The writer of Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan, once wrote: "No child of God sins to the degree as to make himself incapable of forgiveness." In our study of Psalm 51, we have seen this much. We have a record in the word of God here for every believer to know that our justification, our salvation, rests not in ourselves, but in God. We have an advocate and a saviour in Jesus who intercedes on the believer's behalf even when they sin as Christians, and whose blood has covered a multitude of transgressions. Psalm 51 teaches us to again and again come to the Lord in repentance when we do not keep his commandments, when we sin against him. This is the will of the Lord. In 1 John 1:9 it says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

As Augustine points out in his comments on this psalm, here in Psalm 51, we learn first what it is we must contest against in our hearts. That is our tendency to deny Christ and follow the nature of our flesh into its sin. The psalm teaches us to resist that temptation with God's help. But secondly, we also learn what must take place after the fact of our sin. That is sorrowful repentance and a turning to God for forgiveness. Because Christ will pardon his saints as he will sinners.

And so in this last message in Psalm 51, we come to consider these verses which describe certain aspirations and desires that David brings before God in his prayer. In fact, these form part of the evidences of David's salvation.

The Forgiven Long For Conversions

There is a very specific context to this first point. The context is that David understands, as we ought to as well, that our behaviour is on display before the world, and it will either enhance our witness for Christ, or it will destroy our witness to the world. And so David is guilty of grievous sin before God and man, as we've seen; sin before the nations, sin before his family, sin before God. And so now David understands that his witness has been tainted. He is losing his power to teach others about God when he is living in unrepentant sin as he has for at least nine months. By his behaviour, he has become a hypocrite.

But remember that Psalm 51 is the prayer of a believing man. It is the prayer of a man who knows God despite his sin. His desires remain that which should be of any true Christian who has disobeyed God in some way. He wants more people to come and to experience the salvation that is in God, the mercies of God, just as he has. That is why he prays in verse twelve, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit." Hold me up, Lord! he says. Take this sinner that I am and place me upon a rock which shall not give way underneath me. Then my witness will be restored. Then, verse thirteen, "I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you."

You see, friends, when a believer's actions do not align with the message that they claim to believe and teach, we appear to those watching on as double tongued and we lack power of witness to the Lord. Our actions betray our beliefs. And this is one of the most difficult things about being a Christian. Because even Christians will at times sin. We still have all these character and personality flaws that we wish we could change. We are still broken people. We have to repent and ask for grace; that God would work in our hearts so that we might sin less against God, that our witness would not be shattered.

Because David is a forgiven man, he wants others to know of God as he does. Are you and I the same? Have we ever for a moment truly felt in our hearts the depths of the debt that we owe our Saviour? Do we not long that others might know that as well? One sure sign that we do know the Lord truly is that we will possess a great sorrow for the unredeemed; a great sorrow for those who have died without knowing Christ; a great sorrow for those who have not heard of Christ; a great sorrow for those who actively reject Christ. If you feel no sorrow over such, I wonder if you truly know what awaits the sinner in eternity to come, and what you have been saved from.

Our longing ought to be that though we have failings and vices as we do, God would still be pleased to use us for the gospel of the kingdom. Remember that Samaritan woman we looked at last week in John four, who ran to the village to tell others about Jesus: "Come and see this man. Come and see the Messiah." These are the desires you see of the forgiven; desires of the redeemed. Their mission, their longing, it is the reason we remain in this world. If you have a job or you have a career, or you have had a career or a job in the past, that was just your side gig. The real reason we are here is to be a witness for Christ in the world we live. We are to have such a wonder in our hearts for what Jesus has done for us when he died on the cross that we want others to hear of him.

I think there are a couple of applications to consider. First of all, never underestimate the power of a holy life. John Flavel, the Puritan, said this: "What health is to the heart, holiness is to the soul." You see, if we do not guard our hearts against sin, we may well forfeit for a time an effective witness for Christ. Robert Murray McCheyne, the Scottish minister, said, "It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God." You see, if we want to be effective for God, the aroma of Christ must be evident upon us; but not an arrogant, self-righteous disposition, but a humility, a gentleness, an openness, a listening ear, a helping hand. I wonder sometimes at the people we may meet in glory one day whose story of salvation simply began by witnessing the transformed life of a Christian. Before they heard the gospel, they saw the gospel being lived.

A second application on this first heading would be that we are never beyond restoration to effective witness for God. Even for a believer, if you have a history having fallen like David perhaps, having made by yourself and your foolishness, giving cause for the world to blaspheme, it does not write you off from being of use for God. Even if you have so many regrets behind you, you can still be of use to God. Only come and repent and cry out for his grace and say, "Use me, Lord." Such is his kindness towards those whom he loves. Jesus came to seek and save sinners after all.

What a joy when we tell others about Jesus and we have the privilege to say, "You know, I still make mistakes. I am not perfect. But Jesus is perfect. Without him, I would have no hope. And he can be your hope as well." If you have a past, then do not think you are no longer useful to God. David did not pray in vain that God would still use him for the kingdom, and neither will it be for you. David is truly believing that he will have the opportunity to teach transgressors God's ways and that sinners will be converted to him. So we must repent and ask for God's grace to change from our ways and ask that he would still use us to share about him because all Christians ought to desire the conversion of sinners to Christ.

