Well, joy should be a normal part of the Christian
life, even in times of difficulty, even in the
midst of trials, joy should be like the norm.
And I'm grateful this morning, I've been greeted
by a lot of joyful people, a lot of smiles and
a lot of stories, and I appreciate that, but
joy should be the norm. We have so much to be
grateful for as followers of Christ. We have
a hope to look forward to. We have an eternal
security in God. We have all these good gifts
he's given us, things like cheesecake. Mmm, cheesecake.
But God has blessed us so much. Joy should be
the norm in our Christian lives. And joy is not
just happiness, it's deep -rooted. Joy doesn't
flutter away when things get difficult in life.
Joy's roots go deep, and it endures all these
difficulties. But even though the Christian life
is joyful, it doesn't mean we bury our head in
the sands and are unaware of the pain and the
difficulty and the suffering in this world. It
doesn't mean we pretend like everything's okay.
It doesn't mean we pretend like we're perfect
and sinless. In fact, what we find today is if
we don't acknowledge our sin, if we don't confess
our sin, eventually it will suffocate and crush
us. And today we're looking at Psalm 51, and
kind of the overarching theme is rejoicing in
God's forgiveness. Rejoicing in God's forgiveness.
And I wonder if any of you have ever been in
the place that David was in this psalm, where
you were so overwhelmed by guilt, so overwhelmed
by your sin, that all of the joy was just squeezed
out of your life. It was just suffocating for
you. And this is what sin will do. This is what
guilt will do to us. It'll suffocate our joy
and it'll remove us from those relationships
that Pastor Jim has called us to, right? This
community of believers go deeper, he said last
week. It'll isolate us from the people God's
called us to and it'll isolate us from God. And
you may find yourself today overwhelmed by guilt,
by sin, and you would be in the company of a
whole lot of other people. Isaiah at one point
standing before this holy God. He said, woe is
me. I am a man of unclean lips. He recognized
his sin. He was overwhelmed by his sin. Paul
said, I am the chief of sinners. He was burdened
by his past, by his sin. At the beginning of
every single service at Munster Church, we begin
with God's greeting, this reminder that God's
grace and his mercy and his peace, we desperately
need it. And he offers it freely. So joy and
confession are both parts of the believer's life,
natural parts, everyday parts of the believer's
life, joy and confession. Psalm 51, as we come
to this today, we are in the second book, second
of five books in the Psalms, right? In this summer
of Psalms. And Psalm 51 is a Psalm of David.
Yes, that David, the giant slayer, the king,
the musician, the one who wrote about half of
the Psalms. And David is far gifted beyond what
many of us will ever be, but David, we also find,
is just as human as you and I, just as flawed
as you and I, just as sinful as you and I. And
the backdrop of this psalm, it says before verse
1, it was that time when Nathan approached David
about a sin in his life that he was overwhelmed
by. And you'll remember the story in 2 Samuel
11 and 12. David had seen this woman and he said,
I'm the king, I want her, I'll have her. And
he sent someone to get her and she became pregnant.
And now David's got a problem on his hands, not
only adultery, but now he realizes he's got to
cover up this sin. And so he sends for Uriah,
the husband, and has him come back from battle.
And when that plan doesn't unfold the way he
wanted to to cover up his sin, he realizes now
I'm going to have to send Uriah to the front
lines of this battle and Uriah is killed. So
now we've covered on top of adultery, now we
have murder. And David is just, in Psalm 51,
he is weighed down. He is burdened by this sin.
David, I mean, he goes big, doesn't he? But he
doesn't just slay giants, he sins big too, and
now he's covered in this, and he's joyless, he's
suffocated. And what we see in Psalm 51 is this
beautiful solution to this weight that we feel,
the weight of our guilt, the weight of our sin,
and it's confession. Now, often, a psalmist,
what they'll do is they will either blame their
enemies for their problems, or they'll blame
God for the problems they face. But there are
a few that don't do that. There are seven, in
fact, that we call penitential psalms. And these
are the psalms where the writer says, it's on
me. I got myself into this mess. I am a sinner.
