“Falling Deeply in Love with God”
Psalm 51
Have you ever been so overwhelmed by your own sin, to the point of believing that God would abandon you and never forgive you?
Or perhaps, you are frustrated by what you have done, and this causes you to become really depressed and you don’t know how you can keep going.
Sin can make us feel as if we are entirely un-love-able, can it not?
A London psychologist once said that 70% of the people in mental hospitals in England could be released if they could only find forgiveness.
Their problem is a bad conscience and they can’t get any relief from the guilt and pressure under which they live—it drives them nuts, it causes all kinds of anxiety-related mental problems, self-hatred and the fear of being “found out.”
Can you relate?
Can I?
Psalm 51 is one of the few Psalms where we are given the historical background from which it came.
The inscription reads: “A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.”
David was on his palace roof one day after the army had gone out to battle, and he saw a beautiful woman--named Bathsheba—taking a bath.
He let his lust get the best of him, and he ordered her to be brought to him.
David had relations with Bathsheba—a woman who was married to a soldier in David’s army-Uriah the Hittite—who was away fighting for David his King.
Later, when David found out that Bathsheba was pregnant with his child, he panicked and tried to cover it up.
He ordered Uriah to come home from battle hoping he would sleep with his wife so he would think the child was his.
When David realized this wasn’t going to work and that his sin would be found out, he took things a step further.
And this is what sin does, is it not?
It has a tendency to lead us down deeper and deeper than we ever planned to go.
King David became more and more desperate until he finally ordered Uriah to be put on the front lines of battle where he would most certainly be killed.
When David was told that Uriah had been killed, he thought he had covered his sin.
But God loved David too much to allow him to go on covering up his sin and thus damaging himself, his relationship with God and his Kingdom.
So, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God sent Nathan the Prophet to David in order to convict David of his sin and his need to repent.
When convicted, David fell on his face before God, and out of that experience of confession comes Psalm 51.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me.”
I was at a small group prayer meeting a few weeks ago, and a friend of mine read this Psalm.
And as he was reading it, I got thinking about the pain David must have felt, the guilt that he must have been dealing with after having murdered another person after having slept with his wife.
How overwhelming it must have been—how crushing.
And then, I started thinking about my own sin, and times when I have done things that have hurt other people.
And even though I have never done some of the things David did, I do still deal with the consequences of things I have done in the past.
And it causes me great pain.
I have done things that have hurt people.
And if it weren’t for God’s forgiveness—God’s great love and compassion—I might just go insane because of it.
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned…”
When we hurt other people.
When we sin, we are sinning against God.
You know why?
We are not only hurting ourselves, we are hurting others.
And God is so in love with people, that when we do something to damage those whom God loves—we are damaging God Himself.
What did Jesus say?: “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me…
…whatever you did not do for [someone else] you did not do it for me.”
Does that hit you hard?
It hits me hard.
And you know what?
Our sins have a ripple effect out beyond the person or persons we think we have hurt.
It’s kind of like the Butterfly effect.
You know, Satan really loves it when we sin.
At this point, you might be thinking, “Is Ken just trying to get me down?
I mean, I’m feeling bad enough with this Corona Virus stuff going on.
I don’t need to feel worse.”
But you know, there is some amazingly Good News in all of this.
Think about it, if God didn’t care about David, would God have gone through all the trouble of sending the Prophet to convict David of his sin?
If God didn’t care about me, would God have brought me to the point where I have felt the pain and consequences of my sin, and thus repented and experienced the amazing mercy, love and compassion of God?
We love God because God first loves us.
And the reality is that we are all sinners.
We all do things, whether big or small, that hurt others.
We have all sinned against God.
And if gone unchecked, unrealized, we wouldn’t even know to repent.
Satan would really have a field day then!
This world would have ended a long time ago.
“But God so loved the world…”
“But God so loved you…”
“But God so loved me…”
Part of the process of being convicted of our sins—faced with our evil actions…
…Part of the process of repentance is recognizing our utter dependence on God.
