00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Amen. Please be seated. We come to our text this morning,
as you might have anticipated from the last hymn, Psalm 51, verses 1 through 19, which is the whole psalm. Hear
the word of God. 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 you have broken
rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and
blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, oh
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 blood
guiltiness, 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, oh 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. Praise God for this reading of
his word. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father, we thank
you for your word, your life-giving word, your perfect in every way
word, your word that is sufficient for our hearts, sufficient for
our spirits, sufficient for our life now and in the world to
come. Father, we pray that you would
bless your word to us that we may be more like Jesus and live
more faithfully for him. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. People commonly think that the
most important thing about a Christian is that you are good. So people
of a critical temperament might point out your flaws and say,
you're not so good. And of course, they're right.
No, the most important thing about you is that you repent
of being bad and that you trust Christ to be good in your place. And yet Christians are not sad
and miserable people for all this repenting. Repentance is
a sweet brokenheartedness. Jesus begins his ministry, his
ministry to his people saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. And in commanding repentance,
Jesus is commanding pain and suffering. Because it's the only
way to peace and joy. And the great example of repentance,
it's pain and it's joy is David in Psalm 51. After his sin with
Bathsheba and after his confrontation by the prophet Nathan. And in this Psalm we see a number
of things. We see what repentance is. Repentance is a state of grief. In Hebrew the word means grief
and turning or returning. In Greek, the Greek of the New
Testament, it means grief and a change of mind, a turning of
the mind. It's a turning away from self
to God, no longer living for self. but living instead for
God. It's an abandonment of self.
The way you abandon a ship, you might, you get on a ship, and
you're planning a nice vacation, and off you go, sailing into
the wild blue yonder, and you're happy to stay there, of course.
There's sea all around you. And then you discover the ship
is on fire. Well, then you flee it as fast
as you can, even into the wild waves of the sea. But the difference
between Repentance and that fleeing a ship, which it is like, is
that when you flee your sin, you don't cast yourself into
the unknown of the seas, but into the everlasting arms, into
the promises of God. And so repentance is also resting
solely upon not something as unpredictable as the seas, but
upon God's grace and power. In Psalm 51 verse 1 we see this,
we see the abandonment, have mercy on me, like the publican
in the temple who has nowhere else to turn and he beats his
breast and says, God have mercy on me a sinner, I have nothing
else to stand on, I am just a sinner. Have mercy on me." So there's
that abandonment of self, but also the resting upon God. According
to your steadfast love, he says, resting upon the Lord's steadfast
love, His loving kindness, His covenant love. Have you ever
grieved over your sins, brothers and sisters? Does your sin give
you grief? One of our presidential candidates
shocked us when he said that he had never repented. Instead
he says he prefers not to make mistakes in the first place,
which he is sure he has never done. And yet he claimed to be
a Christian. But without the grief of repentance,
there is no Christian. I shot a bird once. I confess to you all, I shot
a bird once. I felt terrible. Why did I feel
terrible? All these other birds came down
around the former bird and started dancing around in panic like
this. I wasn't expecting that, and
I grieved. I grieved not so much for the
little bird or for any consequences that might or might not befall
me. I grieved for what I was. I did that. I did that. I grieved for me. That is the
grief of repentance. Repentance is also a work of
grace. God is your salvation from first
to last. Your salvation is not a combined
effort of you and God. It's not God doing his part and
then you doing your part and meeting him halfway. It is God's
work from beginning to end. And Jesus says, repent. Repent. The you is assumed. You repent. It's in the affirmative. And
yet, in Acts 5, Peter says, God exalted him to his right hand,
that is, Jesus, as Prince and Savior, to give repentance to
Israel and forgiveness of sins. He gave forgiveness of sins through
Christ to Israel, but he also gave them repentance. And Acts
11, it says, they glorified God, saying, then God has also granted
repentance to life to the Gentiles, granted to the Gentiles repentance
life. He gives repentance. God calls
you to himself and then he brings you to himself. He requires repentance
and he is the one who gives the repentance because it is grace
Salvation is grace from beginning to end and it has to be that
way so that nobody can say, I am here in heaven because I decided
to be here or because I repented and my repentance was good enough
and I did this and none of that. Because in 1 Corinthians 1, it
also says it in Isaiah, so that no one may boast in his presence. Because He is the Creator, we
are the creature, and He deserves all the glory. And so our salvation
is Him from beginning to end. Even the repentance is from Him. But why do you repent? What is
the motive? The motive is love, and we see
it here in verse 2. Desire for godliness, desire
for purity, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse
me from my sin. After a certain age, we want
to be clean. Before a certain age, we don't
understand that, but they're happy not being clean. After
a certain age, you go out, you have a workout, you're sweaty,
and there's dirt in the air, and what do you want? You want
to clean yourself off. There's other situations where
you want to be clean, and it's true spiritually as well. The
Lord shows you your sin, and you want to be cleaned from it.