Woe is me. And we see the same thing in Psalm
38, for example. David wrote this psalm as well.
And this is a really... clear picture of what
David was feeling at this time, the weight of
his sin. He says, he says, my iniquities have
gone over my head, like this heavy burden, too
heavy for me. He says, I groan because of the
tumult in my heart. My heart throbs, my strength
fails me, and the light of my eyes, it's also
gone for me. You can see it on a person that's
overwhelmed by guilt. All the joy is sapped out
of them. And David says, I confess my iniquity.
I'm sorry for my sin. This is a penitential psalm,
Psalm 38. And Psalm 51 will echo these same things.
David is not blaming God. He's not claiming innocence.
He's owning his sin here in Psalm 51. And we'll
see all three parts of the Heidelberg play out
in this psalm. Parts one, two, and three. It's
sin and misery. followed by God's deliverance,
and then a response of gratitude. That's what
we're going to see in this psalm. Now, last week,
Pastor Jim challenged you all to go deeper in
connection. This is the summer he said he wants
to see us as a church go deeper in these connections.
And one way for sure that you can squash that,
one way for sure that you can make sure that
never happens at Munster Church is, well... not
just stealing someone's wife and having their
husband murdered, but deeper than that. It's
this suffocating sin. It's this isolation that
happens. If we do not confess our sins, Scripture
says, we'll be isolated in our guilt, and we'll
be suffocated. And so if you find yourself in
that place today, I hope you'll find hope in
Psalm 51. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel.
This is David's confession, beginning in verse
1. Here's what he says. 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 and the inward being, and you teach me
wisdom in the secret heart. And we see in David's
confession, he understood sin. David doesn't
try to redefine sin. He doesn't try to minimize
sin. He calls it what it is. In fact, he uses
the same language that throughout the Old Testament
is used, these three words, transgressions, iniquity,
sin. Words for rebellion and waywardness. This
missing the mark that God has called us to. David
calls it what it is. He understands. He's self
-aware. In fact, he's so self -aware that in
verse 3 he says, I know my transgressions. I
know them intimately, personally. Not like Uncle
Jimmy who stops in for Thanksgiving once a year.
I'm talking about the person I live with. I know
my sin that way, that intimately. He says, I'm
well acquainted with it because I've lived in
it. I know my sin. And then verse 4, he understands
the seriousness of sin. He says, against you,
you only have I sinned. Against this holy God.
And so he goes on to say, listen, whatever your
judgment is, whatever your words against me are,
they're justified. I brought this on myself.
He understands the weight of it, and he understands
how comprehensive it is. He looks and he says,
behold, I'm not going to hide this. I'm not going
to bury it. Behold, look at this sin of mine.
Behold, I was sinful at birth, sinful at conception.
This is in my heart. It's in my DNA. It's the
stuff I'm made of. I've inherited this from my
parents, and they inherited it from theirs, and
it goes all the way back to the fall. This is
deep in my heart. You may have at some point
gone to a self -checkout kiosk and noticed that
there's a mirror there at some of these. Have
you ever seen that? They'll put a mirror there
sometimes, and what they found is that people
are less likely to go against societal norms
or to break a law if they're self -aware. You
put a mirror in front of them and they're less
likely. Now, that doesn't fix the problem because
the problem isn't on the surface. The problem's
in the heart. And so we still have people shoplifting.
Whether or not you put the biggest mirror in
front of that kiosk or not, people are still
going to do it. It's like the people this past
Monday, they found themselves on Mount Etna in
Sicily. You may have seen this group of tourists
scurrying down a mountain. They were there to
hike and explore and enjoy this. And then you
see this mountain start to erupt in front of
them, this volcano, and they're panicked, and
it's like they're in shock, and they can't believe
this is happening to them. And it's like, well,
it is a volcano, though, right? This is what
volcanoes eventually do. Like, we shouldn't be
surprised. And it's like, David's like, this
is what's in me. And eventually, one way or another,
it comes out, and sometimes it's really destructive
to myself and to the people around me. It's deep
in my heart. David owns that. He takes full responsibility
for his sin. You look back through the six verses
and look at all the me's and the my's. It's on
me, God. He's not trying to fake out God. You
can't walk into God's presence and puff up your
chest and stand up a little straighter and act
like you belong there in front of a holy God.
