The Season of Lent… is something of a roller coaster ride in which we confront our own sinfulness in light of the suffering of Christ. And yet during this time of introspection we are also keenly aware of how the story ends with Christ’[s victory over sin and death. This morning we begin the Season with a sense of brokenness and repentance.
Title: Luggage Longing to Be Lost
Text: Psalm 51:1-17
Thesis: God in his mercy and grace hears us, renews and restores us when we are broken and repentant.
Introduction
I remember on episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and Elaine were flying to Miami. They were checking their bags curbside and Jerry asked the Skycap what kind of tip is generally appropriate for his services. The Skycap said, “I am usually tipped $5 per bag.” Jerry then happily tipped the Skycap but Elaine had a hissy fit… “Five dollars a bag… five dollars a bag to attach a flight destination tag and put it on the cart? You’ve got to be kidding!” At that point Jerry took her by the arm and drug her away. Then the Skycap took Jerry’s bag and said, “Miami,” and placed it on the cart of luggage to Miami and then he said, “Honolulu,” and placed Elaine’s bag on the Honolulu cart.
When you arrive at your destination and make your way to baggage claim you expect your stuff to be patiently making its way around the suitcase carousel. And if it isn’t there… things go south very quickly.
The airlines tell us that 99.5% of all bags are successfully picked up by their owners. Only .5% of all bags go missing and 95% of those stray bags make it home within 5 days. However the miniscule few actually total thousands of pieces of luggage, Those bags are shipped to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama where the bags are opened and the contents sorted and sold to the public in a 50,000 square foot warehouse.
As you can imagine those bags contain lots of treasures but also some things are best left unclaimed… dead things, stinky and smelly things, dirty things, obscene things and even live snakes.
When we speak of someone who has a lot of baggage or comes with a lot of baggage we are not thinking of baggage as a good thing. And if truth be told, many of us have baggage in our lives that we would like to ship to the Unclaimed Baggage Center.
King David was a man who had a lot of baggage… you can pick up his baggage in II Samuel 11-12:
Perhaps David was tired of war and just wanted to stay home. We don’t know but we do know, as it says in II Samuel 11, “In the spring of the year when kings normally go to war, David sent Joab and the Israelite army to fight the Ammonites. “
The story goes that one day following his midday rest he walked onto the roof of his palace and looked out over the city and saw a beautiful woman bathing. He sent someone to find out who she was and learned that she was the wife of Uriah (who was conveniently away at war). He sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace he slept with her.
Soon after she returned home she discovered she was pregnant and sent word to David to the effect that he was going to be a new daddy. So David sent word to the battle front to have Uriah sent home to tell him how the battle was progressing and while he was home David suggested Uriah go on home and spend the night with his wife. But Uriah refused to go home and be with his wife while all his comrades in battle were at war. So David sent Uriah back to the front and instructed his commanding officer to send Uriah into the thickest part of the battle where he would be killed. And he was… So then David brought Bathsheba into his palace and made her his wife.
That’s when God sent Nathan the Prophet to see David. He told David the story of a very rich man who had hundreds of sheep and cattle and of poor man who had only one sheep that he loved very much. One day a guest came to the rich man’s house and rather than the rich man killing one of his own lambs to feed his guest, he killed the poor man’s lamb for the feast.
Immediately David went into a rage and demanded to know who the rich man was. Whoever did such a thing deserved to die. That’s when Nathan said to David, “You are that man!”
David was busted big time!
What to do when you are busted big time? What to do when you’ve lost your innocence? What to do when you’ve lost your cool? What to do when you’ve blown a gasket? What to do when you are overwhelmed with guilt?
They say that David wrote Psalm 51 after he was caught in his web of deceit. So in reflecting on how David responded to his guilt and shame we might pick up a few tips on how we might respond to our own guilt and shame.
David began with God!
I. Realize what matters most. Psalm 51:1-6
We seldom begin with anything remotely related to coming clean with God.
