Have Mercy on Me, O God

Text: Psalm 51:1-13

I do want to read the heading to the Psalm. And yes, the heading to the Psalm is part of the inspired Hebrew text. It is in there because God wants it to be in there so that we can be cognizant of it and recognize it. And the one at the front of Psalm 51 is very unusual. Not unusual are the first two sentences. For the director of music, a Psalm of David. Lots of psalms have something like that. But what is very unusual is the next section. When the prophet Nathan came to him, that’s to David, after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. That kind of forward, that kind of contextual statement is almost never given for other psalms. But it is given for this one. And so to understand this psalm, we need to understand the David, Bathsheba, Uriah, Joab account. What does it start? The David, Uriah, Joab Bathsheba account starts with David being unfaithful. The text says at the time when kings go off to war, David was in Jerusalem. Oh, where should he have been? Off to war. And if David had been off to war, the rest of chapter 11 of 1 Samuel would not be in there. But he was unfaithful. And something that you and I might say, that seems fairly small, okay. Boy, did it snowball. Where David’s palace was, and archeologists are pretty sure they found it. It sits pretty high in Jerusalem, and David would have been easily able to look down over the houses of many of his people living below him. And he looked out and he saw this beautiful lady named Bathsheba bathing. Not good. David inquires about her, finds out she’s the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Now Uriah is described other places in the Bible as one of David’s mighty men. In other words, Uriah wasn’t merely a soldier. He was great. He was one of the leading soldiers in the entire army to earn that distinction as one of David’s mighty men. Okay, she’s married and she’s married to one of my excellent soldiers, hands off, right? Wrong. Instead, David calls for her to come up to the palace and David takes her to bed. Was Bathsheba complicit or was Bathsheba, I’m gonna say forced, I don’t mean in the sense of rape, but he was the king and she was merely one of the people in the land. Did she have a choice? And then she becomes pregnant. And it’s gonna be extremely clear that Uriah is not the father because Uriah wasn’t there. He’s off to war. What should David have done at that point? Repented. That’s not what he does. Instead, he tries to cover it up. He calls Uriah home from the battlefront, ostensibly to give a report on what’s going on with the battle. And his assumption is that after giving King David a report, the weary, lonely soldier home will go home to his wife and of course they’ll have relations together and then seven months later, but who’s really counting, the baby comes and Uriah would think it was his baby. Uriah doesn’t go home and sleep with his wife. He sleeps outside with the servants. So David says to him, “How come you did this?” And Uriah’s answer must have just slammed David in the face. The Ark of the Covenant and Job and my men are out in the fields. How could I possibly go home and enjoy the comforts of home while they’re out in the fields? Can you imagine David thinking, “Oh man.” They were the wounds that David needed to hear. Uriah had no clue what he was saying. God did. So all right, David’s gonna compound it. He gets Uriah drunk. Assuming that drunk Uriah would go home and sleep with his wife and drunk Uriah continues to sleep outside with the servants. One commentator comments that Uriah drunk is more sanctified than David sober. Huh. At any place along the way, David could have and should have repented, right? And this whole thing would have come to an end. Oh, there might have been aftermath but there would have been a much happier ending that comes next. What comes next is that King David sends a letter with Uriah. Uriah of course cannot read it because he has no right to open the seal. It’s addressed to Joab, the commander of the army, in which he says to Joab, “Put Uriah the hittite at the front of the fighting “where the fighting is the fiercest “and then have the other soldiers fall back away from him “so he’s left hung out there to dry and he gets killed.” Now David is committing murder. And not only is he committing murder but he’s involving Joab to help him. Joab, the leader of the army in the conspiracy and in so doing he is depriving Joab, his army and his country of one of their best soldiers. That’s what happens. And then to compound it all the more, David takes Bathsheba as his own wife. Trying to play the valiant, magnificent, magnanimous king who takes the grieving hero of our war hero who’s now pregnant and the king takes her into his palace as his own wife. It’s awful. David seems