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Summary
Psalm 51 reveals the four heart cries of true repentance, demonstrating that biblical repentance is not merely feeling sorry or confessing sins, but a fundamental change of heart. Through David’s model prayer of confession after his sin with Bathsheba, we are taught that a truly broken heart cries out for forgiveness of great guilt, transformation by God’s power, enablement to teach others about God’s grace, and national revival in worship. The hard heart full of pride and excuses must be replaced by a broken, contrite heart that never gets over its own sinfulness or God’s amazing grace.
Key Lessons:
- Biblical repentance is not a feeling, words, or actions — it is a change of heart toward God, toward sin, and toward oneself, resulting in new feelings, words, and actions.
- True repentance takes hold of both forgiving grace and transforming grace — longing not only for pardon but for ongoing holiness and fellowship with God.
- The broken heart of repentance is not a one-time event but a continual, characteristic posture of the believer — always tender toward sin and always marveling at God’s mercy.
- A truly repentant person desires to declare God’s grace to others, and even heinous sin, when genuinely repented of, can become a powerful testimony to God’s forgiveness.
Application: We are called to examine whether our repentance is genuine by asking if we long not only for forgiveness but for transformation, holy living, and opportunities to point others to God’s grace. We should maintain tender, broken hearts rather than growing proud or self-righteous, and we should never consider our testimony ruined beyond repair if we are willing to truly repent.
Discussion Questions:
- How can we distinguish between worldly sorrow over sin’s consequences and genuine, God-ward repentance in our own hearts?
- David prays for both forgiveness and a new, steadfast heart — do we tend to emphasize one over the other, and how can we pursue both?
- What would it look like practically for our church community to embody the fourth heart cry — praying for and working toward genuine spiritual revival in our neighborhoods and nation?
Scripture Focus: Psalm 51 is the central text, with David’s prayer modeling true repentance. Supporting references include Hebrews 12:16-17 (Esau’s failed repentance), 1 Samuel 16:14 (the Spirit departing Saul), 2 Samuel 12 (Nathan confronting David), 2 Corinthians 5:17 (new creation in Christ), and Psalm 32:3-4 (the physical weight of unconfessed sin).
Outline
- Introduction
- Is Your Repentance Real?
- Reading Psalm 51
- Review: Heart Cry #1 — Forgive Me My Great Guilt
- Labeling Sin as God Labels It
- Sin Against an Infinitely Holy God
- A Sinful Condition, Not Just a Sinful Record
- Appealing to God’s Character for Mercy
- Heart Cry #2 — Change Me by Your Power
- Purify Me: The Hyssop Imagery
- Longing to Be Unsorrowed
- Hide Your Face from My Sins
- Create in Me a Clean Heart
- The Spiritual Heart Transplant of the Gospel
- Renew a Steadfast Spirit
- Do Not Take Your Holy Spirit from Me
- Restore the Joy of Salvation
- True Repentance Longs for Holiness
- Heart Cry #3 — Enable Me to Teach Others
- Heart Cry #4 — Revive Us to Worship You
- Conclusion: The Four Heart Cries
- Closing Prayer
Introduction
Well, it’s almost fall. Tomorrow, officially fall begins. So, I’m just about ready to restart our study together through the Gospel of John. But before that, we need to finish up our end of summer investigation into Psalm 51. So, that’s where we’ll be again today, let me pray for God’s help and blessing on his preached word.
Heavenly Father, we come for more food, more food from you, the food of your word. Please God, set the table for us and enable us to partake and let your word go deeply into us so that it may have the effect that it should. Your glorification, our sanctification, and our growing in a true knowledge, relationship with you, full of joy and love. Help me to proclaim this wonderful word from your Bible in Jesus name. Amen.
Well, at this church, we are unashamed to proclaim the biblical gospel, which is repentance and faith. If you’ll repent of your sins and believe in Jesus as your savior and lord, you will be saved.
Is Your Repentance Real?
But have you ever wondered if your repentance is real?
Or even what repentance is?
Sometimes when I ask people if they’ve ever heard of the term repentance or what it means, I get answers like, “Oh, repentance is feeling sorry about your sins.” Or, “Repentance is confessing your sins to God.
These indeed have something to do with repentance, but they are not what repentance really is.
Actually, the Bible is full of examples of people who felt sorry about their sins or were even willing to confess it, yet they never repented.
“The Bible is full of examples of people who felt sorry about their sins, yet they never repented.”
False Examples of Repentance
Consider Esau. He cried and cried once he realized that his own foolishness had resulted in the loss of his birthright and God’s blessing.