A few years back, my wife and I were through
a connection. able to go to this four -star hotel
down in French Lick, Indiana. Beautiful place
called West Baden. And you walk in, and there
is this, it's much higher, 200 feet high. It's
this 180 -foot building, just grand and elegant.
And I walk in there, I'm like, I don't belong
here at all. And I can't even fake it. And I
tried. I walked a little straighter, and I talked
a little more confidently, but I knew this...
This is not my place. I don't belong here. And
David doesn't walk into God's presence. And you
and I, we can't walk into God's presence and
pretend like we belong. We can't puff up our
chest. We come to God in confession and humility
and say, I don't belong here. Woe is me, God.
You are holy. I am not. And it's only by your
mercy that I can stand in your presence. He understands
it, and so he confesses his sin. This is part
one of the Heidelberg. He's sitting in this sin
and misery, and he understands he has to own
his sin. But as much as he understood about himself
and his sin, he also understood something about
God, and that is that God is gracious and merciful
and patient, slow to anger. So he says, have
mercy on me, O God. That's how he starts his
appeal in verse 1. He says in verse 1, blot it
out, my iniquities. Blot them out. Like, erase
them from the court records for good. It's like,
maybe you had a parent or grandparent that had
one of those clickety -clack old school typewriters,
you know, click, click, click, click, return,
click, click, click, click, return, right? And
they had to use this whiteout. If you made a
mistake, you used whiteout to correct the mistakes.
Nowadays, we have autocorrect on our phones.
That's another sermon for another day, how maybe
the Holy Spirit or God's word is kind of our
autocorrect. But David says, no, no, what I need
because of my sin that I see in me, I need you
to wipe this off my record, God. And not just
that, I need you to wash me thoroughly, he says
in verse 2. In those days, to wash clothes was
to take a rod or a stick or something and you
would beat the dirt out of them. Or you would
put them in the water and you would stomp. on
those clothes to get them clean. He's saying,
tread on me, God. Get this filth out of my heart.
Get it out of my life. It's like a mama whose
son comes home from the baseball field, and there's
grass stains, and there's dirt stains from sliding
home, right? And we've got to get these clean,
and it's not just on the surface. It's deep in
the fibers. It's going to take something special.
David says, I need inward renewal here. This
is deep inside me. And so in verse 7, he begins
to plead and pray for this renewal. 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've 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.
He reiterates, he understands his miserable situation.
And he says, God, I want to hear joy again. Restore
this joy that I had in the beginning with you
in that relationship. My bones have been broken.
Like this guilt, the weight of it. It takes a
physical toll. He says, my spirit isn't right
either. Make my spirit right. And then he goes
to God and he says, I need this inward renewal.
Create in me a clean heart, a right spirit within
me. And this heart is the center of your will.
It's your desires. He says, make me the kind
of person who wants what you want, God. Make
me the kind of person who desires what you desire.
I need inward renewal. I need a heart change,
not more information. It was the evangelist D
.L. Moody that said, if a man is stealing nuts
and bolts from a railway track, and in order
to change him, you send him to college, at the
end of his education, he'll come back and steal
the whole railway track. We don't need more information.
We have all the information we need. What we
need is a heart change. What we need is transformation,
and it starts. It's no different than that 12
-step program. It starts with a recognition.
I can't fix this on my own. I need God to step
in. And that's why in verse 10, he uses that
word create. It's only used in scripture of God
himself. You and I can't create in the way that
God creates. And David calls him, create in me
a new heart in the way that only you can do.
And as this psalm progresses, you actually see
this unfolding, this transformation. unfolding
in David. He's anticipating change in his life.
