The power of repentance and brokenness
A police officer pulls over a speeding car. The officer says, "I clocked you at 90 miles per hour, sir."
The driver says, "Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 70, perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating."
Not looking up from her knitting the wife says: "Now don't be silly dear, you know that this car doesn't have cruise control."
As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and growls, "Can't you please keep your mouth shut for once?"
The wife smiles demurely and says, "You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did."
As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, "Darn it, woman, can't you keep your mouth shut?"
The officer frowns and says, "And I notice that you're not wearing your seat belt, sir. That's an automatic £60 fine."
The driver says, "Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my licence out of my back pocket."
The wife says, "Now, dear, you know very well that you didn't have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you're driving."
As the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, "WHY DON'T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP??"
The officer looks over at the woman and asks, "Does your husband always talk to you this way, Madam?"
"Only when he's been drinking."
Unwelcome exposure before the law!
I guess we all have parts of our life that we would rather keep to ourselves
Psalm 51
Context (2 Sam. 11-12) – David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, made her pregnant, attempted to cover it up, finally after desperate attempts to arrange a cover up fail he orders the murder of her husband
The prophet Nathan is sent by God to rebuke David for the sin that he thought he had got away with
This Psalm is David’s prayer to the Lord
V1-19
This is a prayer arising out of the knowledge of sin – a prayer of brokenness before God – a heart cry for God to do a work of cleansing and renewing
Spoke last week on foundations of new birth and mentioned repentance
This week looking a bit more at this area and what it is to be broken before God
**culture clash warning**
We live in a convenience culture – car park with car valeting service – car washed while you shop – minimum disruption
Also available:
Car servicing at Heathrow
Photos developed while you do your supermarket shop
Day surgery avoiding lengthy stay in hospital
Glasses made up in an hour or two
Drive through McDonald’s
Shopping delivered to your door
Food that goes straight in the microwave – no prep – no need to remove from packaging
All designed to aid your smooth and rapid flow through life – all so good that we now tend to expect to be able to go through life without too much inconvenience
Hear people talking about journeys…
“We drove to Plymouth and can you believe it – it took 6 hours – the traffic was terrible - I never want to go through that again”
6 hours? That journey used to take 6 days!
Flying is even worse – people talk about a few hours delay at the airport and forget that they are about to travel in a day what would have taken over a month a generation ago
What about medicine?
I had to wait 6 months for my hip replacement – 50 years ago you wouldn’t have had one at all
The anaesthetic took a while to work at the dentist – thank God that there was an anaesthetic at all!
Our convenience, consumer culture presents to us the myth that life should be easy and pain free without major interruptions and inconvenience
I want to present a necessary and inconvenient interruption to life called being broken in the presence of God
David’s sin in this case was what we might call quite spectacular but don’t be confused by this – sin is sin and the revelation we see in Psalm 51 needs to be our revelation too
V1-2 A cry to God that recognises the goodness and love of God but also recognises the sinful state of mankind
V3 I know my transgressions – do you know yours?
It is human nature to justify yourself – to want to present yourself as basically good – to be compared favourably with others who are not as good as you
This relative measure of goodness is not effective…
Recently put up a fence next to a wonky shed – match fence to shed and it looks OK – spirit level says very differently!
David measured himself against God and his holiness…
V4 done what is evil in your sight
It is easy to impress people – not at all difficult to put on a good show – to hide what is inside
Being real before God is a different matter – in his holy presence that which looks great before other people suddenly looks decidedly unclean
We all know what it is to be embarrassed before people – to look bad in someone else’s eyes whether this is justified or not
Do you know what it is to have the searchlight of God shining into your heart?
V5-6 inmost parts – deep inside of us is the “real me” with its dark thoughts, impure motives and weak will
It is our inner self, our heart, our soul, that was born sinful and cannot be changed without a miraculous work of God
Unless we come to the full realisation of this then we will never truly be changed, for it is only as we recognise our deep need and cry to God that he performs the transforming miracle
David came with a cry of faith believing that God was able…
V7 Hyssop – used for applying blood such as was done at Passover
David knew that it was blood that cleanses – obviously for us this will be the blood of Christ
He knew that God was able to wash him whiter than snow
Two mistakes people often make:
Have you actually asked him?
God hates sin! He can also make you holy!
Hab. 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.
V7b wash me and I will be whiter than snow
David knew that God was able and so he cried out to him to do what he couldn’t do himself
V8-10 Create in me a pure heart, O God
Have you ever prayed this prayer?
This is not a lightweight prayer – this needs to be a heart cry that comes out of the awareness of sin – this is a prayer of brokenness
V11-12 David knew the joy of being close to the Lord – this is what he craved more than anything else
He recognised that his sin was the barrier and he cried out to God to change him and make his heart pure
There is a joy in the presence of God that beats anything else this world has to offer but you need to know that the way into that joy is through brokenness and repentance and crying out to God
It is not found through our own effort – our good works, sacrifice and struggle
V16-17 These verses go against human nature – we love to sacrifice and we try and hold it together rather than be broken
Sacrifice:
Hold it together:
Repentance and heart renewal is a messy business – it requires brokenness and crying out to God – it isn’t a gentle “sit in your chair experience”
Many Christians want God to send “revival” to our land – many of these don’t really know what revival is!
Want God to come and save many – bring many into the church and change the look of our society – make Britain a great Christian nation again
What does revival look like?
The church repenting!
Read the stories of the Welsh, Hebridean and other revivals and you will read of meetings disrupted as people cried out to God in repentance with the kind of heart cry we read here in Psalm 51
When revival starts to break out the sin that was previously accepted becomes a burden of sin that people are desperate to be set free from
A lukewarm church is orderly with everyone looking good, no tears, no kneeling, no crying, no falling on faces before God
A lukewarm church can be very busy as everyone brings their sacrifices of activity
Do you really want the presence of God to be manifest in this place?
If so you need to be ready for God to show you the ugliness of your sin
If so you need to be ready to cry tears of repentance
If so you need to be ready to go and ask forgiveness of your brother or sister in Christ
If you had a good foundation of repentance when you first became a Christian then this will be easier for you than if this foundation is weak but you need to know that the way of brokenness is the only way
James 4:4-10 Victory over the devil and being lifted up by the Lord – good stuff!
Submission and humility are the cost
Remember this is not about religion and works – not sacrifice – God gives grace to the humble
We can never earn our own righteousness – we are saved by grace!
Justification is a gift from God that is instantly received – sanctification does not always happen at the same time
We need to live in grace and mercy too – we need God to deal with the unholiness that remains in us
We need to seek God and cry out to him until he has dealt with our pride, our bad attitudes, our unforgiveness, our judgmentalism, our stubbornness and everything else that stands between us and him
What are you going to do? Stay where you are or join with David’s prayer?