Here we come to our third look at this fifty-first Psalm, a truly incredible Psalm, and I hope you have been able to see something of that in the past sessions we have considered so far. It is a Psalm which, when truly understood, I think will form desire in the believer for the same pattern of prayer, repentance, and seeking of God that runs through it. That we would see and seek the goodness and the grace of God so evident, and we would see that foremost in our lives as well.

This is the Psalm I think that ought to stimulate us to help us to hate sin rather; to long for the mortification of our flesh. It should create in us a burden to long for the righteousness of the faithful King Jesus to be ours in place of our own wickedness. Here is a Psalm which causes us to look upon the greatness of God and the salvation that he freely bestows upon sinners. It makes us say with Matthew Poole, the preacher and commentator, who said: "Thy mercies are infinite and therefore sufficient for my relief." This is a Psalm which teaches us about the sufficiency of God's grace for the sinner.

And for us then, in this New Covenant epoch in which we live on this side of the cross, from the coming of Christ, as we look through the lens of Psalm 51, we are drawn to stand as believers at the foot of Jesus' cross. But we are to face his tomb, and we are to look up into the heavens where our King now resides, and know for sure that God is merciful just as David prays, and that there is forgiveness just as David prays for from God for all who will call upon his name. These things we learn from Psalm 51.

This Psalm has a number of identifiable movements and themes that we are trying to trace as we go through in this mini-series. In the first two verses we considered especially the grace of God. "Be gracious to me, O God," David says. Then in verses three through five, we considered David's confession of his sin. He says: "Against you, you only, I have sinned." But here in verses six through ten we want to look at the theme of restoration, especially as we hear these words: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation."

You see, David is undoubtedly in spiritual agony here. After Nathan the prophet has confronted him with his sin. You see, God will never allow his true children to remain casual or complacent about sin. He will make us feel in our very core of our beings the heinousness of sin, and he does this for our own good. The Spirit shows us that sin must be coughed up; it must be drawn out in repentance before it settles in and hardens the soul and multiplies and grows.

So God will operate on our hearts like a surgeon. It is going to hurt. It is not going to be comfortable. But for the good of our faith, the divine surgeon will work with careful and skilful hands upon us. David is here in the Psalm opening himself up to this divine surgeon to do his work, and we need to be observant of that ourselves.

Because you see, when we sin, God does not mean to leave us in a slump. David is in a slump. He is wallowing in grief over his sin, but God does not mean to leave the believer in a place like that. The broken bones must soon rejoice. God will deal with our sins so that when it is confessed, then comes renewal of fellowship and a returning sense of God's warm embrace again. His blessing will again flow upon that believer in Christ as that barrier of sin is broken through, as it is confessed. Relationship is restored.

So God means through the discipline of his children good and not harm. Here we will see for David, as we need to see for ourselves, that we should pray that God would restore us and help us not to succumb to sin again; that he would set our feet on high places and put our hearts in heaven that we would not sin against our Lord again.

Well, under this overarching theme of restoration, following the Lord's discipline of David, I want to simply work through verse by verse here and unpack these things for you a little bit more.

What God Desires Most

First of all, we have here a lesson on what God desires most for our souls. Have a look again at verse six. It says: "Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part you will make me know wisdom."

Think back with me for a moment to the anointing of David as a youth, the youngest of Jesse's sons, the shepherd boy who was anointed to be the next king in Israel in the place of Saul. When you go back and read that account, you will find in one Samuel 16:7, the Lord said to Samuel: "For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

You see what made David suitable as a king over Israel was ultimately that he is one who knew the Lord and he had Godward affections. So now we should hear something of David's knowledge of that reason why God made him king in the first place echoing here in Psalm 51. David knew that what God truly delights in, in the heart of his people, is people who delight in God. To quote John Piper, he says: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."

Now what is meant here in Psalm 51 is that God desires truth. David is saying that God requires that his ways and his nature are imprinted upon our lives. David is saying he has absolutely no way to excuse himself from his sin. He knows what God requires of him in his heart because he was a man who, as Calvin says here, was among those "foremost in gifts of the spirit". In other words, David was the anointed king of Israel by the spirit of God. He knew God. He knew the law of God. He knew the nature of God. He knew full well that of him in particular, God desired truth and wisdom of life in him. More was required of David.