Yet, the book of Hebrews says that Esau never found a place for repentance in his heart, though he sought for it with tears. He was merely sorrowful over the consequences of sin in his earthly life.
Esau thus died as an example of unbelief and far from the salvation of God.
“Esau never found a place for repentance in his heart, though he sought for it with tears.”
Consider also King Saul, who jealously sought to kill his successful general David multiple times. And though God gave David two chances to kill Saul, David righteously refrained both times.
When Saul found out about David’s mercy, Saul wept loudly and confessed his sin.
Yet Saul never fully gave up his pursuit of David.
And he died under the judgment of God.
And then consider Judas Scariot who betrayed the Lord Jesus to death for 30 pieces of silver.
The Gospel of Matthew reports that Judas when he saw that Jesus had formerly been condemned by the Sanhedrin, Judas felt remorse. He returned the money to the priests who had given it to him and he confessed to them, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” Model repentance? No. Because what did he do immediately afterwards? He went out and hanged himself.
Considering these tragic counter examples, what really is repentance as defined by the Bible? As demonstrated by the Bible, what is repentance?
What Repentance Really Is
Repentance is not a feeling you feel or words you say or actions you take.
Repentance is a change of heart.
A change of heart that indeed leads to new feelings, new words, new actions.
But it is not those results.
It is the cause. Fundamentally, biblical repentance is a change of heart. A change of heart toward God, a change of heart towards sin, a change of heart about yourself.
“Biblical repentance is a change of heart — toward God, toward sin, and about yourself.”
Hard Heart vs. Broken Heart
To express this same truth via slightly different biblical metaphor, repentance is a changing of a hard heart to a broken heart.
The hard heart, the one that we naturally all have as descendants of Adam. The hard heart is full of pride, self-righteousness, and excuses for sin.
But the broken heart is humble and confesses that sin has no good excuse at all.
The hard heart is sorrowful only for the consequences of sin or for the loss of idolatrous enjoyments. Oh, I can’t go after that sin anymore, that treasure anymore.
But a broken heart is sorrowful primarily because of how sin offends and blasphemes a holy God.
“A broken heart is sorrowful primarily because of how sin offends and blasphemes a holy God.”
A hard heart despares of ever being forgiven or of ever changing to walk a new.
The broken heart places confidence in God both to forgive and transform.
Friends and brethren, our God is concerned that we experience true repentance and not merely a form of it. Therefore, he has given us his Bible, his word to instruct us and model for us true repentance. And we find both of those necessary provisions, instruction and example, in a particular place in the Bible, in Psalm 51.
This psalm of confession and repentance of David.
Let’s return there this morning so that we can learn more from this Old Testament prophet. David was a prophet regarding the broken heart of true repentance. If you haven’t already, please take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 51.
Reading Psalm 51
Psalm 51. This is part two of our examination of the broken heart of repentance. If you’re using the few Bibles we provided, we’re on page 581.
Let’s read this Psalm again and then we’ll review what we learned last time a few weeks ago.
Psalm 51, starting with the Hebrew title. It says, “For the choir director, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had gone into Ba’ath Sheba, be gracious to me, oh God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion. 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 I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part, you will make me know wisdom.
Purify me with hissup, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness.
Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise. For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
By your favor, do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then young bulls will be offered on your altar.
The Occasion of the Psalm
Recall the occasion for this magnificent prayer song of repentance.
As the original Hebrew title before verse one tells us, King David wrote this psalm after Nathan the prophet publicly confronted David over David’s adultery with Ba Sheeba and murder of Ba’ath Sheba’s husband Uriah.
According to 2 Samuel 12, David immediately repented and confessed his sin when confronted.
And Nathan on behalf of God immediately pronounced David forgiven and spared the death penalty according to what was required under Moses law.
Though we clarified that certain other consequences of David’s sin would remain in his life.
After taking more time to process both his own sin and God’s incredible mercy to him, David wrote Psalm 51 as a fuller expression of that immediate repentance he had experienced.
“David immediately repented when confronted, then wrote Psalm 51 as a fuller expression of that repentance.”
David then submitted the psalm to be sung and taught in public worship. And it has come down to us today by the Holy Spirit as scripture.
Review: Heart Cry #1 — Forgive Me My Great Guilt
Recall now the main idea of this psalm as I’ve articulated it in Psalm 51.
David models four heart cries of true repentance so that your own broken heart might cry out thus and present acceptable worship to God.
Last time we looked only at verses 1 to6 and the first of the four heart cries of true repentance in this psalm. And let’s review. Number one, oh God, forgive me my great guilt. This is the first heart cry of true repentance. Oh God, forgive me my great guilt. In verses 1-6, David thoroughly confesses his guilt to God and prays for grace or undeserved favor.
