Christopher: The blood of Jesus Christ paves a pathway for you from your darkest, most perverse sin out of that into the heart of God. It is a pathway from your deepest shameful darkness into the heart of God, paved by the blood of the Lord. Walk upon it. Don't ignore it. In the name of Jesus, don't allow your sin to keep you from him.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: Now last week we looked at what is the most prevalent genre in the Psalms. Remember genre just means style or kind or type. What is the most prevalent genre in the Psalms, and that's the Psalms of lamentation, crying out to God in the midst of hardship. Lamentation is the umbrella term that covers crying out to God in the midst of hardship, and that's the most common type of Psalm that we find in the prayer book that God gives to his people. We looked at this genre broadly speaking last week.
We saw how it calls us first to address God, go to him, address him in the midst of hardship, pour out our hearts to him in the midst of hardship, and then these Psalms turn us to him, turn us again to hope, addressing him, pouring out, turned to hope, and how this pattern is death and resurrection enabled by Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. The Psalms of Lament are pulling us into the shape of Christ's own life. Now this week we're going to zoom in a little bit more on the genre of lamentation, because as I said, that's an umbrella term for calling out to God in the midst of hardship, but there's a number of different hardships in the midst of which we may be calling out to God, and one of those subgenres that I want us to look at this morning is repentance, repentance. So we're still in the lamentation psalms, but we're looking at a subgenre of lamentation of calling out to God in the midst of hardship, namely psalms of repentance, and that is calling out to God in the midst of the hardship of our own sin, our own sinfulness. What do we do when we've sinned, When we've made an absolute mess of things.
There's no question about it. We've sinned, and we're bearing the consequences. We've acted against the will of God, and in doing so have wounded ourselves or others, and there's no polishing over that or pretending it didn't happen. That is there. I've done this.
What do we do in the midst of that? Or we wake up to the fact, I am sinning. I'm living in a direction that is destructive. I'm living in a direction that is against Christ. What do we do?
When you find out that the absolute bedrock of your life has been built on a direction that is against God, what do you do in the midst of that situation? That's what Psalms of Repentance help us to do. Because without this, what do you do? You pretend it's not there? Oh, I'll just forget about it.
Time heals all things. I'll just move on and pretend it didn't happen, pretend it's not there. As long as I don't look at the foundations of my life, I feel okay about my life, so I'll just not look at that anymore and just keep going. You pretend it's not there. Or you say, Well, Jesus is generally kind of forgiving, so I'm sure it'll be fine.
I'm sure he's just gonna kind of forgive me, and everything's gonna be okay. Or you just store it up and kind of forget about it, but you start feeling worse and worse and worse, and there's just this amorphous sense of I'm no good because you've been storing up, Oh, I did that wrong. I did this wrong. I sinned. I sinned.
I'm doing the wrong thing. I know I'm doing the wrong thing, but I'm not dealing with it. Or you repent. You repent, and that's what psalms of repentance help us to do. They help us to pray out of the situation of sin, which we are all in, and they help us to see how pray do from this place, and how do I pray out of this place into fellowship with the Lord?
So that's what we'll be looking at today. Let me pray for us as we dig into these things. Father, all of us are sinners. All of us turn from you. All of us walk in paths that are covered in the thorns of opposition to Christ, and so I pray this morning that you would be working in our hearts, Father.
Thank you that there is such a thing as repentance open to us, and I pray now that your Holy Spirit would use the words of scripture and would anoint my own human words so that true conviction, not just a worldly guilt or a worldly sorrow, but true conviction would be placed in the hearts of your people, in our hearts where it is needful, that we would not be looking away from you, Lord, that there would be nothing in our lives hidden from you, but that we would turn all to you and find healing in Christ. So I ask, Father, now that you would mercifully anoint this time upstairs and downstairs as the children are being taught as well to do eternal lasting work in the lives of your people. Lord, I submit myself now into your hands for your will to be done. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
So we're going to spend the most, or at least the second half of our time this morning in the most well known Psalm of repentance, which is Psalm 51. So you can turn there if you'd like, because the text for this morning will be Psalm 51, but before we get to that Psalm, which is David's repentance from his great sin in his life, before we get there, I want to just take a few moments to give some introductory thoughts concerning the idea of repentance for the one who belongs to Jesus Christ. Just a few ways to think about it, clarify how we're thinking about this idea of repentance. So the first thing I'd say to help clear our minds about it is that repentance is more than just saying, I'm sorry. When you hear repent or repentance, perhaps what comes to mind is, Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I did that. I'm sorry I sinned. I'm sorry I said that, whatever it might be. And absolutely saying I'm sorry is part of repentance. It needs to be there.