It is the same with anyone who holds any office in God's church. More is required of them. More was required of David and he knew that it was truth that was required in his heart, and he had fallen. Yet he believes that God will help him to know that which is pleasing to him because then he says: "You will make me know wisdom."

This is the nature of the Christian struggle with sin. God will not leave us. He will make his ways known to us in our hearts if we belong to him.

What is the application here for us? Well, as Christians, when we sin, we multiply that guilt because we actually know that God requires truth and righteousness to reign in us, and when we sin we are overstepping what our conscience is already telling us. It is saying: "Stay away. Do not cross this line." And when we sin, we cross. So we know what God requires, but when we sin we disobey. We get that. We understand that. But what we must do then as Christians is to pray as David prays and pray: "Lord, what I have done is an affront to what you desire of me and an affront to that which I already know from your word about what pleases you and what displeases you." And then we are to say: "Lord, make me to know wisdom. Lord, truth and righteousness and purity are what you require in my heart, yet here I am again a sinner caught in trespass. O Lord, make me know your truth in the deepest parts of my soul."

That should be our almost daily prayer, should it not? Psalm 86:11 says: "Teach me your way, O Lord, I will walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name." That should be the sinner's cry as the Lord restores us from sin. "Lord, make me to know your wisdom and your truth."

Total Cleansing Of Self

Secondly, here we have in verse seven David's prayer for total cleansing of self. We see here that David acknowledges that a total cleansing of his person is required for his restoration. So he says: "Purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

Now this language might sound a little odd at first. What does he mean here by purify me with hyssop? Here, David is referring to an aspect of the ceremonies that God gave to Israel as a symbol of atonement. The sacrificial system in Israel, you see, was, as again Calvin says, "seals of the grace of God". In other words, they were signs of the promise of Christ; signs that God was going to deal with our issue of sin. But David is not putting confidence in any external practice here. He is praying for that which the atonement ceremonies represented to be enacted upon his soul by God.

The hyssop plant was a bushy shrub and had a structure that made it suitable for using as a brush. In the Exodus event, when the people of God came out of Egypt, it was a hyssop branch that the people of Israel would use to smear the blood of the Passover lamb across the lintels of their doorways, so the angel of the Lord would pass over and not come in judgment.

David is thus praying here. He is saying: "Apply to me. Apply to my soul the work of atonement, Lord. Father, my sin is great and what I need of you, Father, is what only you can do. Atone for my sin. Make me clean."

Notice this language of "whiter than snow". How can you get something whiter than snow? Snow is already white. How can it get any whiter? What could be whiter than white? Friends, God's standard to which humanity is held accountable is perfect, spotless righteousness, and the only way that we can be counted as perfectly righteous is for God to cover our sins completely and make us clean. Such is David's prayer. If God is to restore David or us, God must atone for our sins himself, and then we will be counted as righteous.

Now of course this prayer is fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood and the water that was either sprinkled or smeared in Israel's atonement rituals all pointed to the forgiveness of sins that God would accomplish for sinners like David, sinners like you and me, in the work of Jesus Christ. Blood and water flowed from the side of Christ as a sign of the cleansing that he brings to the believer.

You know, it cannot be a coincidence that as Jesus was there dying on the cross for me, when he said "I thirst," a hyssop branch was brought up to his mouth. In John 19:29 it says: "A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it to his mouth." This was Jesus' last act before he died on the cross, saying: "It is finished." The reference to hyssop, I think, represents this work of purification that Jesus was performing; what he was doing for his people. It shows us that the sinner's prayer of David is answered. It shows us that our prayers are answered, and that he will make us clean through faith.

So we can pray in confidence too with David: "Wash me and I will be whiter than snow." How can we know this? We know this because Jesus has died for sinners. Now we are cleansed. Now we are forgiven. Now we are restored. Now we are free to walk in the fullness of joy before our God all the days of our life without number.

Rejoicing In the Discipline Of the Lord

Thirdly, we see here a lesson on rejoicing in the discipline of the Lord. In verse eight he says: "Make me to hear joy and gladness. Let the bones which you have broken rejoice."

Now if I can hazard a guess, most of you here were raised in a context where, if you did not receive the cane at school you were at least disciplined at home. You knew about the belt strap; you knew about the wooden spoon; you knew about the bar of soap. You were intimate with these things in your youth!