“David models four heart cries of true repentance so that your own broken heart might cry out thus.”
Labeling Sin as God Labels It
First, in verses 1 to two, David labels his sins as God labels them. Not as many do today, mistakes, the inevitable responses to triggers or the results of chemical imbalances, but instead as iniquity, transgression, and sin. Or said another way, willful crookedness, willful rebellion, willful offense.
“David labels his sins as God labels them — not mistakes or triggers, but iniquity, transgression, and sin.”
Sin Against an Infinitely Holy God
Second, in verses three and four, David recognizes what makes his sin so sinful and obviously worthy of judgment. The fact that David’s sins were committed against God, against you. You only I have sinned, David says, which is not to deny that David sinned terribly against many other people, but to emphasize that the offense against God by David’s sin was so much greater than the offense to any person on earth.
God is infinitely holy, good, and glorious.
Thus, every sin against him is infinitely wicked and thus worthy of infinite punishment.
“God is infinitely holy, good, and glorious. Thus, every sin against him is infinitely wicked.”
A Sinful Condition, Not Just a Sinful Record
Third, in verses five and six, David admits that his sin problem is not simply his record, but his condition.
David says that like every other member of the fallen human race, David was conceived and born a sinner.
He wasn’t born a good person or even a neutral person who just lost his way.
No, he was born a bad person whose sin merely shows who he is apart from God’s grace.
“He was born a bad person whose sin merely shows who he is apart from God’s grace.”
Appealing to God’s Character for Mercy
Confessing David’s desperately sinful state before God, David appeals to God for mercy.
David knows that God desires truth in the inner person, not merely a form on the outside. And David also knows that he cannot by any means cleanse himself or work for God’s favor.
So David instead appeals to God according to what God has declared about himself. That God is gracious, compassionate, full of steadfast love, and a forgiver of sins.
Essentially, David prays, “God, because of who you are, and because of your promise to forgive any repentant sinner who comes to you, I ask you to completely forgive me my sins and my being a sinner.
“David appeals to God according to what God has declared about himself — gracious, compassionate, and a forgiver of sins.”
Thoroughly erase my rebellions. Squeeze out all my crookedness, wash away all my offenses.
Would God do this for David?
Yes. And we learn from 2 Samuel that God already did this for David even before he wrote this psalm.
Yet David writes such in his model psalm to teach us that if we will also cry out over our great guilt like David does for his God will forgive and cleanse us too by the amazing work in life of Jesus Christ.
But this is only the first cry of true repentance, the first heart cry. And if this heart cry is not joined to the other heart cries that David models in this psalm, then this repentance, however expressed, is not real.
The heart is not broken in a way that makes up true repentance. If it only says this, and not what else appears in the psalm. So let’s now examine these other three heart cries of true repentance. Starting with the second one, which we see in verses 7 to 12.
Heart Cry #2 — Change Me by Your Power
What is the second heart cry of true repentance? Number two, oh God, change me by your power. God, change me by your power. Look at verses 7 to9 to start.
Purify me with hissup and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
You may notice here that we have some repetition of ideas and even some words from verses 1 to two. David is again asking God for cleansing.
However, David’s prayer has a new emphasis starting in verse 7. David is not merely asking God for forgiveness but for change that will affect David in an ongoing way.
“David is not merely asking God for forgiveness but for change that will affect David in an ongoing way.”
Purify Me: The Hyssop Imagery
Purify me with hipup, David says at the beginning of verse 7. Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated purify is just a different form of the Hebrew verb meaning to sin.
In this alternative form, the verb has the opposite meaning, not to sin, but to purify from sin or even to unsin.
David prays to God, I am corrupt and guilty by sin. I need you to unsin me with hissup.
You say, what’s this hissup? Well, biblical hissup is a type of fragrant herb in the same family as mint and sage. God commanded Israel through Moses that certain ritual cleansings required the dipping and sprinkling of a hissip branch, usually into a a purification mixture or even into blood.
These rituals included the cleansing of those who touched dead bodies or who were previously lepous.
And these rituals were effective according to God’s design and the law.
Those sprinkled according to the rules God provided were pronounced clean and they were free to rejoin Israelite society, free to participate in tabernacle worship again.
So metaphorically speaking, David tells God that David needs sprinkling with hissup.
I am the one defiled with death. I am the one with spiritual leprosy.
But sprink sprinkle me with your hissup and what will be the result?
I shall be clean.
Launder me like a dirty stained garment and I will be whiter than snow. David says if you try to think of the cleanest, whitest white you can, it’s hard to do much better than fresh snow.
“Launder me like a dirty garment and I will be whiter than snow — God can make David brighter than even fresh snow.”
