Grace and peace from God our Father, through Jesus Christ. Amen
This sermon is based on the psalm for today, psalm 51:
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 judgement.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the guts,
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 sin 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.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, my God and my salvation. AMEN!
The Joy of Salvation. (What is it?)
Many, years ago there was a football team, a great football team, the greatest football team. A team that defeated Brisbane in the grand final. The team of course was Port Adelaide... Now many, many, many years ago, there was another team who won a grand final, two in a row in fact... But that was so long ago that no one can really remember, nor really care about them... But I’m sure any Adelaide crow supporter would remember the feeling of victory, the elation that their team won the grand final... Just as much the good ole Port supporters do...
The years have gone by since those victories. But the feelings remain the same. A sense of pride maybe? A memory of the power felt as the siren sounded and victory was assured.
I know for me, after Port won the premiership I walked the streets wearing all my colors for a least a couple weeks after the game. And boy oh boy did I boast about it to everyone who would hear me.
I’m sure by now many are wondering where I am going with this. Sure, we can understand this joy, this elation, and this great feeling... But we are at church, suppose to be learning about God, and His Son, who came down from heaven to die on the cross for our sins. Who won for us salvation. Who has erased all the sin that we have committed. Who defeated sin, death and the devil...
What on earth have celebrations about victory got to do with God and Church???
Why should we care about boasting about a great contest that has been won???
Have we got anything here to celebrate?
Have we got anything here to boast to our friends about?
Is there a reason for joy?
The psalmist as we heard just before thinks so... In fact the whole psalm that I read out is leading up to the words “Restore to me the JOY of your Salvation”
Have we got anything to celebrate? Yes we do. Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
But how do we receive this understanding of Victory? The way the psalmist puts it is that through Repentance we can receive Forgiveness; which shows us the certainty of our Salvation, which is something to be truly Joyful about.
Repentance
The psalmist in this psalm understands his sin. He knows of his guilt and he knows what the punishment should be. He knows that he is deserving of death.
He says that He has sinned against God. He knows that no matter who was hurt, no matter what he did, the one he sinned ultimately against was God.
You see, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your might, means that you will not hurt your neighbor in any way... Not even in your thoughts. To do anything against anyone is showing that you do not Fear, Love and Trust in God above all things.
The psalmist knew this. He also knew that ever since God created him, within his mothers womb, he was corrupt and unclean. He was born, as we all are, with a sinful nature. Thats part of being descendants of Adam and Eve. Yes, this is hard to accept, that even a new born baby, fresh from the womb, is under the curse of sin. But this is what God teaches us throughout scripture, From Genesis through to Revelation. We are all born in bondage to sin and we can not free our selves. We deserve God’s eternal punishment for sin, which is of course eternal death. This is not negotiable, this is the punishment of sin. Death.
This is the exact reason why the psalmist pleads to God to hide his face from his sin; to blot out all his iniquity, to “Have mercy on me”.
He knows his transgressions, and the guilt of his sin is always in front of him, he can not escape from the crushing feeling of guilt.
The issue I feel today is that we don’t really know our sin. And society has desensitized us to such a degree that we don’t always know when we have done wrong. But God has given us all we need to know about how to live. We had them read to us in church just a couple weeks ago. The Ten Commandment.
Again a problem arises where everyone is sooooo busy that something has to give... And unfortunately that thing is quite often our time with God, our time of learning his commandments, so that we can live in accordance with his will. And unfortunately without the knowledge of God’s law, how can we possibly know the joy of salvation, the joy of forgiveness?
What do we have to repent if we don’t do anything that we know is wrong?
We, like the psalmist are filthy, rotten, sinners who have nothing left but to plead to God to have mercy, and to forgive us.
Forgiveness
But how could God possibly find it in himself to forgive us? We know that we are really bad. We know what our punishment should be.... DEATH! But like the psalmist we can be sure that if God cleans us, we will not be just “dirt free”, but totally pure, free from blemish, without any sin. Clean from the inside out...
Right in the middle of the psalm there is a rather unusual sentence. “Behold you delight in truth in the guts, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart”. Ummm, what to make of this... Ok so I said that God will clean us from the inside out, but having truth in the guts... That sounds almost painful...
And painful is probably the exact word for it... When you feel guilty where do you feel it??? What about when you’re afraid, where do you feel that??? Is it some where about... HERE???
So if we feel guilty and unclean in our guts... Don’t you think God would want to clean us, to make our consciences free???
Yes, God loves your Guts that much...
And the interesting thing is that when we receive this cleansing, we can see much clearer, we can see where we did wrong, and we are taught this as wisdom in our secret heart. We are taught the difference between truth and untruth, good and evil. And most importantly we are taught that God does forgive our sins and removes the guilt of our sin.
God creates in us a clean heart, and He renews our spirit, not with our old evil corrupt spirit, but with His Holy Spirit. God becomes part of us, when we repent of our sin and receive His forgiveness.
And whats more, he promises us, not to send us away, but that he will be with us till the very end of the age. And that he will send a helper to us, The Holy Spirit to teach us, guide us and point us always to Jesus Christ the source of our Salvation...
True Joy
And for this reason we can be truly joyful. We have the promise of our sins forgiven. We have the promise of salvation through Christ our Lord. Jesus won the victory over sin, death and the devil. He won the great match. He died on the cross, so that by His blood splashed over us, we would be cleaned, whiter than snow.
Now if thats not something to boast about and tell our friends, family and all the people that we meet... I don’t know what is... Isn’t that something really worth celebrating?!?!
And the peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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