to think he’s gotten away with it. And God seems to allow him to kind of stew in this for a good while because it seems as if Nathan the prophet doesn’t come to David until after the baby is born. So that would mean seven, eight, nine months, something like that. And God sends the prophet Nathan to David and the prophet Nathan tells David a story. There was this rich guy who had all kinds of flocks and herds, tons of them. And next to him lived this poor man. And this poor man had only one lamb and the poor man just loved that lamb and he’d hold that lamb in his arms and he let that lamb actually drink from his own cup and it was like a daughter to him. Well, one day this rich guy got some visitors and he wanted to feed them a nice meal. But instead of taking one of the animals from his own flocks, he went and took the poor man’s only lamb and sacrificed that and slaughtered that and used that to feed his guests their meal. And David’s anger burned and he said, “That man deserves to die.” And Nathan looked at David and said, “You are that man.” And thank God it worked. And David repented, “Finally, “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said. And Nathan’s answer is beautiful, or Nathan’s answer, excuse me, is both beautiful, but also carries a lot of wounds. The Lord has taken away your sin. You will not die. David had pronounced his own sentence on himself, “That man deserves to die.” Yep, that’s you. But the Lord has taken away your sin, you will not die. But there will be ramifications. The baby who was born is going to die. Why so? Probably because God wanted David to feel a deep wound that would help protect him from going back and doing something like that again in the future. Well, it’s sometime after that. We don’t know exactly when after that, but it seems to be fairly soon after that, or that David penned Psalm 51. What kind of emotions are going through David at that time? What are his thoughts in his head? What are his thoughts and his feelings in his heart? Well, take a look first of all at verse three. “For I know my transgressions and my sin “is always before me.” Yes, he knew that his sin was forgiven. Yes, he knew that God had taken it away because God had promised to do so. More on that in a few minutes. But God allowed that sin to stand up in front of David like it was just in his face. And in wonderful, gentle love, God does the same thing for you and for me. He will allow the sins that we have committed or are committing or are struggling with or haven’t repented of to just get right into our face and say, “Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner.” And there’s not one thing that King David or you and me can do about it. Why so? Because this sin problem started from our very start. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. From the moment you and I were conceived, not only born, but conceived, you and I were sinful human beings. You and I were in rebellion against God. You and I deserved to go to hell. And there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. And that hurts to hear, doesn’t it? I don’t like to hear that. Are you telling me I never even had a chance to please you? Yes. (grunts) Come on, I want a shot. God says, “No, you have no shot.” No. That’s a wound, isn’t it? David needed to hear that. David needed to be reminded of that. I need to be reminded of that. It’s so interesting to see how David describes his sin. Look at verse four. Against you, you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight. Wait a minute. Hadn’t David sinned against Bathsheba by taking her to bed with him? Yeah, he had. Hadn’t he also sinned against Uriah in that? Sure he had. Hadn’t he compounded his sin against Uriah by trying, yeah, against Uriah by trying to cover it up by getting him drunk, and ultimately by murdering him? Yeah. Hadn’t he sinned against Joab by bringing him into the conspiracy? Hadn’t he sinned against his army by depriving him of one of his best soldiers? Hadn’t he sinned against his country by depriving them of one of their best soldiers? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But that’s not where David points. Because at the end of the day, while all those things are true, the ultimate problem with sin isn’t that we hurt other people, which we do. The ultimate problem with sin is that it is rebellion against God. It is spitting in God’s face. And the person who does that, deserves to die. That hurts, doesn’t it? And if it doesn’t hurt some, please pinch yourself. Because the time we should be most afraid of sin is when it’s not bothering us. That’s the time to be most afraid of sin. And yet David comes to God with just audacious requests. Starts off in verse one. Have mercy on me, oh God. According to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. David