You'll see all the me's and the my's, if you
keep reading forward, transition to you and your.
And he starts to look outside himself because
you see sin, it turns us inward on ourself. But
joy turns us outward. Joy makes it so we can
see God and we can see others and their needs.
Sin keeps us focused on ourselves. And in the
beginning, he's all about me and my. And by the
end, he's beginning to change. And what he wants
is not just a quick clean up. What he wants is
not just a clean slate for the day so he can
go out and do it again tomorrow. What he wants
is really God himself. In verse 11 he says, cast
me not away from your presence. Don't take your
Holy Spirit from me. He desires God himself.
God, I want you. not just a quick fix. I want
you, God. And so he sees this need for renewal.
This is the deliverance part, part two of the
Heidelberg Catechism, deliverance. And so today,
if you find yourself in this place of this joyless
life, know that you don't have to stay there.
If you're feeling suffocated, and crushed by
the weight of guilt or sin in your life, you
don't have to sit in that anymore. God calls
you out of that. He actually, it says he delights
in forgiveness. He delights in mercy. Like he
is eager and waiting to forgive you. If only
you'll confess. And maybe you say today, Brian,
I'm not the problem. The reason I feel heavy
today, the reason I feel burdened today is it's
them. If you knew what she said to me, if you
only knew, Brian, what he did to me, and listen,
I'm not minimizing pain in this room, but let's
be certain that what's crushing us isn't their
actions, isn't their words. What's crushing us
is this self -righteous response, I would never.
Say, I would never do that. I'm not even capable.
God, thank you that I'm not like them. Thank
you that I'm more righteous than them. There
are superior sins, if you want to call it that.
We think superior sins of self -righteousness,
of keeping records of other people's wrongs,
of unforgiveness that might be crushing some
of us in this room. The weight you feel, the
guilt you feel, the heaviness you feel. Let's
be certain that You're not having the joy sucked
out of your life because of self -righteousness
or because of keeping records. It's time to let
that stuff go because hiding in your sins only
leads to misery. It's confession that leads to
joy, and that's what David shows us. In verses
13 through 15, he continues, then I will, then,
then, after you've restored, after you've renewed,
after you've changed my heart, then I will teach
your trans... 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 your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare
your praise. It's like once he's confessed, all
of a sudden this dam in his heart bursts open,
right? And now he's able to begin looking outward.
and speaking outward, and he begins to praise
God. He begins to speak truth to other people.
He begins to see needs around. All of a sudden,
his energy is turned from himself to the people
around him and to the God above him. And this
is nothing new. This is what we saw in Isaiah.
Remember Isaiah, who the angel came and touched
his lips with the coal. And Isaiah's response
then after that was, here I am, send me. I'm
ready, God. After his confession, it was Peter.
Remember, he had denied Christ three times. And
after his confession in Acts chapter 2, if you
read that sermon, it's a powerful sermon. Thousands
of people came to the Lord. This is the turning
point. All of a sudden, this dam burst, and we
open our mouth, and David says, I teach sinners,
and they return to you. My tongue sings. I declare
your praise. Verse 15. And God has put this joy
back in David's heart. And I imagine you could
see like the light restored in his eyes. And
he walked a little lighter. And he talked a little
lighter. And all of a sudden this burden was
lifted. It's a return to joy. This is part three
of the Heidelberg. It's this expression of gratitude
and response to God's deliverance. And the cool
thing is it's not just about our joy. What we
see in this psalm is God delights in all of this
as well. Our joyful response brings God joy too.
Look at verse 16. 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. This is the
stuff that brings you joy. A broken and contrite
and repentant heart. Verse 18, he's turning outward.
He says, do good to Zion in your good pleasure.
Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you'll
delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings
and whole burnt offerings. Then bowls will be
offered on your altar. In other words, worship
will be restored. And you'll delight in it again,
but not because it's these outward rituals, not
because we prayed this familiar prayer or sang
this song that we didn't mean, but that something
changed inside us. And now you delight in what
you see because you delight in genuine repentance.