And then realizing the depth of God’s mercy, compassion and love…
…and when we do this—when we are faced with our sinfulness and God’s forgiveness of those sins—we are faced with God’s amazing love for us.
And we can’t help but praise God.
We can’t help but celebrate.
We can’t help but fall deeply in love with God!!!
And this is what saves us, this is what transforms us, this is what makes life worth living!
David writes: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me…”
If that were all there was—we would just move along until we fell off into hell.
But that is not all there is.
“Cleanse me…” David writes, “and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow…
…create in me a pure heart, O God…
…restore to me the joy of my salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me…
…open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise…”
Do you believe God will cleanse you; if only you repent and ask for mercy?
Do you believe in God’s “unfailing love,” in “God’s great compassion”?
Do you believe that God can “wash away all [your] iniquity and cleanse [you] from [your] sin”?
If so, will you ask God to “create in [you] a pure heart”?
So many of us have recited or heard John 3:16 recited: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And it is the most beautiful verse in all of Scripture…
…but it doesn’t stop there, it goes on into verse 17 all the way to verse 21:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
You know, the Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart.
How can that be said of such a miserable sinner?
I think it’s because God convicted David of his sin.
David, when convicted, came to the Light—and in truth—admitted to himself and to God what he had done.
It was seen plainly in the sight of God.
And David, was forgiven.
And in that forgiveness and restoration, David learned to love God more deeply than he could have ever imagined, simply because he made the decision to live in the light.
There is an old church camp skit that goes like this:
Peter is seated at the pearly gates, and a woman approaches.
“Tell me why I should let you in,” Peter says.
“I have gone to church my whole life,” the woman says.
Then Peter reminds her that she had been unkind to some of the members of the church.
“Well,” she says defensively, “I brought groceries every week to my elderly neighbor.”
Peter points out that she often used the neighbor’s money to buy a few things for herself.
The conversation continues like this, and the woman becomes more and more defensive and distraught.
She’s clearly beginning to panic at the thought that she might not be allowed in to heaven.
Finally, she falls on her knees in tears of desperation and says, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.”
Immediately the pearly gates swing wide open and Peter says, “Welcome home, my child.”
We are all sinners who are utterly dependent on God for forgiveness and salvation…
…but this isn’t the end of the story.
There is a promise in Psalm 51, one of recreation and redemption—
---a promise that God not only saves us from our sins, but also gives us a new life here and now.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.”
Not only has Jesus Christ gone to the Cross to forgive us for our sins, he has also gone to make us new persons.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it so well, God’s “grace is free, but it’s not cheap.”
It cost Jesus His life.
And when Jesus calls us to follow Him, He calls us to die to our old selves and be born again as new people.
This is, no doubt, a strange time to be alive.
All of us are living in the shadow of the Corona Virus.
Many of us do not have much interaction with other people at this time.
We are watching and worshiping via—a live stream on Facebook.
There are only a couple of people with me in this sanctuary.
Someone, last week, asked me if I ever thought I’d be preaching to so few people.
As we find ourselves with more time alone than we ever might have imagined, let’s remember that we are not alone.
God is with us.
And therefore, what better time is there to refocus ourselves on our need for relationship with God.
One night, this past week before we went to bed, Clair and I watched a couple of hours of Cable News.
It was all about the Corona Virus.
And it was depressing.
The next morning, I woke up, sad and a bit overwhelmed.
I said to Clair, “I think it’s better not too watch too much of the 24-hour news channels.
It’s all so negative.”
She agreed, and said: “Yeah, watch the evening news at 6:30 p.m.—that gives you all you need to know about what is going on, and then focus on serving God and others the rest of the time.”
During these days and perhaps months of quarantine, I cannot think of a better way to spend one’s time than to intentionally focus on our need for God’s mercy, repent of our sins, and commit or recommit ourselves to living as the people God created us to be in the first place!
