Psalm 51 Part Three: Our View of Sin

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.

PSALM 51:1-6

Today I want to focus on the first six verses of Psalm 51.  As I wrote yesterday, in this section I think that David sets an incredible example for us of how it looks to approach God in an honest and humble way as we bring our sins before Him.

Just as a reminder, David wrote this Psalm after what is probably the most infamous sinful incident in his life.  If you don't know the story, it's pretty basic, and unfortunately one that you have probably seen play out in the life of someone around you.  

David, the king of Israel, was at home in Israel.  It was wartime, and scripture says that while it was usually a time when kings went off to war, David sent his most trusted man instead and stayed home himself.  He was standing one day in his palace, and he saw a woman on the rooftop of a nearby building who was bathing.  Naked.  I could probably stop here and you could piece together what happened next, but I'll keep going.  

David was aroused by the woman (named Bathsheba) and asked his men about her.  They reported to him that she was the wife of Uriah, one of David's soldiers.  This should have deterred David, obviously, but it didn't, and being the powerful man that he was, sent for her to be delivered to him at the palace.  She came and he immediately slept with her.  She went home, and after a couple of months pass David gets a message from Bathsheba: "Surprise, I'm pregnant!"  And not by her husband, I might add.  

David panicked, and long-story-short he decided that he'd send Uriah to the front lines of the war that was raging, and then he told the rest of the men to pull back so that Uriah would be killed.  It worked - Uriah died.  Bathsheba mourned.  Then David took her to be his wife.  And scripture says that "the thing David had done displeased the Lord."

After all of this went down, the prophet Nathan was sent by the Lord to confront David about his sin.  Nathan showed up, and basically told David that he had despised the Lord by taking the power and stature that was given to him for the good of Israel and using it instead for wicked things.  Nathan laid out the consequences of David's actions, among them the impending death of his newborn son with Bathsheba.

In short, God allowed David to reap what he had sown, as you and I have experienced before as well.  

Sometime after Nathan chastised David, David wrote this beautiful, honest Psalm.  His story gives so much life to these words, because he knew sin.  He knew shame.  He knew humiliation.  He is you, and he is me.

It took Nathan confronting David for him to fully realize his sin.  My question for you and for me is: what does it take for us to realize our sin?

Are we quick to search our hearts and to allow the Holy Spirit to convict us when it comes to our sin?  Or do we dismiss our sin easily, choosing to see ourselves and our sin in comparison to others' sins on our man-made sin scale, which in our own minds diminishes the severity of our failures?  Do we really even view ourselves as sinners, or are we so grace-focused that sin becomes a non-focus for us because we're already children of God, forever and for good, so what does it really matter?  

It's so easy to fall into all of those habits, isn't it?

I ask these questions because sin matters.  And our response to sin matters even more.  How we respond when we sin against God and man is a reflection of our very view of God.  Do we take the time to stop and think, even just for a moment, how our sin affects our Heavenly Father?

Let's take our eyes off of ourselves and our own consequences for a moment to simply focus on how God feels when we sin.  What does our sin communicate to Him?

There are not many references in scripture to God's feelings when we sin against Him, but in Genesis 6 the Bible tells us that God saw the wickedness mans' heart and He was grieved.  Also, In Isaiah 63, scripture says that God's people rebelled, and that it grieved the Holy Spirit.

The dictionary defines "grieved" as "to cause to be sorrowful, or distressed; to hurt or harm."  We can have a theological debate all day long about whether or not we can truly hurt God in the emotional sense, but I do know that scripture is clear in the two examples above that mans' actions can and do affect the Lord.

And what does our sin communicate to Him about how we value His saving grace and His gift of love through Jesus?  I know that, as a mother, when my children disobey and disrespect me, their behavior communicates to me that they don't have much regard for my requests, my rules, and my feelings.  That what they want and what they think is more important than anyone else's desires or opinions.  That they know best.  There is nothing more hurtful as a mom.  

How our sin must show God the severity of our selfishness and pride.  We think we know better.  We think we can handle things.  We think we are exempt from following His Word.  We often think that God is there for us, not that we are, in fact, here for God.  To shift our thinking in this area alone would result in such a changed life and attitude toward sin!  

Scripture says, "what is man, that God is mindful of him?"  The only reason God is mindful of us is because He created us and is in us.  The only reason our lives have any significance is because of and only for our Heavenly Father; apart from Him we are nothing.  

When we truly grasp the fact that we have been created, chosen, and redeemed by the One who made us, and that we exist for His glory, our attitudes toward sin have to change.  When we realize the depths of our humanity and depravity, our attitudes toward His forgiveness have to change.  And when we realize the vast greatness of the love of God for you and for me, our attitudes toward the Lord have to change.

May we gain the understanding that King David did when Nathan approached him and called out his sins. May the Lord open our eyes to our filthiness and our need for a Savior.  And may we bring our sins before God in humble confession, holding nothing back and fully realizing the iniquity in our hearts.  Because the first step to being made right with God, to restoring relationship with Him, is to admit our failures freely, proving our need for a Savior like Him.