Yet David says that God can make David brighter and cleaner than even such snow.
Are you hearing David’s confidence in God’s cleansing ability? Do you hear David’s longing for this new clean state?
And do you have the same kind of longing for yourself and for your own life?
Longing to Be Unsorrowed
But David doesn’t just want to be unsinned. He wants to be unsorrowed.
Notice in verse eight that David asks God that David might hear joy and gladness again.
Did David lose his hearing?
No. This is David speaking figuratively again.
Because he feels the weight of his sin and his betrayal against God. David’s heart now feels death to joy.
He feels numb to all glad realities. He only feels pain and sadness due to his own seemingly bottomless evil.
“David’s heart feels deaf to joy. He only feels pain and sadness due to his own seemingly bottomless evil.”
Notice the second phrase in verse 8.
David says, “Let the bones which you have broken rejoice.” How did God break David’s bones?
Not by sending punishments, but by convicting David of sin.
Though God did not literally break or crush David’s bones, the guilt of what David had done, which God’s spirit pressed upon David, was eating David up from the inside.
Truly, the spiritual trouble of sin’s guilt will weigh down our hearts and even affect our bodies as it did for David. Many interpreters link what David says here with Psalm 32:es 3 and 4 where he describes the same reality.
Thus, David prays to God in verse eight.
Let joy spring up again for me from the inside. I am shattered because of my sin against you.
Restore me to glad fellowship with you.
Again, this is another ongoing reality David longs for.
Hide Your Face from My Sins
In verse 9, David continues by using a certain Hebrew idiom in a startling way.
He says, “Hide your face from my sins.” Now, normally you hear this phrase in the Old Testament for God to hide his face. It’s not a good thing for God to hide his face. Usually means judgment, means calamity because God’s face is life. God’s face is favor.
But David prays, “Hide your face. Not from me, but from my sins.
Don’t remember my sins anymore. Hide them from your eyes. Erase them from your books. Let me walk before you in such a way that my sins no longer come between you and me.
“Don’t remember my sins anymore. Let me walk before you so my sins no longer come between you and me.”
Create in Me a Clean Heart
Now, while verses 7 and N describe the new experience David longs for from God, verses 10 to 12 describe the new reality that David needs for that experience.
Let’s reread those next three verses now.
Verses 10 to 12.
Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence. And do not take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.
What’s David What’s David’s primary longing going forward?
What is his desire as a result of God’s thorough cleansing and as the means for ongoing joyful fellowship with God?
It is holiness.
David wants God to change David to know God and to walk with God in true obedience.
Notice the first phrase of verse 10.
Create in me a clean heart, oh God.
This is using the language of Genesis 1.
David asks God to do a work of new creation.
Essentially telling God, you desire truth in the inner man, not merely on the outside, but my heart is naturally wicked. Therefore, I need you to fashion a new heart for me, a clean heart.
“David asks God to do a work of new creation — fashion a new heart, a clean heart.”
The Spiritual Heart Transplant of the Gospel
And friends and brethren, isn’t this one of the crucial issues of the gospel that we experience and preach today?
In encountering Christ, you don’t just need your sinful record paid for and rep replaced by Christ righteousness.
You need a spiritual heart transplant.
The hard heart of a sinner needs to be replaced by the broken heart of one who loves and obeys God. But who can change his own heart?
Not you, not me, no one except God. God must be the one to create in a person a new clean heart.
And this is exactly what God promises in the gospel of Jesus Christ. For all the objects of God’s mercy who are drawn to believe in Jesus, God puts his own spirit in them and makes a new heart for them.
2 Corinthians 5:17 2 Corinthians 5:17 famously says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.” God gives a new heart to his people.
2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.”
But someone will say, “Hey, I do believe in Jesus and therefore believe I have a new heart by his spirit.
Renew a Steadfast Spirit
So why do I still sin? Why do I still sin in grievous ways?” Well, look at the second half of David’s statement in verse 10. After saying, “Create in me a clean heart,” he says, “and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” The translation renew at the beginning of the second line in verse 10 is a good one. Accurate synonyms that we might use would be make a new, restore, repair.
You see, before David’s terrible sin scandal, David already had been granted a new heart to believe and obey God. As scripture says, David was a man after God’s own heart. To use the language of Moses, he had been circumcised in his heart.
Therefore, David fundamentally loved God.
But this didn’t make David sinless.
For David, like us believers now, David’s old heart, his old heart was still with him. In New Testament apostles, they call this old heart the old man or the law of sin or most commonly the flesh. I’m not talking about the flesh of your body, but that old person, that old sinful heart, the old you.
