Psalm 51, part 1

It’s not my fault. Someone else is to blame. I would never have done that. I’m the victim here.

These are not new claims; in fact, they are the oldest excuses in the book – the Bible, that is. They go all the way back to Genesis, when Satan tempted Adam and Eve and Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the snake…

It seems like the same thing gets repeated again and again and again and as we repeat it, we get better at it. We even start to believe it ourselves! The more we tell a story, the truer we think it is. And one story we tell a lot is “it isn’t my fault.”

If you don’t know the back story behind Psalm 51, in 2 Samuel 11, King David was at the height of his power, but in the Spring, when kings go to war, David was lollygagging around the palace, spying on a neighbor woman bathing. He acted upon his urges, got her pregnant, tried to cover it up by bringing her husband home from war, but when he wouldn’t sleep with her, David had the husband killed in the war. He felt pretty good about himself and his scheme until 2 Samuel 12, where God sends Nathan the Prophet to confront him.

And when Nathan confronts David, David’s immediate response is, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:13a)

Then David composed Psalm 51. He doesn’t hem and haw around here – he gets right to the heart of the matter. In the first verse, David knows that God already knows what he has done, so he goes straight to God, asking for mercy.

How often is this our response? Or do we try to argue or rationalize? Everyone does it. I deserve this. You don’t know how it is. I’ve worked so hard, and all I ask for is… Or we even deny any wrongdoing, and the apologies we offer are along the lines of “well, if you were offended, I’m sorry,” which isn’t really an apology, if you’re thinking about using it. Or we try to outweigh our sin with our good deeds – I’ve done all this for you, God, and all I did against you was this little thing…

David doesn’t go there. Instead, David says, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.” David knows that God knows, and so he goes straight to God, asking for mercy. But David doesn’t ask for mercy based on his previous actions. David doesn’t say, “Hey God, I’m your anointed one.” He doesn’t say, “God, you were the one who named me king.” He doesn’t go back on his track record and say, “Remember who led all your people through all these battles? And who beat Goliath? Yeah, that was me.”

It seems to be our human nature to ask for mercy based on our own merits – I’m a good guy; I made a mistake; I’ve never done this before; I have a good reason. But David doesn’t do that. He goes straight to God’s character. He asks for mercy according to God’s unfailing love and great compassion.

To ask for God’s mercy, you have to know God’s character. You have to know the God who described himself to Moses as “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

What might happen if we started there? What might our attitude look like if we only approached God with God’s character?

Only then does David ask for forgiveness. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Something about this verse caught me. David’s sin bothers him. I know far too many people who are only unhappy once they are caught – when they have to live out the consequences of their sin, they are “sorry” for what they did, but until then, they enjoy it. And others are so hardened that they don’t care about their sin; they can sin with impunity. Still others either aren’t in relationship with God or their hearts are so hardened that they don’t even see sin as sin. But David’s sin is always before me. He can’t look himself in the mirror; all he sees is “SINNER.”

There are a lot of people in our society who can relate to this; they know they will never live up to what they see as an unachievable standard. Their sin is always before them. Some self-medicate – drugs and alcohol are just two ways of dealing. Perfectionism and becoming a workaholic are two others. What do you do when you sin and you know it?

David gets to the heart of sin in verse 4. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.

There is no such thing as “just a little sin” that “doesn’t hurt anybody.” Our culture loves to stratify sins; this sin is bad while another isn’t. We play the comparison game and think I’m fine “as long as I don’t…” and then we fill in the blank with something that I obviously don’t do. But someone else does it, and so we look down our noses at “them.” Jesus puts it this way: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ [which is an Aramaic term of contempt] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”(Matthew 5:21-22). Down in verses 27-28 he goes on to say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

What he’s saying is sin is sin is sin. Don’t try to justify yourself when you have a sinful heart. Our culture operates from a flawed premise: that people are generally good at heart – for someone to go astray, something must have happened to them. But David gets to the heart of the matter: Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Original sin casts its pallor over all of us. The truth is that we are all sinful at birth – which one of us had to teach our child to be selfish? Who had to teach your two year old to say, “NO!” Who had to teach your child to hate or to fight? The reason why we don’t have to teach these things is because they come naturally. But did you notice what David does? He doesn’t use original sin as an excuse or a cop-out. He admits that he is sinful by nature, but that God doesn’t want him to stay that way! In Methodist theology, when we talk about this concept, we call it “Prevenient Grace” – God’s grace going before us, wooing us, calling us to Himself even before we are aware of Him. Because on our own, we are incapable of even knowing of God, let alone coming to Him.

It can be easy to shake our heads at the sin in our world and wonder how anyone can come to that, but the truth is, it is far more surprising that more of us don’t sin grievously. Each of us is perfectly capable of the most horrendous evil. What do we do with that? Do we pat ourselves on the back for not doing them, or do we recognize our own sin, not even corporate sin, meaning the sin of the whole group, but our own individual sin? And when we recognize it, how do we respond?

Do we recognize how stuck we are in it? Can we admit that on our own, we can only avoid the behaviors if we try really, really hard, but that on the inside, we still have the same evil desires that we have always had, only now they are suppressed and repressed?

One of the questions that is asked of pastors at Ordination is “Are you going on to perfection?” Whether or not we believe that sinless perfection is possible in this life, the question remains: Do we even want Christlikeness?

I pose that most of us don’t. And none of us do on our own. But that’s what God wants for us. So what do we do about it? David prays for God to cleanse him. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. No matter what we do, we cannot cleanse ourselves. If we could, then Jesus went to the cross in vain. If we think we can clean ourselves up, we are telling Jesus, “Yes, you did a pretty tough thing on the cross, but I don’t need you I’ve got this one.”

But when God cleans, he doesn’t just wipe off the bad from the outside, he actually transforms us into good from the inside out. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

This sounds a lot like what God said through Ezekiel: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. (Ezekiel 36:25-29a)

Do you want Christlikeness? If you don’t, ask God to change your heart. If you do want Christlikeness, ask God to change your heart!

I like to leave you with something concrete to do and maybe that’s my own bias showing through, but this message isn’t about us doing something – it’s about what Jesus has already done. It’s about accepting what God wants for us.