The Forgiven Worship With A View To Salvation

Another desire of the forgiven is that their worship is always with a view to their salvation. Look at verse fourteen again. It says, "Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation. Then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise." Here David sees that his worship of God will be a reflection of his salvation. He calls deliverance here. He says in effect, "Deliver me, then my tongue will be loosed in worship. O Lord, open my lips. Draw out my heart what is rightly yours to receive from your people and from those whom you forgive."

So we have here a clear lesson for us, a principle on worship. You see, on the one hand, it is quite something to worship God with respect to his works in creation. We just completed the Routeburn Track lately, and you want to worship God for the beauty of his creation that we witnessed in full splendour. To worship him for his creative power, for the wonder of all that he has made, for the sovereignty he possesses over the world. Revelation 4:11 says, "Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honour and power." Why? "For you created all things. And because of your will, they existed and were created."

And so we must worship God when new life comes into this world and say, "Fearfully and wonderfully are we made." As you consider the flowers on the hills, brought to bloom by the Lord, we must worship. When you consider the rivers in the valleys that he directs, the mountains in their grandeur that he sprinkles with snow, for the rains with which he waters his earth, for the sun through which he supplies light and life for the world, all of this must be referenced in the worship of God. Worship him as you consider the starry host and the vast magnitude of the universe. Worship him for all of this, but know that he has given us greater cause than even this for worship.

There is to be worshipped God by his people because of this glorious truth: that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The Father, through Jesus Christ by the Spirit, must be worshipped for our deliverance from the guilt of sin. Jesus has saved us, redeemed us from blood guiltiness. Wretched as we were, lost to a lost eternity under wrath, but now salvation has come when we were without hope. Here is our cause. And it has got even more majesty in it than any mountain, than any river, than any lake that he has formed. Jesus has died.

The Son of God was crucified that my sins might be no more. Here is our cause for worship. So says Paul, "I will boast only in the cross of Christ for there is my salvation. There is my God loving me, the Saviour laying down his life for me." We ought to be electrified by such thoughts as this. And our tongues should be loosed in wonder and in awe at the work of salvation that God has accomplished for us.

You see, the true Christian loves to worship; loves to worship God. Jesus is worthy of every drop of praise that we can muster for him. He is a redeemer, a king, a saviour. He is our friend. It is all about Christ. We must worship God with a view to our salvation. For we are forgiven. We are saved. We have been given his Spirit. We have an inheritance and eternal reward. We have everlasting life with him. Hallelujah!

The Forgiven Understand What Matter's To God

Thirdly, the forgiven understand what matters to God. Look again at verses sixteen and seventeen. He says, "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, O God, you will not despise." What David is saying here is that believers know that God cannot be superficially appeased by any action of man, even if it is an action of worship that has been prescribed by God.

Think about Isaiah 1:11. What are your multiplied sacrifices to me, says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of feed cattle, and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats." But did not God ordain those very things? So why is he saying that he has no pleasure in them? You see, we cannot do away with the penalty and offence and the horror of sin just by going through some motion. Now what is pleasing to God rather is a broken and contrite heart. In other words, what God is looking for in his people above all else is genuine repentance from the heart in our worship.

Now this is interesting, right? Because as I indicated, God himself had ordained that sacrificial system. Of course, it was all a type and shadow of the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus was to make, but he had ordained it. I think of Noah who sacrificed to God after the flood and it says, "Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma." In other words, the sacrifice was pleasing to God.

So what is David saying here? Does or does not God delight in that which he ordains? Friends, what it means is that God has no regard for the actions of worship, even ordained worship, when the heart is missing from that worship. When the worshipper feels no burden of his or her sin, when the body is present in the ceremony or even as we are here, the body is present, but the mind and the affections are away as it were with the world, no care for Christ truly, this kind of worship is not pleasing to God. He wants our hearts and he knows our hearts too.

David knows that what is pleasing to God at this moment and in the realisation of his guilt is brokenness. See, the right response is not to go and carry out some kind of external action to try and self atone for his sins. No. Rather it is to sit in the presence of God and be broken, to be shattered into a million pieces as it were before God. Listen to Isaiah 57:15. It is a promise: "For thus says the high and exalted one who lives forever, whose name is holy. I dwell on a high and holy place and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit. In order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."

The Forgiven Fear The Effects Of Their Sin

A fourth point: the forgiven fear the effects of their sin upon others. Verse eighteen again says, "By your favour, do good to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem." What is David saying here? Well, he is through a figure of speech praying for the nation of Israel, the household of God called Zion. And why? Because David is now sensitive to the fact that his sin with Bathsheba has given rise for the enemies of Israel to mock and blaspheme God. Nathan the prophet said this much in 2 Samuel 12: "Because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme."