This old man, this old heart, it isn’t really you anymore, but it still resides in you like an alien.
An alien in your inner person.
And this old you, though fundamentally dead, because of God’s gospel, because of his work of new creation, though this old you is no longer in control, it is always trying to regain control in its dying gasps and its dying grasps to grab hold of you again and turn you towards sin.
This is what had happened to David in his sin. He had followed his old heart rather than his new one.
And therefore, David’s inner person had been harmed, grieved, and polluted.
So, David asks God to restore his heart.
He asked God to continue that fundamental work of new creation that God had already accomplished. David is asking God, “Clean me up on the inside the way I need to be cleaned. The old sinful me is rearing up his ugly head again. He’s regaining control.
Purge me again from his influence. Help me to put the old me to death once again.
Bring me again to the full strength of the new heart and the new spirit that you have given me.
You see the word steadfast in verse 10, renew a steadfast spirit. The word is actually a participle in the original Hebrew. What’s a participle? It’s a verb form that describes continual or characteristic action, usually expressed in English as an ing verb.
So a more literal translation of the second half of verse 10 would be and renew a spirit being steadfast within me.
David doesn’t just want a spirit or an inner person that is steadfast part of the time but all the time characteristically continually always being steadfast.
“David doesn’t just want a steadfast spirit part of the time but all the time — characteristically, continually.”
And don’t you long for the same?
If your heart has been broken in true repentance, you should. You will.
Do Not Take Your Holy Spirit from Me
Speaking of spirit, David prays to God about a different spirit. In verse 11, David asks God not to remove or more literally throw not to throw David away from God’s special presence.
And then David asks God not to take God’s Holy Spirit away from David.
What’s this all about?
Well, remember that the Holy Spirit ministered in a slightly different way in Old Testament times than in the New Testament era. Back in Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit was still the one who convicted a person of sin, granted a person new spiritual life, and enabled a person to know God and walk in holiness.
But the Holy Spirit did not indwell believers like he does today. That’s a glorious new reality in Jesus.
But the spirit did fill or come upon certain persons in Old Testament times to uniquely empower them for ministry on God’s behalf. And this would happen on both believers and unbelievers at times.
People would be empowered to prophesy, to provide physical deliverance, or to rule on God’s behalf.
Many of Israel’s judges like Samson were temporarily filled with the spirit like this. Balam was filled with the spirit like this. Even King Saul had the spirit of God come upon him mightily according to 1st Samuel 11:6.
But then what happened to Saul?
Saul turned against God as was made obvious by sinning against God in two heinous ways, both recorded in the scriptures, going directly against God’s commands. And as a result, 1st Samuel 16:14 says that the spirit of Yahweh departed from Saul and an evil spirit terrorized Saul instead.
Now, this was not Saul losing his salvation, but instead losing his unique empowerment to act as God’s agent.
Thus, what David prays here in Psalm 51:11 is not that David might stay saved.
Rather, that David might continue to enjoy intimate fellowship with God and also still be used by God in a mighty way on the earth for God’s glory. God, please, please allow me to continue to serve you. Don’t take away your uniquely empowering spirit. My sin is terrible, but please allow me to continue to serve you.
“David prays not that he might stay saved, but that he might continue to serve God and enjoy intimate fellowship.”
Restore the Joy of Salvation
That’s the heart of David’s prayer in verse 11. Verse 12 fittingly sums up David’s prayer in this entire section.
On the one hand, David prays for God to restore David to the exaltation of God’s salvation.
That is to know Aresh the wondrous joy of God’s eternally saving help. God, I want to know this again. I want to experience it every day of my life.
On the other hand, David confesses his need for God’s help to walk in new holiness, even to support David by continuing to fashion in David an obedient heart.
“David confesses his need for God’s help to walk in new holiness, to fashion in David an obedient heart.”
True Repentance Longs for Holiness
So friends and brethren, what about you?
Does your broken heart cry out to God like David’s here? Are you not merely sorry over your sin and desirous of God’s forgiveness, but are you longing to walk in new holiness?
Sadly, I have met many who mourn over their sin seemingly unendingly or who glory in God’s forgiveness for sin, but at the same time have no drive to walk in new obedience or in fellowship with God.
This is not repentance.
That is a mark of worldly sorrow that leads to death. It is a proud trumpeting of cheap grace that does not save.
The true broken heart of repentance.
You’ve probably heard me say this before. It takes hold both of forgiving grace and transforming grace. God, you will forgive me because you’ve made that promise to anyone who comes to you. And you will transform me. You won’t leave me the way I am. You’ll keep working on me.
“The true broken heart of repentance takes hold both of forgiving grace and transforming grace.”
