Questions: If you, O Lord, kept a record of sin, who could stand? Psalm 51
If you, O Lord, kept a record of sin, who could stand?
That’s the question that is asked in Psalm 130.3. And maybe one of the greatest psalms dealing with that exact question is Psalm 51, a psalm attributed to David after committing adultery with Bathsheba & then murdering her husband Uriah.
It’s a big question, because while you may or may not be guilty of things like adultery & murder, chances are you bear the weight of your own sin, your poor choices, your wrong doing.
So what do we do with the presence of evil? And what happens when we realize we are responsible for that evil?
What do we do when we come face to face with the reality & the gravity of our sin?
[Tweet “What do we do when we come face to face with the reality & the gravity of our sin?”]My intention is not to shame you, not to guilt trip you, not to make you feel worse about yourself in any way. That is always the work of the enemy. My intention, & I believe this is God’s intention, is to ask you to consider the reality of your sin, acknowledge it, confess it & experience the forgiveness & freedom that God offers in & through Christ Jesus.
My fear is that all too often we don’t own our sin, we don’t name our sin, we don’t confess our sin & we don’t ever experience the freedom in Christ from our sin. Sin reeks havoc on our lives. The carnage of broken relationships is all around us because of our pride, our anger, our words, our actions, our choices… but all to often we blame others, we rationalize our own actions & in so doing we fail to take ownership of our lives, our choices & our sin.
This is the work of the enemy. If he can get us to never acknowledge our sin, never take ownership of what we’ve done, if he can keep us blaming others, pointing fingers & rationalizing what we’ve done… then he can keep us from experiencing the amazing grace of God & freedom available in Christ Jesus.
Your Life
So… here’s what I want to ask you to do today… take a moment & reflect, what in your life does not line up with the person of Jesus?
What in your life does not reflect the character of Jesus?
Where in your life are you living in disobedience to the teachings of Jesus?
What is it, if you had to stand before God & give an answer for, what is it that you have some explaining to do when standing before a holy God?
One of the enemy’s biggest lies is that whatever you struggle with, whatever temptation you face, whatever your secret sin is, whatever it is you’re most ashamed of & you hope no one finds out… the enemy tells you, convinces you that you are the only one. That no one else struggles with the same things you do. And that you’re a complete failure for not being able to pull yourself together.
But that simply could not be further from the truth, because everybody struggles.
[Tweet “Everybody struggles.”]So David, having come to terms with his sin, wrote these words as a prayer to Yahweh.
Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
because of your unfailing love.
Because of your great compassion,
blot out the stain of my sins.
2 Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
3 For I recognize my rebellion;
it haunts me day and night.
4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned;
I have done what is evil in your sight.
You will be proved right in what you say,
and your judgment against me is just.
What else can you do when you become overwhelmed by the reality of your sin than beg God for mercy?
Right here, David is completely broken before God. Completely broken. He knows that he & he alone is responsible for what has happened. And what I may appreciate most about David from the very beginning is that he owns it! He doesn’t try to blame anyone, point fingers or rationalize his behavior. He could have. He was king. He could have made excuses. He could have said, “All the other kings do it!” He could have blamed others for his actions. But He didn’t. He owned what he did when he comes before God & it completely breaks him.
Have you ever been totally & completely broken before God?
Have you, at any point, been completely crushed by your own awareness of your sin?
If for any reason, you have never experienced this, I want to encourage you to get real before God. Be honest before God. Take ownership for it all. When you stand before a holy & perfect God with the full awareness of all your sin that separates you from God you will find yourself utterly destroyed realizing you are completely lost without Him. Realizing there is no hope without Him. Realizing that what awaits you is exactly what you deserve — eternal separation from God. And there’s nothing you can do to reverse that. Absolutely nothing.
David, realizing just how lost he is, goes on to say this…
5 For I was born a sinner—
yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.
6 But you desire honesty from the womb,
teaching me wisdom even there.
7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Purify me… WHY? Because SIN leaves a MARK. We know this… that sin always leaves a mark. And no matter what we do we cannot remove the mark by our own power.
8 Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
David prays…. God, do what only you can do. Do what I cannot do. Cleanse me from my sin. Wash it away. purify me. Change me. I’m lost without you. Bring back your spirit of joy to me because right now, I don’t know that I’ll ever feel that again apart from you doing what ONLY you can do.
11 Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Literally — don’t kill me God!
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
13 Then I will teach your ways to rebels,
and they will return to you.
14 Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves;
then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness.
15 Unseal my lips, O Lord,
that my mouth may praise you.
In other words, if you forgive me, when you forgive me, I can’t help but praise you!
Some of you, this is why you are our best worshippers! Because you know your sin, you’ve owned your sin, you’ve confessed your sin & you’ve experienced the forgiveness of your sin & it had SUCH an impact on you that you’ll never be the same again! So when we sing, when we worship, you don’t care what you sound like. You don’t care who’s around you. You can’t help but worship the God who has had such mercy & grace on you. Who has literally forgiven you of what you’ve done & pardoned you.
David knows this is the power of this prayer… that God… He doesn’t desire…
16 …a sacrifice, or I would offer one.
You do not want a burnt offering.
God isn’t looking for some sacrifice… He’s looking at your heart. He’s always been looking at your heart.
17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
So how is your heart today?
If God kept a record of your sin, could you possibly stand before Him?
No way.
Yet you & I have something David never had. You & I live on this side of the cross.
You & I live with the knowledge that God so loved the world that He came, He gave, He died & He rose again! You & I know of the love & grace & mercy of God because we know the rest of the story. We know about the cross!
In our best moments we cling to the cross & hope against hope that Jesus will forgive us… again. We make promises we know we can’t keep. We stand in the shadow of the cross full of guilt & shame. We wonder, can God forgive me again? Will He? If you’ve ever asked that question, you are not alone. The good news is there is hope at the cross. But the hope that is found there was never meant to stay there.
[Tweet “The hope that is found at the cross was never meant to stay at the cross.”]It’s at the cross that we see the depth of God’s love & forgiveness. It’s at the cross that we feel the weight of God’s love & grace. It’s when you & I sit face to face with the cross that we realize who we are, what we’ve done & who God is & what He’s done.
We are called to come to the cross but we are not called to remain at the cross.
[Tweet “We are called to come to the cross but we are not called to remain at the cross.”]The work of the enemy is to keep us AT the foot of the cross. The work of God is to forgive us at the cross then move us to live FROM the cross, not stuck at the foot of the cross.
When we own our sin, bring it to the cross, we realize that at the cross because of what Jesus has done we are forgiven & we are free! But then… we need to move… move from living AT the cross to living FROM the cross!
Because… “If we confess our sins, [GOD] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1.9
[Tweet “GOD is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins… 1 John 1.19”]So may we move from living AT the cross to living FROM the cross, forgiven & free.
Because we weren’t forgiven to remain in the chains of sin, to remain living under the weight of our past. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so we would spend the rest of our days feeling guilty for what we’ve done.
Jesus wants us to come to the cross to experience His love, but then I fully believe He wants us to go from the cross to carry the news of His love to the rest of the world.
Those who came to the cross that day He was crucified, his followers who were there didn’t stay there. After they realized that Jesus had risen the message they shared was that yes, Jesus died… but He was raised again!
And because we have experienced the forgiveness of Jesus at the cross we can carry this good news that Jesus forgives to everyone around us.
[Tweet “May we move from living AT the cross to living FROM the cross, forgiven & free.”]