And moms and dads, you know this. You go to two
kids that have been fighting and you say you're
sorry. And they're like, sorry. Right? We see
through that. God sees through that. It's like
the gal who went to Chipotle and she... bought
her lunch, and then she threw it in the face
of the person who served her. And she's like,
I'm so sorry, I have this compulsive disorder.
Can I have another meal? And okay, that's, by
grace, she makes this other meal and gives it
to her, and then she throws it in her face again,
the waitress. Come on now. I'm so sorry I have
this disorder. I will go. I will get it fixed.
I'll go to this 30 -day clinic and I'm going
to check myself in and I'm going to deal with
this once for all. And she does it. She spends
30 days in this place and they educate her and
they train her and she knows all these coping
mechanisms now and she's ready to go again. She
goes back to Chipotle. She gets her order and
the lady's like, now wait a minute before I hand
this to you. You said you were changed, right?
Oh yeah, I'm changed. I'm cured. I'm all better.
hands it to her, right back on her face again.
I thought you were cured. Oh, I am cured. I still
have the compulsions, but I don't feel guilty
at all anymore. That ain't heart change. It's
not this self -satisfied contentment. It's not
this self -loathing on the other end. Tim Keller
says, here's what a broken heart is. Here's what
a contrite heart is. It's a heart that knows
how little it deserves and how much it has received.
That's a broken and contrite heart. And if this
all sounds familiar, in Hosea 6 .6, it says,
God said, I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice.
It's what's in your heart. It's real change.
I desire knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
And Samuel said to Saul, obedience is better
than sacrifice. And so you see, God is delighted
in genuine confession, in genuine repentance.
He's delighted by this joy -filled community
that results from that. This is what brings him
joy. And in verse 18, we see, like, this is what
it produces. Confession produces this joy -filled
community. All of a sudden, as we start to look
out to one another, we're not so consumed with
ourself anymore. And David begins to pray for
his people, to pray for God's people. This joy
that turns outward, it turns our me's and my's
into you's and yours. It's confession. It's gratitude.
It's joy. This is the joyful life that we're
called to. If only we'll start with confession.
So here's the challenge for this week. Number
one, don't wait. Today, if you have something
you need to confess, this ought to be a normal
part of our lives, that we are eager and ready
to confess, God, I have sinned, I have failed,
I have fallen short again, and I'm so grateful
that, God, you are willing and ready to forgive.
So number one, confess. And then that ought to
bring you some joy to know that God is eager
and ready to forgive. And here's the challenge
this week. You've been challenged to go deeper
in community. You've been challenged to invite
people into your homes. As you do that, share
with one person this week God's joy that he's
given you. And it could be as a result of forgiveness.
It could just be a result of his goodness and
faithfulness in your life. But share with one
person this week the joy that you have. in in
christ so listen there there is no ritual that
can replace a repentant heart first john 1 9
says if we confess our sins he is faithful and
just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness
he is eager and ready to forgive today and for
david what we see is it happened in a moment
happened in a moment in fact it happened in a
verse in second samuel chapter 12 David is standing
before Nathan, and Nathan has told him this whole
story about a man who stole a lamb from a poor
man. And David couldn't believe that this rich
man stole a poor man's lamb. And he says, that
man must die. And Nathan says, David, that's
you. You are that man. You're looking at everyone
else's sin. He says, this is you. And David's
response in verse 13, this happens in a verse,
in a moment. David said to Nathan, I have sinned
against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the
Lord has put away your sin. You see that it happens
in a moment. From this miserable state, from
this crushing, suffocating place, you don't have
to sit there anymore. It can happen in a moment,
forgiveness. If only you'll confess, if only
you'll own it as David did. And so today, all
we need to be aware of is number one, how lost
we are. And number two, how loved we are. Because
this God wants nothing more. He delights in nothing
more than enjoying you and seeing you enjoy him
and his glory.