It is part of repentance, but it is not the whole thing. To say, I'm sorry, even to mean I'm sorry, is not the whole thing. So imagine you've got a room that needs to be remodeled. The floor is sagging in. It needs new supports under it.
The walls are no longer in the right place for the family's needs. They need to be shifted around. There needs to be new drywall put in here. There's a whole new remodeling that needs to be done, and you come into the room and you say, Okay, this room needs to be remodeled, and then you get out a bucket of paint and you just paint it and call it good. That's not going to work.
You know that's not going to work in a similar way, but of course it is going to eventually be necessary, right? You need to paint the room. That's part of it. It's not that that's worthless, but that's not sufficient. Similarly, saying I'm sorry is part of the remodeling work of repentance.
It's absolutely part of it, but it's not the whole thing. In fact, it's probably the easiest part, just like painting at the end is probably the easiest part. Repentance is calling for a change of orientation. You've maybe heard this before. The Greek word behind the English translation repentance means a changing of mind, and with the changing of mind is the changing of action, the changing of life.
So repentance, I'm sorry, is part of that, but it has in view a change of direction. So repentance is like coming into that room and saying, This has to be remodeled. It's going to need to be painted, but it's going to need to be remodeled, and getting out the tools, and cutting in, and doing the work to get this room remodeled, and then yes, also painting it. That's what repentance is, doing the work of changing my actions rather than merely speaking my regret, though speaking regret is part of it. Repentance means changed actions, not just spoken regret.
Remodeled life, not just painted walls. That's one thing to see. Second thing to see is precisely because repentance is this moment of change, of turning, of decisive not this, but this, precisely because that is what repentance is, we can tend to think it's a one time thing. I repent and believe the gospel, right? That's how we come into faith.
We repent and we trust Jesus, and one of the problems with thinking of the gospel as just a list of steps to get saved, there's a number of issues with that, but one of them is you can think repentance is one of the steps. I did it. Now I'm forgiven, right? Have you repented? Yes, yeah, I did that when I was five or 10 or 13 or 20 or whatever it might be, and we can think of it as a one time event.
Now it's not wrong that repentance is critical to turning to Jesus, but it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop there. Now we know it's not wrong. Acts two thirty eight, the first Christian sermon, Peter ends with saying, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. So yes, you come to Christ through repentance.
Yes, but, but it doesn't stop there, because the Psalms of repentance and all of scripture teaches us that even as repentance is that moment of turning and walking through the door of Christ, as it were, it is also the continual walking in that path. Life in Christ is a continual repenting, because we'll often do this even when we're in the hallway. We're in the hall of Christ. We've walked through the door. We're in the hall, and yet we're still gonna do, Oh, right, right, right, this way.
Then, oh, so there's this turning, this turning that needs to continue to happen, and if you say, Oh, I did it once, you may find yourself walking the other direction, the wrong direction. So remember, remember, give us this day our daily bread. Pray that every day, right? Daily bread. And what comes next?
Forgive us our sins. Repentance is every day, at least every day, at least every day. So if repentance is not just saying I'm sorry, if it's not just a one time thing, what are some right ways to think about repentance? Just three really quick thoughts to shape this for us. Think of repentance as a gift.
Repentance is a gift. It is not something we are doing for God. Therefore, are you happy now? I repented. It's not bribe money we're giving to keep God on our good side.
I'm repenting so that you keep giving me what I want, right? Repentance is not something you're giving God. It is a grace he is giving to you. The ability to feel the weight of your sin and turn from that sin to Christ is itself a gift of grace. You're not giving that to him.
That is a gift he has given to you. Let me read for you in the book of Acts as the Lord is doing all sorts of surprising things as the gospel is going out. In Acts chapter 11, the Gentiles have come into the church and been received, and the Jewish Christians are shocked by this. Peter lays out for them what happened, and then this is their response. Acts eleven eighteen, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.
