, forgiveness, and what genuine repentance looks like. Instead of hiding or making excuses, David brings his brokenness directly to God and asks for a clean heart and renewed spirit.

If guilt, shame, or past mistakes have been weighing you down, this episode is a reminder that God’s mercy is greater than the mess we’ve made.
🎧 Listen now and learn why honest repentance is the beginning of restoration.#TheDailyBibleGuys #Psalm51 #Repentance #Forgiveness #GodsGrace #BibleStudyPodcast #ChristianFaith

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Good morning, good morning. We talked the whole night through. Good morning. Good morning to you. Man. Hey, it's Tuesday, and I did last week on Wednesday, so I figured why not. Do it on to you? Just made our switching it up you. Good morning everybody. I'm Chris, this is Jeff. We're the Bible Guys, and we are in a brand new series talking about the prayers of the Bible and some of them even being dangerous. Well, all of these are dangerous prayers. Okay, so all of these are we double dog Dare you to pray these prayers? That's that's where they are. Have you ever been is that in the Bible? Are you susceptible to double dog theres? I used to be a little bit. Yeah yet yeah, but I mean like we we would Yeah, there was actually a thing in our little friend group where we would we would sort of reserve the double dog theres and we were only allowed so many months, so many so many a month. But then if you used it, then you used it all right then, and then the other person was sort of obligated. Okay, right, so that's so that these are the kind of prayers we dare you to pray them. Yeah, that's that's kind of how we're praying. Well, before we dive into that, we have a segment, and today is the famous dead Joke competition, So we're going to decide whether or not you have the best batch or whether I do. Yeah, I just read the first one just now. I actually think. That desiree uh used this one twice. I think I've used I think I've read this before you. Yeah, I think I think maybe she she likes this one when she was when she was googling at her chat remember it. Okay, here's my first one. I'm terrified of elevators, so I'm taking steps to avoid them. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard that one. We've heard that one. That's a good one though. It is very good. It's a good one. It's better than this one. Okay. I told my computer I needed a break. Now it won't stop sending me KitKat ads. Oh that is actually downright awful. It is one to nothing. Yeah for sure, it is. Yeah. Okay, here we go. I asked the librarian if the library books. Oops, sorry, let me start over. I asked the librarian if the library had books on paranoia. She whispered, they're right behind you. That's a good one. It's really good. That's a good one. That would have been a great thirty second skit. Yeah, I mean that's a good like TikTok it's a right little scary music. That's really funny. Oh, that'd be awesome. Okay, let me see. I tried to write a joke about a broken pencil, but it had no point. Oh yeah, okay, it's nothing nothing at this point. Here we go. I used to be a velcrow salesman, but I couldn't stick with it. Okay, it's better than this one. I used to be a shoe salesman until I got the boot. Oh actually, I like yours of slightly better. I like you, Okay, all right? Number four okay, so it's it's two to wiro and one. Okay, so we'll call it a tie. Okay, number four? Uh, what do you call a factory that makes okay products? A satisfactory. I like it. That's a good one. I like it very clever. I think so too, very clever. I tried to start a business selling mirrors. It's something I could really see myself doing. Oh that's good. I like that. Okay, that's going, But yours is better satisfactory that one. If she'd given that to me in the previous one, yeah, I would have gotten a point. But you're you're satisfactory way better. Here we go beyond satisfactory. I got hidden head with a can of soda. Luckily it was a soft drink. Oh yeah, was that number five? Yeah, it was number five. I tried to organize a hide and seek tournament, but good players are hard to find. Oh that's a pretty yod. It's a good one. Okay, I'm winning that one. Yeah, so it's three one and one. That's how it worked out. So I win. Yeah, you win. Yeah, you're the winner. You're the best. You're the best at the dead joke competition that she wrote. That's right, that's what we read. I was lucky. I was lucky enough to receive luck of the draw. Yeah, I was loucky. It's like car. It's like cards, yati or whatever. If you're playing the ever play a game that requires no skill whatsoever? Yes, I hate it. Like YACHTSI is like a game where it just doesn't even matter. You just roll and whatever happens happens. Yeah, but we love Yatzi. Yeah, we played at our family all the time. We still play Yatsi when we do game night was like Yasi. And then we have this thing called YACHTI Free for All. It's like a version of YACHTI that's really complex. That's actually spices it pretty much and it does require a little bit of skill. Well okay, yeah, sounds good. Yeah. Well, yesterday, kicking off this new series of dangerous prayers, we talked about dangerous prayers. God searched me. Wait a minute, there's no transition. Do you have a transition for this one? I was going to say, no, I don't, actually don't. You just ignored it. I just ignored it. Yep, all right, well I had I was going to do a good transition today. Okay, how about this. Some of those jokes made me sad. Yeah, some of them. Some of them were stinky, yes, right, yeah, And when your sin stinks up the room, it makes you sad. And that's the prayer of So I'm fifty. One, okay, So yeah that was a rough one. Rough. That's why I was just going to say yesterday. Well, you said stink. You changed the direction I was just going to go with sad. Well, the title of the day is when your sins. I know, but I was going with a sad angle. I'm sorry, that's all right, Okay. I think you stunck my transition up with your stink. Okay. So yesterday we talked about praying prayers that ruin your comfort. Particularly, God, show me if there's anything that needs to be changed in my life. Really, yep, search me and know me, show me. And today it goes further because in Psalm fifty one, David is confessing his sin with Bethsheba, and it's a powerful prayer. So I'll just read it. Here's what it says. In Psalm fifty one, he says, have mercy on me, Oh God, because of your unfailing love, because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt, Purify me from my sin, for I recognize my rebellion. It haunts me day and night against you and you alone. Have I sinned? I've done what is evil in your sight. You'll be proved right in what you say and your judgment against me is just for I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there. Purify me from my sins and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again. You've broken me. Now let me rejoice. