Psalm 51 The Law

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you my Lord and my salvation. Amen.

Who of you are sinners? Any one? Come on a show of hands??? Is anyone here willing to admit that they are a sinner? That they are unclean? That they are deserving of death, damnation and hell???

 I don’t really care if you put your hand up. Whether you did or didn’t doesn’t really concern me. God knows where your heart is, he knows where you are, He knows what you have done wrong, he knows that you were born in sin and can not free yourselves. But the question I am posing to you this morning is: Do you know your sin? Do you admit your sin? Are you afraid of the punishment of this sin? And what on earth you are going to do about it?

Read Psalm 51, a prayer for forgiveness.
 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! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, 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, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, 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 sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. (ESV)

 Do you know your sin? 
 Through out this psalm, we hear that the psalmist knew His sin. He understood that he had done wrong. His words were “For I know my rebellion, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight”. But how did he know he had sinned. Was it just a feeling of wrong?

The person who is thought to have written this psalm is King David after his affair with Bathsheba and after Nathan the prophet had spoken to him concerning his rebellion against God. But what was it that convicted David of his sin. Was it only that someone had come up to him and showed him where he was wrong?

 One of the duties of the king of Israel was to know the will of God: As it is written in Deuteronomy chapter 17: And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,  that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment”. King David knew the laws of God. He had memorized them, written them down, and read them every day of his life. The law of God showed him his sin.

 And we might say: “Thats all well and good, the king had plenty of time to read the law of God so he could know God’s will. He was paid to do that as his job”. But God didn’t let the general population of his people get off that easy in fact he said about His commandments: “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates”. This is not just a sometimes, when we have time to do it thing. We are to know God’s commandments like the back of our hand. But do we???

Do you spend time every day meditating of God’s law? Do you spend time reading your bible everyday, letting God speak to you through His words? Do you know your sin? And if you do know your sin, Are you willing to admit it and repent of the wrong you have done? It would have been easy enough for David to hide from his sin (at least from the human perspective). He got rid of Bathsheba’s husband by having him killed in battle. No one would have known any better. But God knew. And so did David. David knew he had done wrong because he knew God’s law to not commit adultery. And in response to God’s law he repented. He says to God, “My sin is ever before me”, “Against you have I sinned”, “I was born in sin”. This is a man who has been absolutely crushed by God’s law. Every bone in his body felt like it was broken by this weight of sin. Does your sin make you feel this way? Do you feel that burdened by your sin? Does the punishment of death and eternal damnation fill you with fear? Did you know that is what God says the punishment of sin is; Death? And so now that we know what the punishment of breaking the commandments is (whether you know them or not), What on earth are you going to do about it???

 There is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent this punishment. No matter how good a life you live, no matter how often you pray, no matter how much you come to church, not even how much you put in that offering bowl will save you. Nothing you do, can repay God for the wrong which you have done!!!

But this is not the end of my sermon. If you have lost attention, please listen to me now again. There is nothing that you have done that can possibly separate you from the love of God. He has washed you clean from sin. He has washed you in his blood with hyssop. He has passed over you. He has blotted out all your sin. He has washed away all your iniquity. According to His steadfast love and His abundant mercy he has redeemed you. There was a cost to your redemption. It was only by blood that your sins could be forgiven. The blood of His only Son, Jesus Christ was shed so that salvation could be yours. Not by anything that you have done. But as a free gift. Won for you, before you first knowingly sinned. Before you were even born. Before you were even conceived. That is how much God loves you.

And so, dear friends in Christ: Let us draw near to God our Father with a true heart to confess our sins and ask him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to forgive us. Almighty God, we come before your throne, knowing our sin, it is always before us, we know that although we have sinned against those around us, ultimately it is you, only you that we have rebelled against. Lord we confess that we have sinned against you in thought word and deed, all of which we now confess to you in our hearts (time of silence for confession) Lord we have sinned against you, only you, both by what we have done, and by what we have failed to do. We have not loved you with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbor as our selves. We know that the punishment for our rebellion against you is death in time and eternity. Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy blot out our transgressions. We are sorry for our sins Lord. And so we ask you, for the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ, to forgive us, to wash us so our consciences can be whiter than snow. Amen 

And so I ask each of you in the presence of God who searches the heart: Do you confess that you have sinned and do you repent of your sins? Do you believe that Jesus Christ has redeemed you from your sins, and do you desire forgiveness in his name? Do you intend with the help of the Holy Spirit to live as in God’s presence, and to strive to lead a holy life, even as Christ has made you holy? Christ gave to his church the authority to forgive the sins of those who repent.

Therefore upon your confession I announce the grace of God to all of you and declare that your sins have been forgiven, In the name of the Father, Son and and Holy Spirit. Peace be with you. Amen 

Freedom to do God’s will!!! 
And so then is that all there is? Is this where the sermon finishes? I guess that depends of whether we meant the third partition of that confession: “Do you intend with the help of the Holy Spirit to live as in God’s presence, and to strive daily to lead a holy life, even as Christ has made you holy?”. You see repentance and forgiveness is not just a ticket to go on with our old lifestyle. That is what the New Testament book of James calls “Dead faith”. If we are to have a living faith, forgiveness can not have a full stop. It will have fruit.

But how can we know what it is that God would have us do? How are we to know how to live a holy life, even as Christ has made us holy. Amazingly, it is the same things that I mentioned before. It is the ten commandments that showed us where we are sinful and unclean. This time however; it is not the fear of punishment and the knowledge of our sin that drives us to keep them. Now, having received God’s abundant mercy because of his steadfast love, we strive to keep the commandments because of the joy of salvation. It is no longer, “THOU SHALT NOT”; rather it is out of overflowing joy that we have a merciful God who has saved us, that we listen to God’s will made known to us by the gift of His commands.

And so my brothers and sisters in Christ. May the love of God which has forgiven you all your sins, fill you with joy and gladness. May his mercy strengthen you as you strive to love Him and love one another, so that in all you do, all you say and all you think, may be pleasing to the God of our Salvation. Father, Son and Holy Sprit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.