So repenting is a gift. It's a gift you receive. It's a gift secured for us by the blood of Christ. So when we repent, we ought not say, There God, are you happy? Or, Look, I've given you repentance, or, What a good person I am for having repented.
If we're able to repent the response ought to be, Thank you, God, for your mercy, for your grace that has granted me to be able to turn to you. And that's also why you don't just put it off and say, I'll repent when I can. I'll get there when I can. I'll get there when I can, because Hebrews says you may come to a point where you can't do it anymore. Your heart's hardened to the point where the gift of repentance is no longer accessible to you, and so it's a gift.
Let us receive it from the Lord. Secondly, following up on what I said earlier, it's not a one time event. It's a breathing. Repentance is like the breathing of the Christian life. It's not just CPR for bad Christians.
Woah, they've gotta repent. Something terrible happened to them. They need CPR. No, it's more like the continual breathing of the Christian life, breathing out confession of my sin to the Lord, breathing in the mercy that forgives. So don't think of repentance as, Well, they're a bad Christian because they have to repent.
Only if a big thing happens, they gotta repent. No, no, no. Repentance is breathing. When a child is born, they take their first breath. Just like when we're born into Christ, we repent and turn to him, but the child continues to breathe, and we continue to breathe the grace of God in repentance as we go throughout our lives.
It's not a one time thing. It's a continual breathing. It's a gift. Finally, on this clarifying point that we're looking at here, think of repentance this way. It is an entrance more deeply into the love of God for us in Christ.
Repentance is an entrance more deeply into his love. It's not being sent out to the woodshed to get spanked. You know, I've done something wrong and trouble and it's bad. No, repenting is coming in to the love of God in Christ. Remember the story of the prodigal son.
This enacted repentance, that story. What happens in it? The son is against his father. He takes his father's money. He turns and goes away into a foreign country, wastes the money, hits rock bottom, and then he says, the text says, he came to himself, and he said, I'm gonna go back to my father.
What am I doing? I'm going back to my father. That moment is repentance. He turns, and he starts to go back to his father. So the prodigal son story is this enacted repentance, but then watch what happens.
So the son has this I love this part. He has this whole little speech that he's put together in chapter 15 of Luke's gospel verse 18. He says this, I will arise and go to my father and say to him Okay, here's his speech. Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your servant.
Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he goes to his father. He's got this plan in his head, and on his way, you know what happens, the father sees him from far off, runs to him, takes him up, and look in verse 20, the son begins to speak. So he rose, he came to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, ran, embraced, kissed him.
This is what happened. This is repentance. This guy just wasted his father's inheritance, and he's coming home, and the father embraces him, brings him in, hugs him, kisses him, and then look, he begins, the son begins to try to say his little thing that he rehearsed to get back into his father's good graces. Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.
He doesn't get to finish. He had more. He wanted to say, Take me into your house as one of your servants. The father cuts him off, I don't care, and brings him into the celebration, brings him into the banquet hall. That's what repentance is, Christian.
Don't be afraid of it. Don't feel like it's failure. This is turning and being brought back into the heart of our God in Christ. This man is going to his father like a man thirsty in the desert expecting a thimbleful of water. If I could just get a thimbleful to wet my tongue, that'd be enough, and the father pours buckets of spring water over his head.
That's what repentance gathers us into, So don't think of repentance as, Oh boy, now I'm in trouble. Now I'm in the bad seat. I've gotta earn back my spot. No, it is a return to the heart that was already opened for you on Calvary. It is a entering into the heart that bore every one of your sins for you on the cross.
It's entering into the one who knows all of it already, every bit of it already, coming back to him being gathered into him. So that's our preliminary review. Repentance is not just saying, I'm sorry. It's a real change. It's not just the moment we enter Christ.
It's a continual, continual pattern. It's a gift we receive. It's the breath we breathe, and it's entry into his love. Okay, so these are just some ways to help getting us a clear sense of what repentance is. Now with that in mind, for the rest of our time together, let's look at Psalm 51.