Said I can put these sins more and more to death. I believe you, God. Therefore, I will strive after obedience.
The changed heart is not satisfied merely with God’s forgiveness, but longs to walk with him in holy fellowship. Is that your heart?
Heart Cry #3 — Enable Me to Teach Others
There is a third heart cry that should also arise from those who are truly repentant. And we see it in verses 13 to 17 in our psalm. It is number three.
Oh God, enable me to teach others. Oh God, enable me to teach others. Look at verses 13 to 15 again.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, oh God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.
It’s at this point we can see the logical progression of David’s petitions in this psalm. What begins as a prayer for forgiveness for recent sins expands to a prayer for whole life renewal. And then that prayer for personal renewal.
It expands to a prayer for declaring God’s grace to others so that others may experience the forgiveness and renewal that the psalmist himself, David, anticipates.
Indeed, David presents his promise here to give testimony on God’s behalf as a further reason for God to forgive and renew David.
Look again at verse 13.
And notice how the terms that we saw earlier in the psalm make another appearance. David previously asked God to forgive David’s transgressions and sins, verses 1 and two. But now David says that he will teach transgressors like David God’s ways.
And as a result of this teaching, David says that sinners again like David will be converted to God.
“David will teach transgressors God’s ways and sinners will be converted — repent and turn back to God.”
The word for be converted is one of the main Hebrew words normally translated repent.
Can also be translated turn back.
So just as David repented and turned back to God’s, so others David prays will be converted through David’s own testimony.
Testimony on God’s behalf. But what would this testimony be? What testimony would David give if God would forgive and restore David?
A Blood-Guilty Sinner Found Deliverance
Well, it’s only the remarkable one that is alluded to in verse 14.
That a bloodg guilty sinner found deliverance in God.
What is this blood guiltiness or more literally in the Hebrew bloods to which David refers deliver me from bloods he says well most directly the term refers to David’s getting blood on his hands as it were by Uriah’s murder David was guilty of shedding innocent blood more indirectly this term blood or blood guiltil iness. It refers to any kind of high-handed sin that deserves the death penalty according to God’s law for Israel and for which no covering by animal animal sacrifice could be offered.
Adultery counted as such a blood-guilty sin.
Unfortunately for David, David has multiple bloods on his record.
So there should be no hope for David.
But if the God of David’s salvation still delivers David from David’s sin by simple repentance, then not only will David be freed up to sing of God’s glorious righteousness, but also every sinner can turn back to God in full confidence of forgiveness.
If God can forgive David for blood guiltiness, God can forgive anyone who repents.
“If God can forgive David for blood guiltiness, God can forgive anyone who repents.”
That’s the testimony David longs to give. Thus, David prays in verse 15, “Oh sovereign master,” just another way to say, “Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.” How would God open David’s lips? Well, certainly by giving David wisdom and empowerment to faithfully declare God’s word, God’s goodness, but more fundamentally by forgiving and renewing David first.
It’s like David tells God, “I cannot be your praising testimony that I would like to be if you just reject me and cast me away.
Therefore, for your own name’s sake, and by your own unmmerited favor, restore me.
Then your word of mercy will loosen my tongue so that I may declare your mercy to all.
By the way, David’s testimony as he shows us, he wishes to express it here, it would have been shocking to many in the world at that time as it is really still shocking today.
How can a holy God forgive sins just like that? Even blood guilty sins. No, no, no, no, no. Surely David will have to make up for his sins by many, many sacrifices, rituals, all sorts of good works. Maybe then he’ll be in a position in which he can receive God’s mercy.
The Sacrifices God Truly Desires
Yet look at what David says next and more specifically describing the testimony he will give for God. Verses 16 and 17.
For you do not delight in sacrifice otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.
These are some of the most beautiful words in all the scripture.
Understand that in verse 16, David is not repudiating the system of animal and grain sacrifices commanded by God for Israel.
Rather, David is clarifying that these outward sacrifices are not what God is ultimately after.
Indeed, many times in the latter prophets of the Old Testament, God rebukes Israel for their fine outward sacrifices while their hearts are sinridden, idolatrous, and far from God.
This is why we can be sure God will never be satisfied with any amount of external religion.
For what kind of sacrifice is God really looking?
Where does he find the worship that truly pleases him?
In the heart or more accurately in the broken heart.
David says that the sacrifices that God is really looking for is the broken heart or the broken spirit. Those terms are synonymous.
And then David repeats the same truth in the opposite way.
God will never despise, never turn away, never reject the broken heart of true repentance.
“God will never despise, never turn away, never reject the broken heart of true repentance.”
You see the word contrite. Verse 17.