It weighs on your conscience. But there's also not just love,
there's also hatred. A hatred for your sinfulness. A repulsion at your sinfulness. You look at your sin before you
didn't see it. The Lord opens your eyes and
shows you your sin and it repulses you. You want to be rid of it.
He says in verse 3, my sin is ever before me. It's there before
me, weighing me down, accusing me, always there, weighing my
conscience. So repentance is a turning from
as well as a turning to. And we see this in Isaiah 55
verse 7 where Isaiah says, let the wicked forsake his way and
the unrighteous man his thoughts. Forsake them. Turn away from
them. Let him turn to the Lord, and
he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon, turning away from sin and turning to the God who graciously
receives those who so turn. Above all, repentance is a desire
for God Himself. It's not just a fear of the consequences
of sin, the way the burning ship, you jump off the ship because
you're afraid of the consequences of hanging around too long and
getting burned. But repentance is not just a
fear of the consequences of burning in hell, and it's not just self-disgust
as you find in or if you shoot a bird, or you find in self-improvement
programs, disappointment that you're not living your best life
now, or something like that. It's an actual desire for God. Your sin separates you from Him. And you understand that He is
your light and your life. He is your Creator, you're made
for Him. Your joy, we all want joy. Who doesn't want joy and happiness?
You understand that it is in Him. And apart from Him, there
is no joy. There is no satisfaction. So
your heart longs for Him, for a relationship with Him. a relationship
with Him. That's a kind of empty word we
use, but I'll use it. What we mean is friendship. If
I have you in a headlock, we have a relationship, right? But
that's not what it's talking about here. It's talking about
friendship, that kind of relationship. It's talking about peace with
God. Verse 4, against you, you only
have I sinned. David has arranged for Uriah
the Hittite's death. And before that, he committed
adultery with Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. He has wronged them. But he says, against you, God,
you alone have I sinned. He reveres God's holiness and
he shares God's judgments against himself. And he says, therefore,
I have done what is evil in your sight. It's not just in his view
mistakes or wrongdoing. It's evil. And I have done what
is evil in your sight. And one who repents, repents
of evil, not just personal shortcoming, evil. And verse 11, he says,
cast me not away from your presence. It's the presence of God, it's
the enjoyment of God that is his goal, that's the desire of
his heart. Cast me not away from your presence. David wants to be good, but more
so he wants to be in good relationship with God who is good. Repentance,
brothers and sisters, is not fundamentally about behavior. It is about relationship. God
made us to be in this relationship of peace and enjoyment with him. He made us for himself, the catechism
tells us. And sin breaks that relationship. Sin breaks relationships with
the ones we love. It separates people. from one
another who should be close friends. And we all know this all too
well. Friends and family, your friends
and your family. When you're on good terms, there's
openness, there's comfort with one another, and life is beautiful. But where there is or is perceived
to be offense or betrayal, The walls go up, there is pain, there
is silence, awkward silence, because the relationship is strained
or it is broken. We see the same thing in the
fall. Adam and Eve break God's command regarding the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. And what happens? They hide themselves. They hide themselves from God
when He comes to the garden. Why? Because there is a broken
relationship on account of sin. And what does God do? He restores
that relationship, or He promises to restore the relationship.
In Genesis 3.16, He clothes them with the animal skins, looking
forward to what He's going to do through Jesus. And then, of
course, the cross, where Jesus makes good on that. On the cross,
he quotes Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? Cast
me away from your presence. There is a broken relationship.
The father turns his face away from the son. Because of our
sins on him, there is a break in the relationship. But what
happens? God raises him from the dead.
Jesus pays for those sins. He atones for those sins. God
raises him up, showing that he has done the work. It is finished. It is complete. And the relationship
is restored. And through him, our relationship
with God can be restored. Some people know that sin is
bad for them. And they know their sin is wrong,
but they don't stop sinning. Why? Because there's no relationship
involved, or they don't appreciate the relationship that is involved.
My grandpa Bruce, when he was, I guess he was still in the army.
