A New Heart

Well, good evening and welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day we get together, we get into God's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2021, we'll make it through all the wisdom literature. And this evening we are at Psalm 51. Why don't we go ahead and have a drink, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this night. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we can close our day with meditating upon your word. You feed us day in and day out. Lord, we pray now that you would incline our hearts that this would be our prayer. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Psalm 51, here we go. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies.
Blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. David has just committed adultery, and he's just murdered one of his 30 mighty men, Uriah, by the hand of one of his generals. Nathan's come to him, he's pointed out the finger and he says, you are that man, you are the sinner. And here we see David's heart crying out to God, God, deal with me according to your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned. and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge."
Call sin, sin. Call evil, evil. When we confess our sin, we don't make it sound better than it is. Nope. Sin is sin, it's evil, and it's wrong. That's what a true confession is, is crying out to God and saying, Lord, I am the transgressor. Lord, I am the unjust one. I am the one who did evil and iniquity. Behold, I was even brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts and in the hidden parts. You will make me to know wisdom. Each and every one of us was conceived in iniquity. Romans chapter three says that there is none righteous, no, not one. Not one seeks after the Lord. We all have gone astray. Each one of us has gone our own way. All of us have been radically corrupted by sin.
And this is what he's saying here. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sin and blot out all my iniquities. Is this your cry? Has the Holy Spirit so pressed upon your heart that you know your sin? No matter how grievous your sin may be, no matter how great it might be, can you cry out to God, God blot out my iniquity.
Wash me and make me like snow, purge me with hyssop and I shall be pure. This is what God promises is that he will hide his face from our sin. He will not look at our sin and remember it in iniquity because he remembered our sin when he looked upon Jesus Christ when he poured out his full cup of wrath.
Let's keep going. Create in me a clean heart, O 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 uphold me by your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth your praise, for you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise."
This is exactly what God tells us in the book of 1 John when he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. that God will restore to us the joy of his salvation.
Isn't it amazing that Jesus, when he talks about how we should pray daily with the Lord's Prayer, one of the petitions he gives us there is, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Do we ask God to forgive us of our sins, to forgive us of our moral debt, to wash us and make us clean?
This is what we're called to do. The Westminster Confession says this so beautifully when it says that we sin daily in thought, word, and deed. Theologians have categories for this. We don't just sin by doing the things that we shouldn't do. It's not just that we're not murderers, but we don't even do the good things we're told to do.
Sins of commission and sins of omission, not doing the good things and doing the bad. We have a lot to confess to God, too, but the promises of God is that he loves a broken and contrite heart, one that does not look at our own righteousness, but looks to Jesus Christ and says, God, forgive me of my unrighteousness. This is why Jesus points out that the tax collector in the temple was forgiven, not the Pharisee who looks up at God with all this self-righteousness. and thinks he's better than everyone else, even this tax collector. But it's the tax collector who cries out, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
And once this happens in your life, in my life, in David's life, then good things flow from it. That's where the psalm leads us at the end. Do good in your good, pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then they shall offer bowls on your altar." It's that we are forgiven by God first, and then out of that indicative of our forgiveness then flow good fruits. In David's time, that meant the city of Jerusalem prospering. In our lives, that means the church is prospering. So we need to ask ourselves, what is this about? This is about confessing our sins and leaning on God, relying on Jesus Christ alone, pleading with God to forgive us our sins. It's also about being honest about who we are.
This can only happen by the Holy Spirit. So let me ask you, let me know down in the comments, what would you underline in your Bible as the best verse that spoke to you tonight? What would you underline there? And let me ask you, if you're one of those who needs prayer, or needs help, because you don't know how to pray this, shoot me a message. Let's get in touch. Let's talk about it. But tonight, let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this night. We thank you that you blot out our iniquity. That you have taken away our sin in Jesus Christ. We pray that you would care for us and watch over us in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the grace of Jesus Christ. And may you have the joy of God's salvation to go to sleep with tonight. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.