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create me a clean heart, Oh God, renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence. Do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Make me willing to obey you. Yeah, that's awesome, you know there. I think that Psalm fifty one is one of the most powerful psalms in all of the Book of Psalms. And there's one hundred and fifty of them. Yeah, one hundred and fifty psalms. Yeah, and the biggest book in the Bible. And I think that I think that it's really a there's a hang on a second, where is the versus? Yeah, So people. Always focus on the creating me a clean heart of God, which, by the way, is also a song yes, right, you know a lot, a lot of these songs. Obviously the psalms were songs, there you go. But I'm talking about modern day songs. Yes, right, So I know, remember yesterday I referred to the fact that created me a clean heart. I actually knew two versions of that song, right, I liked one way more than the other. But but I sing it all the. Time, right, creating me a clean heart, Oh God, that I might serve you, created me a clean heart, O God, that I might be renewed, So feel me and heal me and. Bring me back to you. Created me a clean heart, O God, that I might serve you. That's that's a song. Yeah. And then and then then today I should have sung that yesterday. Well that no, that's that's that's today's today. That's what good news. We sang it today. Yeah, yeah, because I know two verse this song too. But even though the people go to this song, this this verse a lot, creating me a clean heart of God, do not banish me from your presence, Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. I like verses sixteen and seventeen better. Oh really, yeah, I do, because I think that I think that the concept of this is a is a life lesson for all of us, because he says, you do not you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would offer one you don't want to burn, offering the sacrifices you desire a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. And so the reason why I like that concept is because God wants your repentance and your heart more than anything else. And so there are people who try to say, you know, like David, he said, you know, he says he could have probably offered the sacrifices of a thousand rams of the snap of a finger. Right, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna give this. You know, I'm gonna write this big check. I'm gonna make this donation, right, I'm gonna I'm going to give the. Idea of penance. Yeah, I'm gonna try it. Yeah, I'm gonna try to make up for it by saying, you know, all of these repetitive prayers, or I'm going to you know. Give this money, give this money, whatever it is. And it's like no, no, no, no, you can do that, but God doesn't want sacrifice or else. David says, I give it, but that's not what God wants. So David knows what God wants. David had all the power to do whatever he wanted to do. He was rich, he could have done all the good in the world. But what he was acknowledging here is that God, I would do all those things. But I know that's not what you want. You want one thing. You want a broken and contrite heart, a repentant heart, and these things you want not despised. So I think it's an acknowledgment that there's only one thing that God requires in these moments. Now, I like to create in me a clean heart of God. I love it. It's obviously phenomenal. Right, But I think somebody should write a song about sixteen seventeen. Maybe I'll do that. Being broken in spirit, yeah, broken, repentant heart. Yeah, the fact that God only wants one thing, and that is your repented heart. Yeah. And repent heart isn't I'm sorry, repent heart is. I'm stopping it and I'm turning to you. Yes. He's a desire to turn yeah. Yeah. Repent means literally to turn the other way. So this this comes after Nathan has confronted David, So David has had an affair with Bethsheba. Bethsheba was the wife of one of David's mighty Men, one of David's special forces, guys Uriah, and then she gets pregnant, and so David makes sure that Uriah is killed in battle so that then he can marry. After he tries to cover it up another way. Right, can come home and sleep with his wife. And so it was. It was just a crazy little season in David's life, and it winds up defining a big chunk of the rest of his life. So he his his concern are just to hide and to cover his reputation. And then Nathan shows up. He's a prophet of God. God sent Nathan to go and correct David, and he tells me the story. Hey, there's this rich man who lives next door to a poor man. Rich man has a guest come over, and the rich man had so many sheep, but he goes over and he gets the sheep of the poor man. And this poor man loved this sheep, had she and he took care of the sheep, and the sheep lived in his home and he fed him. He just had his one lamb, and he loved that lamb. But the rich man went and got that one poor man's lamb. He said, he's one of his many many lambs. He goes and kills that poor man's lamb and feeds him. And he asked David, what do you think should be done to that guy? Well, David was a shepherd as a young man, so this was a perfect story. Yeah, And David is so ticked off, he said they should hunt down that guy killing. Yeah. And then Nathan says, well, you're the man right