That’s an accurate translation, though literally the Hebrew word means crushed.
Crushed by what?
Crushed by the sinfulness of your sin in the light of the holy beauty of God.
Such a crushed heart cries out, “God, how can you extend such mercy to someone who is so sinful, so guilty?
Why have you been so patient with me?
Why haven’t you destroyed me already?
Why do you instead offer me full pardon and restoration?
I don’t understand. I don’t understand how or why you can do this.
But all I can say is I take you at your word.
I believe you and I adore you.
I am therefore turning from my sin to walk after you and in your way.
This is the worship God desires.
This is the worship God accepts.
And this is the worship of the saved.
A Continually Broken Heart
And by the way, this broken heart of repentance that we’re talking about is not a momentary reality.
It’s not as if when you first encounter God for real and are saved, then you have a broken heart, but over time it heals.
Oh, anytime you fall into a major sin after that, well, your heart should break again then, but then heal and and become whole again.
Actually, a surprising facet of verse 17 is that the phrases describing brokenness and crushness, they’re all participles.
Thus, a more literal translation of verse 17 would be the following.
The sacrifices of God are a spirit being broken.
A heart being broken and being crushed.
Oh God, you will not despise.
You see, to be saved, to be a Christian is to have a continually broken and tender heart.
You never get over the sinfulness of your own sin.
Even as God sanctifies you and you sin less, the sin that remains seems even more sinful to you than before.
Thus, you also never get over God’s amazing grace and love because God forgives and accepts you despite your terrible un inexcusable sin.
“To be saved is to have a continually broken heart — you never get over the sinfulness of sin or God’s amazing grace.”
When Christians lose the broken, tender-heartedness of repentance, they inevitably become proud, self-righteous, and judgmental.
There is a reason why the scriptures teach us when it comes to forgiveness that we are to forgive as we have been forgiven. What that should put in you? A tender heart.
So David shows us that the third heart cry of true repentance is for God to enable a person to teach others about God.
Not merely proclaiming God’s commands, but God’s grace and God’s gospel.
And consider that this psalm itself is God’s answer to David’s prayer. God did grant this to David. That’s why we have this psalm. He is teaching us about God’s grace and true repentance.
And if we are repentant, we should follow David’s example.
Heart Cry #4 — Revive Us to Worship You
There’s one more heart cry that David models for us, which we see in verses 18 and 19, the final verses of the psalm.
Number four.
Oh God, revive us to worship you. Revive us to worship you. Let’s read the final two verses.
By your favor, do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices in burnt offerings and whole burnt offering. Then young bowls will be offered on your altar.
At first glance, these last verses may seem like an abrupt change in direction.
Why are we suddenly talking about Zion and Jerusalem instead of David and his sin?
Therefore, some Bible interpreters think that these words were added later. This is a post exilic addition to David’s original psalm of repentance.
But there’s no good reason to indulge in such speculation.
Actually, the previous section, as we already saw, featured David looking beyond himself to teach others.
Thus, this final section focusing on the community of Israel is both logical and appropriate.
Furthermore, David as Israel’s king knew that the whole kingdom would suffer because of his sin.
Not just spiritually, but materially.
David was told that one from his own household would rise up in rebellion against him. What’s that? That’s civil war.
Does David have good reason to pray for the nation and its capital city Jerusalem?
A Prayer for National Revival
So what does David pray for the nation?
In verse 18, David asks generally for God’s favor and goodness upon Jerusalem and by extension the rest of the kingdom.
By asking God to build up the walls, David is not necessarily suggesting that the walls are literally broken down and need God enabled repair. The walls are probably just fine at the time that David wrote this. But instead, David likely speaks metaphorically. He prays figuratively using the image of fortifying a wall to ask God to protect and establish the nation.
But is David only interested in physical prosperity?
On the contrary, verse 19 suggests that the prosperity and protection that David most has in mind is spiritual.
For notice in verse 19, David tells God that the result of God’s being good to Zion will be people offering all sorts of righteous animal sacrifices on God’s tabernacle altar.
To which you might say, wait, I thought David just told us that God doesn’t care about external sacrifices.
That’s not what David said.
Rather, that the external sacrifices mean nothing or are even offensive without the internal sacrifice of a continually broken heart.
Positively speaking, external sacrifices are a delight to God when they are offered from a right heart.
So then, if David prays for God’s good to come to Zion, resulting in right sacrifices to God, what good must David chiefly have in mind for his people and nation?
It must be what David has been talking about this entire psalm, the broken heart of repentance.
Thus verses 18 and 19 are really a prayer for national religious revival.
“Verses 18 and 19 are really a prayer for national religious revival — the broken heart of repentance for all.”