Denial. For some the thing that matters most is maintaining their image so we may attempt to cover up the fact that we are sinful people and have done sinful things. Denial is one way to dealing with stuff.
Blame game. Some of us are great at the blame game. In Genesis, when Adam was confronted with his sin he immediately pointed to his wife and said, “The woman made me do it.” David could have said, “If Bathsheba had been bathing in her house where she should have been I would never have done such a thing.”
Rationalization. I have an old friend who is prone to being short-tempered and each time he blows it he says, “It’s the Irish in me…” I recently heard a woman explain why she is the way she is saying, “Every time I open my mouth, my mother comes out.”
Counseling. Some seek professional help to deal with the disorder that lies at the root of their failure.
We have watched with sadness the unfolding of the Sandusky Trial and the after math of the Penn State investigation. It turns out that most senior officials at the university had shown “total and consistent disregard” for the welfare of children and had actually work together to conceal the truth… fearing bad publicity and hurting their nationally ranked football program.
The broader lesson is about how we respond to truth of any kind when we know it will hurt us… when we’ve broken trust, do we face the truth or do we cover it up?”
To sin is to miss the mark, so to speak. In Romans we are told, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” All have sinned because we have missed the mark of God’s holiness and glory. And to sin and cover it up only exacerbates our sinfulness.
It may be defined as the breaking of or transgressing against God’s law. It may be defined as disobedience or rebellion against God. To sin is to miss the mark of God’s holiness and God’s will. Sin is the condition that separates us from God and leads to spiritual death.
Some time ago I may have mentioned it but statistically most people live in a state of “illusory superiority.” Illusory Superiority means we tend to inflate our positive qualities and abilities in comparison to other the people. When you are living in illusory superiority you believe you are a better person than the average person.
However to live in a state of illusory superiority is to deny our sin or try to blame it away or explain it away or get someone to tell us that we suffer from some sort of disorder and in doing so, we are missing the mark at every turn. David got it. David knew that before he made any excuses or blamed anyone else for his behavior, he had to deal with God. The only thing that mattered to David when he was busted, was his relationship with God.
When we sin, our first and most important response must be turning to God for mercy, compassion and forgiveness.
A. Your relationship with God who is loving and merciful matters
Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out my sins. Psalm 51:1 (His sin was not going to go anywhere until God forgave it.)
The second thing that matters is that you be willing to confess your sin.
B. Your willingness to confess your sinfulness matters.
For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you and you only have I sinned; I have done what was evil in your sight. Psalm 51:3-4
David owned his stuff. I did it. I committed adultery. I am responsible for the death of a man. I have been a conniving, deceitful man who has tried to sweep my garbage under the rug.
David also owned his humanness…
C. Your understanding of the systemic nature of sin matters.
For I was born a sinner – yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5
We come by our sinfulness naturally. Because Adam and Eve sinned we are all born into sin. Sinfulness is part of our human DNA. It’s the way we are wired.
I found this kind of amusing in light of the latest cruise ship fiasco. As you know Carnival’s Triumph is now docked in Mobile, Alabama to be cleaned up and repaired after a week adrift at sea with its passengers living in squalor.
With that in mind, it is ironic that two brothers have written a best-selling book Made to Stick and in it they tell about a doctor who while on a cruise ship observed how frequently the crew of the ship washed their hands. His observation was that the crew members were more diligent about hand washing than his colleagues and the staff at his hospital.
So when he got home he surprised a group of twenty doctors and administrators following a luncheon meeting. The hospital epidemiologist asked each person to place the palm of his hand in a sterile Petri dish containing a growth medium. The Petri dishes were sent to the lab to be cultured and photographed. The photographs were horrifying… everyone’s hands were covered with what he described as gobs of bacteria. The hands that examined patients and held turkey wraps for lunch were harboring an army of microorganisms. They all became conscientious hand washers.
We typically will not change our behavior until we see it for what it is. David saw it and knew he needed to change.