Let's look at Psalm 51, so turn there with me if you will. We're gonna spend our time going through this passage. This is the Psalm that David wrote after his sin with Bathsheba. He committed, you probably know this, he committed brazen adultery with Bathsheba, another man's wife, and then sent her husband off to die so that he could make her his own. This is adultery, lying, murder at least, covetousness is in there as well.
So that's what David's done, and he did it with eyes wide open, and as a response to this the prophet Nathan comes to him, speaks a word of conviction to him. David's mercifully by God's grace able to feel his sin and turn from it, and he pens this psalm in response to it, the psalm of repentance. So that's the context for us here. Let's look just at the first two verses. We're going to look at four pieces to the psalms of repentance.
You can see them in your bulletin, or yeah, your bulletin. Four pieces to the Psalms of Repentance. Let's look at the first one here. Psalm 51 verses one through two. 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 I'll just say it's Actually it's the notes are in your handout, not your bulletin. There you go. These words are lifesaving. You have sinned. You know you've sinned.
You've been sinning. You've made a mess of things. There's no excuse to cover it. There's nowhere to turn. Pray these words.
Pray these words. These words are words that the Holy Spirit has given the soul condemned by sin to pray. They're blood bought words. They're words secured for your lips by the blood of Christ, so pray them. But let's look at what we see here in this first section.
It begins with an address to God. Just like with the Psalms of Lamentation, so to here, because remember this is a subset of Lamentation, it begins with an address to God. Have mercy on me, O God. I'm coming right to him. The Psalms of repentance take us right to God.
Instead of turning from him because of sin, the Psalms of Repentance tell us to turn toward him, and that piece right there is critical, because oftentimes sin will make people want to turn away from God. Oh, sinned. I gotta go away from him. I'm guilty. I don't wanna look at him.
I'm dirty. I don't wanna be in front of him. I'm ignoring him. I'm just trying to kind of pretend there's not a situation there because I've sinned too much, or I've sinned too deeply, or I'm too dirty. Oftentimes if our heart is like this stone balanced, the weight of sin hits and makes us turn away from him.
More distractions, more things that numb my soul, more busyness, more things that keep me from dealing with it, rather than the weight of sin tipping us toward him and saying, Let me clear my schedule. Let me empty it of distractions so that I can deal with this and be with the Lord. The Psalms of Repentance teach us to do that. It's like you have a broken arm, a broken compound fracture. You don't say, Ugh, this is too bad for a doctor to see.
I can't go to a doctor because of this. I'll wait till it gets better. No. You see that, and you say, I need to go to a doctor right now because of this. So too, with our sin we don't say, Oh, it's too bad to go to the Lord.
I can't take it to him. Gotta deal. No, you go to him because of it. That's what the Psalms of Repentance are teaching us. We read this today in our worship service, but I'll read it again in Psalm 32.
Listen to this, verses three and following. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me, and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Do you know that feeling where there's something you have to deal with? There's something you need to bring before the Lord, and you're not dealing with it, and his hand is upon you, and it's just weighty, and every time the distractions go away, there it is. It's pressing, pressing, and he says, Your hand was heavy upon me.
My soul was wasting away. Then, verse five, I acknowledged my sin to you. I acknowledged my sin. I did not cover my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
That's what the Psalms of Repentance are teaching us. Do not let your sin keep you from the Lord, but let it drive you to him. Christian, Christian, the blood of Jesus Christ paves a pathway for you from your darkest most perverse sin out of that into the heart of God. It is a pathway from your deepest shameful darkness into the heart of God paved by the blood of the Lord. Walk upon it.
Don't ignore it. In the name of Jesus don't allow your sin to keep you from him, but let it drive you to him in repentance and in seeking mercy, because what will his response be? He forgave the iniquity of my sin. He forgave the iniquity of my sin. You've got something perhaps, and you think, If I could just get a thimble full of grace, it'd be enough, but I can't bring it to him because I've got this problem, this thing.
I keep doing whatever it might be. Give it to him and watch him pour an ocean over that thimble. Watch him knock the thimble out of your hand by the grace that's poured over you, so don't be kept from him by sin. Second piece here about addressing God. Notice how David anchors his repentance in the character of God.
He anchors his repentance in his character. Look at how Psalm 51 begins. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. Have mercy on me according to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions.