Which child do you know of who enjoys receiving discipline? No child enjoys that. There is always kicking; there is screaming; there is protest, there are tears. But a funny thing happens, doesn't it? Usually it takes time, but we grow up, we become adults, and then all of a sudden we realise the tremendous character forming that was going on while we were being disciplined by our parents. We become glad that those who were in authority over us did not spare the rod. We see what happens to the kind of adults who receive no discipline when they are in their youth. We begin to rejoice that though it was painful at the time, we didn't want to go through it, it was for our ultimate good.

The spiritual lesson here is twofold. First, God must discipline us when we sin. We need to understand that. These bones must be broken, metaphorically speaking. If God did not do this, it would show that we were not really his children at all. This is an important point.

You see, when professing Christians walk in sustained patterns of sin, if nothing happens and they are able to go on in life without any notable spiritual consequences, it is a sign of judgment upon them. It is likely a clear sign that they do not belong to the Lord, though they may profess to. Not only is there no conscience over their sin, but the fatherly hand of discipline is not present in their life. You see, if God leaves you in your sin and patterns of sin, and he leaves you there, it is a sure sign you do not belong to Christ. If there is no war in your soul caused by the indwelling Spirit; if there is no exposing you or God rousing other Christians to shake you awake, be afraid for your soul.

Proverbs 3:11 says: "My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord or loathe his reproof. For whom the Lord loves he reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights."

I have witnessed this play out in real time in both ways. Perhaps you have as well. I know of a man a number of years ago, soon to enter the ministry (not the pastorate but into full-time ministry), but certain sin of his was exposed to the church, and there was a fierce trial. A lot of people got hurt. There was soul searching, and yet today he walks with Christ. When everything blew up, I knew straight away that the Lord had exposed his sin so that he might discipline him and bring him back to himself.

Yet I have seen it the other way as well. Professing Christians walking along in immorality, and the discipline does not come. The Lord's fatherly hand is not present in their life. He leaves them in their sin. Years go by and there is nothing. They drift. They do not yet know God. They do not mourn sin, nor is the Spirit at work within them.

You see, God must break our bones, and David is saying that here.

But secondly, he means to produce in us, through that discipline, a healing and a rejoicing. Isn't it amazing how our bodies can heal? Just think about this for a moment. Think of broken bones. Most of you, many of you, would have had broken bones over the course of your life. Now, if bones did not heal, there would not be many of us here who were able to get in the door without crutches. That netball game when you were fourteen or that rugby game would have been the end of your ankles. No healing. That is it. It is all over. But you see, God heals our bones, does he not? So they become strong; as strong as they were before. He has designed us that way.

So too, spiritually speaking, David is saying here, he wants God to heal and restore in him a spirit of worship and gladness. God doesn't want David to be a man bent over and broken in his sin for too long. He wants him to rise with a renewed and fervent love and a walk with God. He wants him to feel the weight of his sin for a time; to grieve over it; but then to rise, to be restored, and to rejoice. He wants healing to come. He wants the love of God to overpower him; that through his anguish and tears he might break forth and shout and praise of the grace of God that has been granted to him. That is the great purpose of our salvation: that we would glorify God in this way.

You see, while we are still broken, it is hard to worship. We sometimes doubt the love of God while we are broken. This happens not just when we sin, but say when a trial comes, or we lose a loved one, or when tragedy occurs in our lives, we find it hard to worship. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to pray: "God, let these broken bones rejoice."

Think of Jacob in Genesis. He had a life of toil, a life of broken bones in many ways; times of distress. But at his deathbed, he was able to say: "God, who has been my shepherd all my life to this day."

The question this morning is: can your broken bones, at different times in your life, still rejoice in God? Are you able to see that, if you are in Christ, every dark cloud really holds a smile of God's providence? Can you say with Job: "Though he slay me, yet I will worship him?"

To Be Saved From Sin Is To Be Saved From God

Fourthly, here we learn that to be saved from sin is to be saved from God. Look at verse nine now. He says: "Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities."

On the one hand, this is an impossible thing to pray. We have no right to ask God to hide his face from our sin. That is not how things work. It is common, I think, when we share the gospel with each other, or people who do not, we hear in the church as well things like: "Jesus saves us from sin." Usually, when you are hearing the gospel, you will hear those words. "Jesus saves us from sin."