Just as we need to be willing to own who and what we are… we need to own who God is, as did David.
II. Regardless of the depth of our depravity God is gracious, willing and able to do something about it. Psalm 51:7-15
One of my favorite passages in found in Romans 5:20. God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more and more abundant. So just as sin ruled overall people and brought them death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In other words… the worse sin gets, the better grace gets.
I knew a woman who was a hoarder. She filled one house so her husband built a new brick ranch and she filled the new ranch. There were only paths to walk through the house. One Thanksgiving her son-in law told me the only place he could find to sit and eat his dinner was the edge of the tub. Whenever I see the effects of hoarding I don’t know how to react but I am usually shocked when the hoarder wants to continue to live like that rather than clean house.
But no matter how much baggage we’ve hoarded over the years, if we are willing, there is always a large enough dumpster to contain and haul away all our sinful clutter.
Nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus… there is no burden so heavy or trash pile so high that God cannot clean house.
The first thing David asked God to do was remove his guilt and replace it with joy.
A. God will remove your guilt and replace it with joy
Purify me from my sins, and I will e clean… Oh give me back my joy again; you have broken me – now let me rejoice. Psalm 51:7-8
The second thing David asked God to do was renew his spirit.
B. God will renew your spirit
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
The third thing David asked God to do was restore his desire to be obedient to God’s perfect will in all of life.
C. God will restore your desire to live a life of obedience
Restore in me the joy of my salvation and make me willing to obey you. Psalm 51:12
And the fourth thing David wanted to do was be used to encourage others.
D. God will use you your story to encourage others
Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you. Psalm 51:13
David’s closing thoughts suggest that nothing we can ever offer to God or do for God and others will matter unless we live before God as broken and repentant people.
III. Remember God desires a broken and repentant spirit, Psalm 51:16-19
The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Psalm 51:17
David began as a “man after the heart of God.” And somewhere along the line his life ran off the rails and he had a train wreck of epic proportions that washed a flood of destruction over himself and others, including his own children. And in our text today we see that David emerged from his train wreck a broken and humbled man who was once again willing to play by God’s rules.
Humility, brokenness and a repentant spirit characterize the person who lives in a constant awareness of God’s mercy and grace in his life.
David was no longer like the Pharisee who strolled around town and through the temple area “thanking God that he was not like other men.” He was the humble man on the margins who prayed, “Father forgive me for I am a sinner.”
In the end David was that man who understood what God expected of him and that was to “do what is right, love mercy and justice and walk humbly with his God.” Micah 6:8
Conclusion:
John Ortberg tells a story from the early days of his marriage. He had sold his Volkswagen Beetle so they could buy their very first really nice piece of furniture… it was a mauve sofa. The man at the sofa store told them how to take care of it and they took it home.
The number one rule in the house from that day on was, “Don’t sit on the mauve sofa! Don’t touch the mauve sofa! Don breathe on the mauve sofa! Don’t think about the mauve sofa… for if you do, on that day you will surely die!”
One day there appeared on the mauve sofa a stain… a red jelly stain. His wife called the sofa man and he said there was nothing that could be done. So she assembled the children: Laura who was 4, Mallory who was 2 and a half and Johnny who was 6 months. She said, “The man at the sofa store says the stain is not coming out for all eternity. So do you know how long eternity is? Well eternity is how long we are going to sit here until one of you tells me which one of you put the red jelly stain on the mauve sofa.”
They sat there for a long time and finally Mallory cracked and said, “Laura did it!” Laura promptly denied it. They sat some more and he said he knew none of them would ever confess because as he put it, “I did it!” (“Why Serious Preachers Use Humor,” The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, Zondervan, 2005)
There are at least two lessons to be lifted from this story and our text…
1. We’ve all stained the sofa.
2. Only God can wash the stain from our lives and make us clean… whiter than snow clean.
Perhaps you’ve been dragging around some old baggage you really need to drop off… some luggage longing to be lost. As we live into this Lenten Season know that, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. “ I John 1:9