He doesn't say, Have mercy on me, O God, because I'm really trying to change now. Have mercy on me, O God, because I'm always giving tithe to the church. Have mercy on me, O God, because I really am a good person. I did just messed up once. That's not what he says.
He says, have mercy on me, O God, because of your steadfast love. Blot out my transgressions according to your abundant mercy. So he anchors his repentance in the character of who God is. Nothing about himself. It's in the character of who God is.
And when David says this here, Steadfast love, abundant mercy, he's echoing the name that Yahweh declares in Exodus 34 where the Lord descends on Sinai and proclaims his name before Moses, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. David is saying, If that's who you are, and that's my only hope, abounding in steadfast love, so on account of that steadfast love forgive me because I have nothing else to offer you. He's looking to Sinai to know the character of God, and we Christian look to another mountain. We can see it on Sinai, but we look to the Mountain Of Calvary because that's where God's name is supremely declared in the flesh and blood of the incarnate word. As Christ is hanging on the cross with a voice that silences even the roar of Sinai, Yahweh declares his name.
Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands. Look at him on the cross, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving transgression, iniquity, and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty because he has become the guilty and he's bearing the condemnation of the guilty. He doesn't clear the guilty. We are condemned in the flesh and blood of Christ, and because that's who God is, because that's who God is, we can repent. Have mercy on me, O God, according to the steadfast love displayed on the cross.
According to your mercy poured down from Christ's heart, blot out my transgressions. So we can pray these things because of Christ. Now the second thing for us to see here, first the Psalm of Repentance turns us to address the Lord. Secondly, it is calling us to acknowledge our sin. Acknowledge our sin.
Look at verses three through six. For I know my transgression. My sin is ever before me. Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being. You teach me wisdom in the secret heart. So this Psalm says, first, address the Lord. Come to him. Second, acknowledge your sin.
Acknowledge your sin, and acknowledge it as sin. Notice David doesn't say, I messed up. I really messed up. I really made a mistake. I really stumbled.
I just I got confused, Lord, and I just did something stupid. He says, I have sinned against you. I've sinned against you, and it's important for us to acknowledge that, To acknowledge, yes, I have sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight. David says, I have done what is evil in your sight.
I have associated myself with the thing that you hate. That's what David is saying to the Lord. I've done what is evil in my sight. What is evil in the Lord's sight. So refusing to acknowledge our sin, back to the analogy from earlier, it's like saying, My arm's not broken.
Compound fracture, bone sticking out. My arm's not broken. I just I'm all right. Let's keep going. That's not going to help you get any better.
So too refusing to acknowledge our sin is not going to help us get any better. In fact it might cause the soul to heal twisted and broken and needing to be broken again and refixed together. Acknowledge our sin as sin. And David says it's sin against God, doesn't he? Even though he's committed adultery and murder, and he's certainly sinned against people, he says, verse four, Against you and you only have I sinned, and that's because ultimately, ultimately all sin is sin against God.
Yes, it is sin against others. We sin against one another. We sin against a people, or a congregation, or a community certainly, but ultimately all sin is sin against God, whether I'm slighting a friend or a family member, or you're lying to those around you, or a burst of anger, or even the secret sin carried out in the privacy of your own office, or your own bedroom, or your own bank account, those are sins against God. How? Well, because all sin is ultimately saying in one way or another, Not you, but me.
That's what it comes down to. Every sin is saying, whether consciously or unconsciously, not your goodness, not your beauty, not your word, not your promise, not your command, not your worth, but what I want right now, what I want right now. And so every sin, secret or public, against another person or just against me in secret, Every sin is saying to God, no, not your way, but mine. And so every sin is in opposition to the creator of the universe, to God Almighty, and that is why it requires a turning, a turning from this kind of sin. Not just a, oh yeah, yeah, whatever.
No, it is something that we turn from. Now let me put this in place here. We sin all the time, and in fact you could say we're always sinning. We're never loving God with all that we are. So don't take this and go crazy and say, well, what am I I just thought something unloving, and I gotta do this whole repentance process.
We are under grace. You're living in grace, but you will know, and you can talk to your pastors about this if you want to, you will know when there's a sin, there's a pattern, there's something in your life, and you say, I need to repent of this. So I'm not saying, yeah, when you're living your life and sin happens, yes, we say, Lord, forgive me for that. That was stupid. That was sin.