My mother was a wee girl. was in Scotland. And it must
have been Hogmanay or something, Scottish New Year, and there
was a lot of drinking and my grandfather had consumed what you would expect someone
to consume on Hogmanay. And as I hear the story, my mother
was there, she was just a wee thing, as I said, and he must
have, he beckoned to her, something like, ah, my wee thing, come
tear paw, or something like this. And she saw he was different,
and she recoiled at him, she backed away. And he hadn't had
so much that he couldn't see this. He saw this and he recognized
what was happening and he didn't like it. And so he never had
another drop the rest of his life because his relationship
with his little girl was more important. than any enjoyment
or anything that he might get out of drinking, and so he swore
it off. Repentance is the same way, except
the relationship is with God. Verses 10 to 12, let's look at
that again. Create in me a clean heart, O
God. Renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your
presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore
to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing
spirit. We sin when we have more concern
for the wrongdoing than for the relationship. Imagine your father
has, I guess it could be your mother, but it's more likely
your father has a classic car, right? I don't mean like a car
that was very special to me, an 87 Corolla. Oh, that was a
nice car. No, I'm talking like a Ford Mustang,
not like a 97 Mustang. Kids, you think that was forever
ago, 97? No, they weren't making Mustangs well. a 66 Mustang. He's got this in his garage and
he keeps it shining and he keeps it humming. It's his 66 Mustang. And you're playing in the Mustang
one day and he finds you playing in the Mustang and he flies into
a rage and he hits you and gives you various appropriate warnings.
and your heart breaks, why does your heart break? It's not because
now you don't get to play in the Mustang anymore. It's not
because the sting of the slap. It's because of the broken relationship. It's because my father seems
to care more for the Mustang than for me. That's what breaks
your heart. David says in Psalm 66, if I
had cherished sin in my heart, if I cherished sin in my heart,
if I had preferred sin to God, the Lord would not have listened.
Broken relationship. Sin is a broken relationship
with God. Repentance is a broken heart
over that relationship. Martin Luther, who had a way
of putting things, said that repentance is the tear in the
eye of faith shed for that relationship. Brothers and sisters, the question
to ask yourself is not, do I want to go to heaven? Do I expect
to go to heaven? Much less, am I a good person?
What could God possibly have against me? The question for
you, whether you are converted or not converted, David, you'll
notice, is a mature believer at this point. The question for
you is, what do I think of my sin? Do I see my sin the way
God sees my sin? Do I want to know God and the
power of His resurrection, as Paul puts it? Is that personal
relationship with my Creator, my Redeemer, important for me? How important is it for me? That politician says he doesn't
ask God's forgiveness, he just tries in his mind successfully
not to sin. But of course he's deceiving
himself and he's missing out. He's missing out not only on
eternal life, but also on the joy of daily repentance and the
daily renewal with your peace with God. Not that we ever lose
God's peace in Christ, but the enjoyment of that relationship. As you go on repenting, as your
relationship with God, your friendship with God strengthens and deepens,
More and more you will come to love what He loves and enjoy
what He enjoys, and nothing compares to that. This is spiritual fruit. This is growing, growing in Christ. And we see that love throughout
this passage. Verse 6, if you have verse 6
in front of you. Behold, you delight in truth
in the inward being. There's a love for truth you
grow into. You delight in truth in the inward
being. You teach me wisdom in my secret
heart. And there's a love for purity.
Verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. There's a love for the lost in
verse 13. Then I will teach transgressors
your ways, and sinners will return to you. He's happy with this.
And there's a love for God's worship. Verses 14 to 16, deliver
me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my
tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O God, 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 burnt offerings. The repentant heart loves God's
worship. And the repentant heart loves
God's church as well. Verse 18, do good for Zion in
your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem.
And then, of course, there's love for God's pleasure itself.
When God is happy, you're as happy. You are happy. What he
wants, he is pleased with, and so you give him what he wants,
and this delights you. Then you will delight. You, God,
will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole
burnt offerings. Then bowls will be offered on
your altar. When God is happy, you are happy. This is the spiritual fruit on
the other side of repentance, the sweetness of that sweet brokenheartedness,
the substance of your peace with God. And to those of gracious
temperament whose eyes God is opening, people you know in your
life, not the critical spirits, people whose eyes God is opening,
to whom He has given this gracious temperament, Those loves, love
for truth, love for purity, love for the church, love for God's
pleasure, will not go unnoticed. And by the God to whom your heart
is graciously restored, they will not go unused. Let's pray. O Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for giving
repentance to our hearts. You give us many things, especially
here in this country. You give us many things, but
you have given repentance to our hearts. Father, give us daily
repentance because daily we sin. Show us our sin. Give us grief
of our sin. Give us the joy and delight of
knowing that our sins are forgiven. And Father, we pray, Lord, that
this joy would shine from us and that those who are drawing
to yourself would see this joy, see this growth, and see that
it is possible for a human being to be forgiven of sin and to grow in grace out of sin. And Father, we ask this in Jesus'
name. Amen.
Repentance and Relationship
| Sermon ID | 83016201703 |
| Duration | 26:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Psalm 51 |
| Language | English |
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.