can’t fix any of this. What’s his only hope? That God is merciful. That’s what he has. And so this guy who is messing up so bad, just says, “God, have mercy on me.” And can you imagine? God’s answer is yes. And how much mercy does David want? He asks God to blot out his transgression. The Hebrew word that’s used there for blotting out, first occurs in the Bible in the flood account. And it’s a word that’s used to talk about what God did to the earth in the flood account. Talks about how God wiped away every living being, every human person, every animal from the face of the entire earth. How completely did God wipe the world clean in the worldwide flood? Totally and completely, 100%. With of course the exception of Noah and his family and the animals saved with him on the ark. Everything else, gone completely. And that’s what David is asking God to do with his sins. Can you imagine? This guy who’s been unfaithful, who’s been an adulterer, who’s been a cover-up artist, who’s a murderer and more cover-up, is saying, “God, just please wipe it all away. “Just please take it completely and totally away.” And can you imagine? God’s answer is yes. Really? Yes. Because when Jesus died on the cross, what did Jesus say? He said it is finished. That all of our sins were put on Jesus’ back and Jesus paid the price for every single one of them. So God took them and blotted them out completely and forever. And so another Psalmist could say, as far as the east, that’s east, right, is from the west. So far has God removed our transgressions from us. They’re gone in the eyes of God. God doesn’t see your sins anymore. It’s an audacious request that comes from King David. It’s an audacious request that comes from you and me. And in incredible grace, mercy, and love, God says, “Yes.” And if all that weren’t enough, David says to God, “Create in me a pure heart, O God.” It’s verse 10. “Create in me.” It’s the Hebrew word, ba-ra. My seminary boys should know this. Ba-ra is the same word used in Genesis 1 and 2 for God creating the heavens and the earth, for God creating the man and the woman. No, it doesn’t always mean to create out of nothing, but it does always mean something that only God can do. So I think the best way to think about that word ba-ra is to think that God is saying this is epic. And so when I was teaching Genesis at the sem, when we hit ba-ra, I always made the guys do this. Epic! Epic! And it was silly and it was fun and it was funny and it was sort of stupid in some ways, but it made the point. Epic, gentlemen. Something only God can do. “Create in me a pure heart, O God.” (congregation murmuring) We are asking God to do something epic. We are asking God to do something huge. We are asking God to do something that only God can do. It’s audacious. And God says yes. That’s my little grandson Teddy. Because if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. The fact that you are a believer in Jesus means that God has done something epic with you, that God has created in you a brand new heart. Oh yes, it’s true that that sinful self still clings to you, but that is no longer the real you. The real you is this epic creation of God who’s been created to be like Jesus in true righteousness and holiness forever. That’s the real you and that’s the real me. That’s what David was praying about. That’s what you and I need from God and that’s what you and I have. And if all that weren’t enough, David’s gonna follow up with one more request, one more statement. Then I will teach sinners your ways. Wait a minute. This guy who is unfaithful, adulterer, murderer, coverup guy, he’s gonna tell people about Jesus? Yes. Isn’t that God’s way? God loves to take the healed and turn us into healers because perhaps it’s the healed who appreciate God’s healing love the most. You see it in King David as he continues to serve God the rest of his life. Oh, he has ups and downs. We see it in the Apostle Paul who is oh so much the enemy of God and God’s people who God healed and turned him into an amazing healer. You see it in the Apostle Peter who messed up so, so badly and yet God turned him into an amazing healer and the list could go on and on and on. And it comes down to you. Why did God put that heading into Psalm 51? At the end of the day, the answer is because God wanted to. And of course we’ll be satisfied with that. But does it not seem likely that God put that heading into Psalm 51 because God wanted us to understand how incredibly rich and free his mercy is? I think that makes perfect sense. And so I pray that my prayer and your prayer for the rest of our lives will continue to be have mercy on me. Oh God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out all my iniquity. And thank God his answer to that prayer will be an ongoing and resounding yes. Amen. And amen.