right, you're the king man. You have anything you want, you have any woman you want, but you went and took the one wife of a poor man who is loyal to your right. And so then judgment came. The baby died, bestI was pregnant, the baby died, all those things, and it was a difficult time in David's life. And it's from that confrontation somebody who cared enough and had the courage to confront David with his sin, that David comes and praise this prayer and his first statement is have mercy on me, right, God, I don't deserve you to forgive me, but you have great compassion. And then he says, wash me clean of my guilt, blot out the stain of my sins that blot out you know, back in that day, they would when they wrote with ink, they would you know, dip the pen in the ink, write it, and if there was a mistake, you try to blot it out. It was kind of a try to pull the ink back up off of the parchment or off the paper with a blotter. It was the closest thing to an eraser that you and I would use today. Right, that's what they're trying to do. And he says, God, but you know, have you ever used a blotter? It never makes it right. Yeah, well I've bloughted out different things, just probably not in parchment. Yeah, you can still see, right. But he's like, hey, clean it up as much as possible. Would you clean it up? And he says, creating me a new heart? And so it's interesting at first he says, would you just cover it? Then he's like, could you blot it up? Maybe get rid of as much of it as possible, And then finally says, would you make a new one. There's kind of a progression to his prayer here, God, I have no hope of my life ever turning around unless you make a new life in me, because I'll go do this again. Probably I'm what kind of a sinner? Am I? This is kind of where he's coming at. What was I doing? Why did I do this? And God, you know I'm a wicked person. Would you forgive me for this? And then he's repenting of his sin, not just that he he acknowledges I was born a sinner and I sin, but that's not an excuse. And he's asking God to forgive his sin and to make him a new person. And then, like you said, he also the one thing that we didn't talk about verse thirteen, fourteen fifteen, He says, God, then if you fix me and change me, I'm not going to just use this story for me. I'm going to use it to then I'll teach your ways to rebels. Right, I'll use my I'm not going to waste this story. I'll use my story, this broken story, for others to maybe warn them and unseal my lips that my mouth may praise you. Right, he's saying, my actions are going to be different as a result of the fact that you begin to change me. And then he says, you know, I understand that God you know, sacrifices are required for sin. He ends verse nineteen says, you'll be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit. Right, So the sacrifices are required for the sin, but they mean nothing without the heart. And so that's what David is trying to extend to God is my heart is all for you. And so I think that that's the issue. Is first the heart has to turn towards God. Then the behaviors will start to turn towards God. Because when your heart turns towards God, your want tos start to move towards God, and your feelings, your emotions start to move that way, and those things ten to drive your behaviors. And so as you're saying and then all the other things, you know, the faith based stuff, I'm supposed to be doing. Those please you. Then when my heart is right, But when my heart's not for you, you don't care about the ritual. Ritual doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, And you know this is the sin where David says, my sin is ever before me, and so you know, this was a public sin. And the thing even though that we just briefly mentioned, Nathan, I think one of the most powerful things about this whole story. And even when you read this prayer, you have to you know, sort of you know, receive it in that context. Right. Nathan actually pointed out David's sin publicly as well. Did you know it was in the courtyard with the kingdom? And so think about like it, what does that phrase the emperor's emperor has no. Clothes or something. Yeah, and nobody wants to tell the emperor is no clothes. It's the same thing. It's the idea that like, David has done this thing, and every everybody knows that. Everybody knows that that he is supposed to be our spiritual leader. He is the guy, he's a man after God's own heart. He is a godly man. But he is also the king, and so other kings we fear because of the wickedness. David is supposed to be king that we don't fear, you know, because of wickedness. And yet he's done this wicked thing, but nobody wants to say anything and fear that he's going. To kill him, like the messengers. Right, and then all of a sudden Nathan comes along and he's the prophet of God. Think about the courage that Nathan had the assignment that God gave to Nathan is to go and confront David. Well, you know, think about it. It's like, you're the guy who's going to confront Nathan or David publicly in front of everybody and point it out, knowing that he has the power to kill you, and he has a history of killing people who bring bad news. And so when he looks at him and he says, you are the man, you know you know, Hey, this man should be killed, Well, guess who. Guess who it is. You're the man. You're the man of the story. You're the one who did this. And then then he decrees and then he actually lays out judgment in front of everybody, And I just think to myself in that moment, we also can use that as a life lesson for us, because we also have a choice, don't we When people confront us, When people approach us in love and they say, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna confront you about something. I'm gonna confront you about something that I noticed in your life that isn't you know, right, and whether it's right or wrong, you know that that's that's for a discussion to decide. That's for God's word to decide. But your reaction is everything, and you have a choice. You can react like David did right here, or you can react like all the other kings of the world might