It’s like David is saying, “God, the change you brought in me, bring it about in this whole nation of sinners. I’m not the only one who needs to repent. We all do.
Oh God, if only we might become a truly repentant people, you will establish us according to your covenant given by Moses.
And God, if we become repentant and you establish us, then as a nation, as we all behold your undeserved favor on us, we can offer righteous public worship to you, to your honor and glory, and as a testimony to the world.
“If we become repentant, we can offer righteous public worship to God as a testimony to the world.”
Is this not an appropriate prayer for David to pray?
Is this not an appropriate prayer for us to pray?
For our church, for our community, for our nation.
So then we learn from Psalm 51 that the broken heart of repentance is fundamentally God concerned, which means it is therefore fundamentally others concerned.
God’s grace in Jesus to doom sinners is too good of news to keep to ourselves.
Others must know.
But who will tell them?
God has raised us up for this exact purpose.
Therefore, let us pray. Let us get equipped. And then let us go and speak out of zeal for God.
You Haven’t Blown Your Testimony
But someone will say, “Pastor Dave, I’m afraid I’ve already blown my testimony by my sin.
I’ve committed adultery.
I was convicted of a crime. I told off my neighbors. I hit my sibling. I spread the rumor about the new girl. I screamed at my children.” Not just once, multiple times.
I’ve sinned in a big way that people now know.
So, no one will respect my Christian witness now.
I cannot herald the good news of grace in Jesus gospel because of my sin.
Do what God says to that even from this text today?
You haven’t blown your testimony.
Not yet.
Look at King David. He committed some of the worst sins imaginable and was found out so that nations blasphemed God. As a result, Nathan the prophet told David so.
But then what did David do?
He repented of his sin to God and then repented of his sins publicly.
He then used the humbling occasion of his own exposed sin to point people to the God of grace. The God who forgives, restores, and transforms even the worst sinners.
So my brother, my sister, could you not do the same with your own sin and thereby giveth God glory? That the people of the world do not do this. They do not confess and repent of their sins to those they’ve hurt, but they instead offer excuses.
So consider what a testimony for God you could be by your repentance to others.
In God’s mysterious providence, your repenting of even heinous sin before others may be a greater testimony for God than if you had never sinned at all.
“Your repenting of even heinous sin before others may be a greater testimony for God than if you had never sinned at all.”
Of course, be sure to follow through on your expressed repentance as David did or the result of your testimony will be worse than if you had never said anything.
But if you are truly repentant, you should want to follow through.
In other words, the only way to truly ruin your Christian testimony is if you refuse to repent and then make right whatever you can.
Conclusion: The Four Heart Cries
So then, friends and brethren, these are the four heart cries of true repentance representing the truly broken and thus acceptable heart of worship.
Oh God, forgive me my great guilt, but change me by your power and enable me to teach others so that we all might be revived to worship you.
May our hearts sincerely cry these today and every day until we see the Lord Jesus face to face.
“May our hearts sincerely cry these today and every day until we see the Lord Jesus face to face.”
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray.
God, you have been very gracious to us again even by this word.
And Lord, it is worth mentioning again how this can be possible. How can a holy God forgive sins? Yes, even blood-guilty sins. Yes, even multiple blood-guilty sins.
How can a holy God forgive these sins and still be just?
It is because someone else took the penalty for them.
The beautiful good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ stands in the place of sinners. His righteous life is put on their behalf, but their sins are put on him. The hellish penalty, the eternal torment that all those sins deserve. It was suffered once and for all on the cross by Jesus for all those who believe in him.
Lord, how amazing is this truth? And for all the sinners here, which is everyone here, what good news.
Thank you for being such a good and holy God, yet a God who forgives sins.
But doesn’t then just leave us there, but transforms us and enables us to declare this good news to others. God, we do pray as David prayed.
Forgive us for our new offenses.
We thank you that we are already forgiven in Jesus Christ. But enable us, Lord, to walk in restored joy of salvation and new and increasing holiness. Holiness. Open our mouths, Lord, now that we have received this forgiveness and transformation power to tell others about your grace. And we do pray that at this church and in East Milstone and in New Jersey and among the relationships that you’ve given us wherever we are and in this nation, we would be revived to worship you.
That we wouldn’t merely just present right sacrifices, go through proper forms on the outside as a nation or as community, but it would be proper worship from the heart, from the broken heart. God, break our hearts today if they have become hardened again and keep us there. Keep us tender-hearted towards you, tender-hearted towards one another, tenderhearted towards the lost because that reflects your own heart. You are a God of such an amazing, compassionate, tender heart. Thank you for showing it to us in Jesus name. Amen.