Forgive me for that. But there are times that call for stop, sit down, open up Psalm 51, and read this as a prayer. There times for that. So discern these two, and if you're struggling to discern them, talk with one of the pastors. We'll talk with it through you.
I don't wanna place an undue burden on your back thinking every little sin requires this massive turning, but sin is sin against God. All of it is, and that's why David goes on to say, You would be just in your judgment. Verse four, You are blameless in your judgment, meaning if you were to condemn me to hell, you'd be just. That's what he's saying. I've sinned against you, and if you were to condemn me right now, you'd be in the right.
You would not be wrong, and we need to remember that in an age of emphasizing grace and mercy and love and all right, all true, all absolutely, and in fact none of those things against condemnation to hell. They all are It is all moving in the same direction, but we can forget that God is not wrong or unfair or wicked to condemn me, to condemn sinners. Unfair It's of him to do that. He's not wrong to do that. In fact, he'd still be loving and gracious and merciful as himself to condemn those of us, all of us, because of our sin.
Because what is sin? It is opposition to God, and in light of that, it's opposition to all of reality, because think of this. God is the supreme good of everything. We could talk more about that. God is the supreme good of everything.
Okay? Sin is opposition to God. Okay? Sin is therefore opposition to the good of everything. When I'm sinning, I'm opposing the good of every person in the world because I'm opposing God who is ultimately their good.
When I'm sinning, I'm making myself an enemy to every person's good, to every creature's good, to every planet's good. I am making myself an opposition to the good of the cosmos when I sin against God. And so because sin is sin against the good and loving and true and wise God, and therefore also sin is opposition against every good thing, it is justly deserving judgment, and repentance feels that. Repentance doesn't say, I can turn from this because it's not a big deal. Repentance says, This is a big deal, and Lord, have mercy on me.
And the only way repentance can do that is because Christ was crushed under that punishment. That punishment doesn't disappear. Judgment doesn't disappear. It's swallowed up in the love of God. It's swallowed up in the heart of Jesus Christ.
That leads us to this final part. So there's the address to God. There's the acknowledgement of my sin as sin worthy of punishment, and then there's the request for healing. Look at verse seven. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have broken rejoice. Hide your face for my sins. Blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.
It's like David's heart erupts saying, Lord have mercy, have mercy, have mercy on me. And this is beautiful to see because look at what David just said. I've sinned against you. I'm evil in your sight. My sin is ever before me.
I was born in sin. David's stacking the deck against himself. He's saying, I am a condemned sinner. And out of that he says, Have mercy. Have mercy.
Have mercy. Wash me. Clean me. That's only possible because of who God is. Only Yahweh, as we know him in Christ is able to receive a prayer that says, I am a condemned sinner against you.
Save me. Not here's what I did to fix it. Here's what I've done. Here's why you should. Just I, just the naked laying bear of my hell deserving soul, and then casting the whole wreck of my life upon his hell bearing mercy saying, Save me, and he does it because of Christ, because of Christ, because every one of these prayers ultimately is only possible in Jesus.
Look with me at Psalm 51 starting in verse seven. Let's just walk down these, and I wanna show you how every one of these is possible only by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Verse seven, our defilement is purged by the blood that flows from his heart. That's how the purge me happens. Our sin is washed away by the waters flowing from his side.
We rejoice because he has taken away our judgments. The bones that he's broken are made glad and raised up because the crucified one is raised again. He hides his face from our sins because Christ did not hide his face from the beating and the spitting and the shame that those sins deserved. His face was marred beyond human semblance so that God might hide his face from my sins. He blots out all of our iniquities through those iniquities being born in Jesus Christ on Calvary.
Our hearts are cleansed. Our spirits are renewed by the spirit that Jesus breathes down from the cross. We will never be cast away from God's presence because Jesus was cast away on our behalf, cast into condemnation in the mystery of his passion, the love of God and the Son of God bearing the wrath of God for the enemies of God so that we are not cast away. The Holy Spirit will never be taken from us because we are united to the Spirit anointed Christ, and God will ever restore our joy and uphold our lives because in union with Christ he is our Father who is for us and not against us. So everything here, Christian, is true only in Jesus Christ.