right right right, which is which is, don't tell me what to do, and it's my life. I'm the king of my world, right, don't bother me with this. And yet David acknowledge the fact that you're right, so much so that he actually says against you verse number four, against you and you alone, have I sinned? And he's talking about you know, God, I have done with what is evil in your sight. And yeah, he's done it before the kingdom. But ultimately his offense is against God. And that's why David repented, because David acknowledges this is directly a violation of what God wants from me. Yeah, of course he sinned against Rayah. Of course he sinned against Bestsheba. A lot of times we think, well, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, that this affair, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, whatever, I took a little bit of this money, I did whatever, as long as there but these things do hurt people. They just do. And there's consequences that go way beyond and so a lot of times we feel like, well, it's just between me and him. It's not. Ultimately, it's between you and God. And then the fallout is between you and people. This is why Jesus said the greatest commandment is be right with God, be right with people. Love God. Love people. Is because when we realize our sins are ultimately against God, but they cost people something, They cost us relationships because whatever. This is why David knows, I have to go get right with you God before I can be right in front of my kingdom, before I can get right with Bestshiba whatever. And so there's consequences. Certainly, they lose this baby, he loses his reputation in some things. But at the same time God does forgive him, and God does restore him, and God keeps him in his role as king, and God continues to use him in a pretty great way. He wrote many, many more psalms after this point, a big chunk of the Bible. And so God did forgive him. And so I don't know what kind of sins you're carrying in your life, but I know this God forgave David of murder and of adultery, right, and it was because of a prayer like this, Have mercy on me. I've only sinned against you. You don't just want religious ritual. You want my heart. And so you know I'm broken and I want you to make me, make me clean right, make me new again, restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. So he's acknowledging here in his repentance, not only that God what I did was wrong, but I want to go back to where I was with you spiritually. I want to love you as much as I used to. I want to be as committed to you as I was. I realized I've drifted, I've kind of gotten cold. And then he says, you know, make me willing to obey you. He understands that real repentance also means a realignment to do what God says is right and avoid those things that God says is wrong. So let's talk about this a minute. We talked about this one time when we were in the Old Testament with the Bible Guy's podcast, but the Bible says it was that time of the year when kings go forth to war spring. You know, in those days, the weather really had effect on when you would fight and when you didn't, and they would have to wait till the rains were over, the crops were planted, all those things, and then usually that's when kings would go to war. And so you would be ready, even if you weren't intending to go to war, like I'm going to go invade my neighbors, you still would rally your troops and send them out to protect the borders. Right. So this was that time there, David, that's who he was. He was a warrior king. It was time for him to go to war, and it said the Bible says, this time he decided to stay back. He sent his generals out, who were very capable, and he sent them out, and he stayed back. He didn't do what he was supposed to be doing. And it was in that time that he sees Bestsheba, he's bored, he's just killing time, he's just chilling, yeah, and he feels like he earned this little vacation. And in that moment, that was also when he had his laps of judgment, when he wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. What he's supposed to do. It's so funny because it reminds me of, oddly enough, the sin of Adam and even the Garden, because you know, there's all these different kind of justifications that happen between the serpent and Adam and Eve and everything else. But you can trace it. All the way back to the very first words that came out of the enemy's mouth when he says did God really say? Right? And so what ends up happening is is you start to doubt or make light of God's word. And when you start to doubt or make light of God's word, then the snowball rolls right, and the snowball as it goes down the hill gets bigger and bigger, because then becomes the justification. Then comes the rationalizition, then comes the disobedience, then the consequences, then the fallout, and then of course the whole human race right right, And so it's like it's like the consequences of what tracing back to one thing, which is did God really say? Is it really that important? Did you really mean it is that? Is that really the final authority? And so it's it's the same thing. You have this entire nation, right who knows about David sin. His his his sin is ever before him. It leads to murder. I mean, we're talking about the snowball has rolled down the hill and it has destroyed towns at this point, right, And it all comes down to that simple verse, because the Bible doesn't waste words, right, and the Bible specifically tells us. It starts that chapter and it says in a time when kings were supposed to go to war, David stands back and stays back, and then all of a sudden, what does he do? He sees Beesheba bathing on a rooftop and then and it's all because he immediately stepped out of God's will because it was God's responsibility, his assignment, and so he wasn't where he was. Supposed to be. I would argue, that's God's will, and so he steps out of God's will and that's what started everything. Yeah, that's right. So hey, that's a great perspective on Psalm fifty one, great conversation. Hopefully we will see you tomorrow with another dangerous prayer on the Bible. Guys,