Now, of course, this is true. Jesus saves us from sin in many senses. He works in our hearts in this life to spare us from the self-destruction that would come otherwise. He will save us from the penalty of sin someday. But what we often do not say, but is nonetheless true, is that to be saved from sin means to be saved from God himself. God saves us in the gospel from himself.

Have you ever thought about the gospel that way? What do I mean? Well, sin is so grievous, as we should know, because it (as image bearers) is to reject the will of the one who made us; who formed us for himself. This is why David prays, asking for his restoration, that God would hide his face from his sins, because he knows what happens when God does not hide his face from our sins. You see, when God does not hide his face, it means men and women have nowhere to hide. It means they are unable to flee the due judgment of God's holy wrath; unable to escape that divine court of justice where they stand in the dock.

You see, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, what happens is that God, in Christ, has saved us from the wages of our sins, which God himself would have administered upon us. In Acts 17:31 it says: "Because he, that is God, has fixed the day in which he will judge the world." And how will he do it? Well, he will do it "in righteousness through a man whom he has appointed", that is Christ." Jesus our judge and our Saviour; mankind's only hope for an eternal state in anything but perishing is for God himself to hide his face from our sins; for God to blot out our sins so that they not be counted against us.

And the good news, friends, of Jesus Christ is that on the cross, the Father, in a way of describing what is indescribable, turned his wrath upon the beloved Son in his humanity. For God to hide his face from David, for God to hide his face from you and me this morning, our sin had to be imputed to Christ, and the Father had to turn to face him, not in love but in wrath. "He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us." Such was our sin; such was our need; such was God's holiness; but such is God's love: to send the Son to save us.

Resolute Devotion To God

Fifthly, and finally, we learn here about the need in restoration for resolute devotion to God. In verse ten it says: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

When we repent of sin in our lives, which we should often (whether big or small is really inconsequential because our need remains the same), we need to love God more and we need to love sin less. That is our need. Now, for this to happen, it is a supernatural work, and so we need supernatural power and help in this.

Remember how we considered already in Psalm 51 that since the fall we are in a condition of being able to sin and unable to not sin. So Jesus said in John 15:5: "I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing."

We need a supernatural work in our hearts because nothing means nothing. Nothing means no spiritual progress happens outside of the power of Christ in us. Nothing means no human striving will advance us in spirituality one iota. This is Paul's point to the Galatians. He says in essence: "You did not begin by the law and you are not going to be perfected by the law. You begun in Christ and you will be perfected in Christ."

And so we see that for fallen men and women to live as redeemed men and women, a supernatural grace must be at work in their lives. God must form desires in us that are stronger than our natural nature, which is only prone to sin. Only God can form the heart anew.

And so David goes to the one who can truly change him and he says: "Create in me a clean heart, O God."

I love how Charles Spurgeon illustrated on this point. He says: "Brethren, when a ship is in sailing order and in good condition, yet she still cannot speed on her journey herself. Even though the sails are spread, there is no hope of her making port unless the wind shall blow. If that be so, how much more is it true that if the ship leaks, if the worm has begun to eat her timbers, or if, by grazing upon a rock, she has done serious damage to her bottom, it is impossible that she should repair her own damage." The same is true spiritually speaking. We have this ship, our own vessel, but without God's wind and the sails, we are not moving. And even worse, we are a ruined ship, a ship with rotten timber, with sails that do not stand up too well, and we cannot repair ourselves. So we say to God: "create in me a clean heart, O God."

This verse ought to be our morning song as we rise and we say it aloud to ourselves as we sleep. If you do not know how to pray, learn these words and you shall pray enough. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." Say it five times a day, ten times a day, until the Lord responds.

Perhaps David had ceased to pray this prayer when he first took Bathsheba in adultery. That is what happens with sin, you see. We do not so much fall off a cliff, but we slide, and we slide one compromise at a time; one spiritual discipline neglected at a time. When we cease to pray: "Create in me a clean heart," we leave ourselves open and vulnerable to obey the flesh.

How many Christians in New Zealand today, I wonder, are praying this prayer every day? "Create in me a clean heart, O God." How many pray and ask God for Christ-likeness? How many are seeking God's face today in New Zealand that are crying out for more and more of God and more holiness?

Pray then, brothers and sisters: "God, I need you working in my heart to root out of me all that is of the flesh and plant into me your word and your truth, that I might have a clean heart and not sin against you."

Pray that God would give you a resolute and a steadfast spirit.