So pray Psalm 51. Pray Psalm 51, but pray it knowing that every good thing we could ever ask, every good thing we could ever receive, including the ability to repent and the mercy that is the response of our repentance is ours wholly, eternally, and only in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, And that brings us to the last thing that David says here, the fourth part. Addressing God, acknowledging sin, praying for healing, and finally the desire for a new orientation. The desire for a new orientation begin in verse 13. He says, Then I will teach transgressors your way and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in sacrifices or I would give it. You will not be pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. So responding to the address to God, the acknowledgement of sin, the prayer for healing, there is now the turning and the desire for a new orientation.
I will teach transgressors your way. My tongue will sing of your righteousness. My mouth will declare your praise. So David's saying at the end, the spirit of my life that has been invested in pursuing my way, I want to invest in pursuing your way. I want to change.
I want there to be a turn, and that turn of course is also all of God's grace. David here is not just the prodigal son putting down the pig food and saying, That's disgusting, and just staying there in the sty. He puts down the pig food, and he runs to his father's banquet hall, and that's critical for us to see here at the end, because far more than refusing sin, repentance is turning to enjoy God. It's not just refuse to eat the pig food. It's bad.
I don't want it. More than that, it's eat the good food. Run to the true table. Run to the true banquet. If we still see sin as the really desirable thing, self as the really sweet thing, my will as the exciting and thrilling thing, and Christ as the bland meal of rice I have to eat because I don't wanna go to hell.
If that's still the way we're thinking, that is deeply confused, deeply confused. Christ is the feast. Christ is the food for whom we were made. He's the satisfaction we were searching for as we were rifling through the pig food of our own self pursuits. He's the one we were after all the time, and repentance means waking up from that, dropping the rotten pig pods on the ground, and coming back to the rich food, to the well aged wine of our Father's table, and feasting, feasting there.
So these words are familiar to you, but let me read them for you from Isaiah 55. Here's what the Lord says, Come. This is repentance. Repentance. Come everyone who thirsts.
Come to the waters, and he who has no money, you don't have anything to offer, fine. Come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good.
Delight yourselves in rich food. Here, come to me here that your soul may live. And what happens when we come to him? What happens when we turn and go to that real food and put down the fake food? Go to the Lord who is our food.
Verse seven, Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. So forsake the wax bread and the ash filled cups of your own way, of our own way. May we forsake these things, and may we turn to the true food and the true drink that is Yahweh himself given in Christ. That is repentance, and that's what we enact as we come to the table this morning.
This is understood in one sense and an acted work of repentance, because as you come to the table, you are turning from all the other foods for your soul. You're turning from all the other saviors. You're turning from all the other treasures and kings, and you're saying, This is the one who is my food. This is the one who is my life. Here's that good food it talked about in Isaiah 55.
Come to me and eat and be delighted. Here it is. Here's the true food. Here's the true drink. Here's the Lord himself given for you.
So as you come up front, Christian, look at the bread. It's just bread. I made it this morning, but see in it Christ's own body broken under your punishment? Why is it broken into a bunch of pieces under my punishment, and I can receive it this morning so that I can come home to my Father today and every day? Look at the cup as you pick it up.
It's filled with wine or with grape juice. See in it Christ's own blood spilled to wash you clean so that you can turn from any sin and run home to your Father. Here is the cross where God gives himself in love for us. Here is the throne where God reigns over us in love. Here is the table where God himself is the rich food in whom our souls delight so that they might live.
Let me pray for us, and then we'll come to this table together. Father, we thank you for the grace of repentance, for the gift of repentance, and for the awesome price paid that we might repent. The body broken, the blood spilled, our Lord and our God descending into the darkness of our own condemnation and death, rising up again from that place, enabling us to walk through death and resurrection with him, enabling us to turn to you again. So I pray, Father, that we would be a people marked by repentance, not afraid of it, not ashamed of it, but receiving it and turning to you, that our lives, Father, would be open to you. No room closed, no window locked, no corner hidden, all of it open to the healing light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and may this food we eat now, Father, be a reminder of that, and by your grace, a means of that happening in our lives.
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.