Have mercy on me, O God,
Psalm 51:1-19
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 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.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
If we are mining for gold, the best thing that can happen is to discover a broad and deep vein of gold in our claimed territory. Suddenly we are rich. All we have to do is dig it out. Psalm 51 is such a spiritual vein of gold. There are abundant riches to be dug out from this spiritual vein of gold.
On this venture into the mine of Psalm 51, I want to look at three nuggets: What God despises, What makes God happy, and What we must have.
What God despises
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;
Psalm 51:16-17
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
This parallel passage contrasts what God will not delight in with what God will not despise, implying that he despises what he will not delight in. So what is he talking about here? God has commanded sacrifices so it can’t be that God won’t delight in any sacrifice. It has to refer to a certain kind of sacrifice. This passage suggests to me that it is a sacrifice that does not come from a broken and contrite heart. In other words, God doesn’t delight in rote liturgy.
God does delight in a broken and contrite heart also referred to here as a broken spirit. I take it that a broken spirit is one that is not arrogant and haughty, not a self-sufficient heart.
David had sinned with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. God, through the prophet Nathan, nailed him. David was a deer in the headlights. There was no hiding from God and David knew it. He couldn’t hide from God or his sin so he confessed, he admitted his guilt. He acknowledged that it was really God that he had sinned against, even though his sin harmed everyone in his realm to one degree or another. Sin is never a completely private matter. We always affect other people when we sin.
When you are guilty, fess up, he already knows it anyway. But you won’t be freed from the guilt and shame until you agree with God and confess your sin. Our open and honest confession is, from our perspective, our sacrifice. From God’s perspective, the sacrifice is the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ that paid the price for all our sin. Our confession (repentance) and our trust in his sacrifice free us from our guilt and shame.
What makes God happy
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
Psalm 51:6
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
God got happy. Yes, there is an aspect of God’s character that allows him to experience emotions. In this case when David was fessing up to God, he stated that God delights in truth in the inward being and equated that truth with wisdom in the secret heart. It is easy for we humans to lie to ourselves. When we do, we become self-deluded and lose touch with reality to some degree. God is delighted when we tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. That is both honesty about our human failings and honesty about the gospel, that regardless of our imperfections, we stand perfect in his righteousness. Now he wants us to mature and behave righteously.
I don’t know about you, but I like the idea that I can make God happy, or cause him delight. It is sometimes costly for us to cause God delight because it comes at the price of truth and wisdom in our hearts. We cannot hide our sin and bring delight to Jesus. It simply can’t be done. Honest confession makes God happy!
What we must have
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
Psalm 51:10-12
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
It is interesting that David, an Old Testament saint, understood clearly that he required the Holy Spirit in his life in order to be the man, the king, God had called him to be. The phrase, “take not your Holy Spirit from me” bothers some people thinking that they might be abandoned by the Holy Spirit. That is not what David is referring to. He is recalling his predecessor, Saul. When Saul, as King, turned from obeying God, the Lord removed the Holy Spirit’s anointing on Saul to be King. Now that anointing belongs to David. David is pleading that he will not have the same experience as Saul. If God were to take the Holy Spirit from David, it would mean that God was taking the kingdom from David. The indwelling Holy Spirit under the New Covenant is a different relationship than David as
The willing spirit that David calls for can also be translated “generous.” I understand this to mean David knows that to be upheld, he needs a generous outpouring of the Holy Spirit in his life. So do I.