So David is aware of how his sin affects others, and he prays that God would do good to Zion. In other words, to bless and not to curse; to offer mercy to God's people and not have them be carried away in the sins of the king. You see, one of the things that is true of the Old Testament is that as goes the king, so goes the people.

And it is interesting, you know, that this blot, this transgression in David's life would not be his last recorded in scripture. He would fail again, and the Lord would have to intervene. One commentator explains it this way. He said, "David, as a king, could not simply sin as a private individual. His sin threatened the fabric of public life. Consequently, he would be as anxious for the building up of Jerusalem as for his own restoration."

And so later in 2 Samuel 24, David finds himself pleading with the Lord to spare the people after David famously numbered the people. He took a census and it displeased the Lord. It showed a lack of judgement, a lack of trust in the deliverance of God. In 2 Samuel 24, it says, "So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand towards Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, 'It is enough. Now relax your hand.' And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite. Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking down the people and he said, 'Behold, it is I who have sinned. It is I who have done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house.'" And so there David is crying out, "Spare the flock. Allow your hand to fall upon me. Do not bring your judgements any longer upon the people."

You see, David understood that his sin with Bathsheba could cause ripple effects into the nation and saying, "Lord, build up the walls of Jerusalem. Show mercy to Zion." Because he knows that his sin has an effect beyond himself.

What does this mean for us? Well, first, it means that we must guard carefully against sin, knowing its destruction. Sin affects not only the individual, but the surrounding community. How many family members do not talk to one another because of unbridled tongues and then no follow-up repentance? Sin can be so public and destructive.

You see, sin is always vertical first as we have seen in the psalm. Sin is first before God, but then it has horizontal effects as well. It will leave a trail of destruction wherever it goes unchecked.

And there are subtle ways that our sin can affect others too. You see, sin is not always an action or something we do. Sometimes sin can be things that we do not do that we know we should. David would feel this as well. Remember the story of Absalom, David's son, who usurped the throne. He wanted power for himself, and so David found himself in exile and his son Absalom ruling the kingdom by force. Why did that happen? Well, it happened because David did not do something. He did not take action when he knew he should against Absalom, and so he let his son go on undisciplined. He had the rug of rule pulled out from underneath him.

And so the same can be true for us. How many Christian homes are there today where fathers in particular are not opening the word of God and teaching their children the gospel, who then go on into the world and have no care for Christ when they grow up. You see, sin can often be not doing something that we are commanded as much as it is doing something. And so we always must consider our sins; actions we have not taken that the Lord has commanded, and repent again. Turn to God and ask for his grace, and pray that the effects of our sin would be minimised in the lives of those affected by it.

The Forgiven Make Proper Use Of God's Means Of Worship

We have a final point. Believers make proper use of God's means of worship. This is another desire of the forgiven. The desires of the redeemed are such that they always want to make proper use of God's means for true worship. Look at verse nineteen again. "Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices and burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then young bulls will be offered on your altar." You may have noticed that this final verse offers a little bit of additional context to that earlier statement where David said, "For you, Lord, do not delight in sacrifice." But now he is saying that the Lord will delight in sacrifice. So we have a little bit of context, do we not?

And the revealing phrase is in verse nineteen: "righteous sacrifices". In other words, the externals of religion as given by God, such as in the Old Testament sacrificial system, those externals are pleasing when the participants have the right spirit as they go about them; as they are using them properly. When the worshipper is self-dedicating their whole person to God by heart, through the means he has given, these acts of worship are acceptable to the Lord. And David's desire is to make use of God's means given to worship him. He prays that he will be able to participate again in the corporate worship life of Israel, and that despite even the sin he committed, he may offer what is well pleasing to God.

And this is worth thinking about for a moment for us. We know of course as Jesus said in John chapter four that God seeks for himself worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. In other words, those who will worship with sincere conviction and affections. It is not about external rote or going through the motions, but those who know him in their hearts and desire to worship in truth through the Spirit.

Now what happens is that some people take this idea to the extreme and they treat the worship of God as if there are no externals at all. In other words, it is just me, my Bible, and I sitting under a tree and that is the fullness of my worship. No. God has not set it up that way. That is ignoring the externals that he actually has put in place for us to use to worship him by.

See, under the new covenant, we certainly have externals given by God for our use and worship. These must be valued and used rightly. The public reading of scripture, the public preaching and teaching of scripture, these are ordained by God. Prayer, ordained by God as an external. The singing of Psalms and hymns as we have this morning, ordained by God. The ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The gathering of the body of the church, ordained by God. These are externals that God gives us as means to worship him.

But then we have to remember that danger at the same time. And the danger is that we will stick to the externals and subtract the heart, as if we think we are worshipping God just by being present here, standing in the pew, going through the motions. The Lord knows our hearts, and he desires we worship him in spirit and in truth.

For example, next week we are going to celebrate the Lord's Supper. It is an external form of worship. To remember the Lord Jesus and share in the bread and the cup is an act of worship, but it is itself an empty practice without the corresponding heart which rejoices over the goodness of God in the gospel. So the heart must overflow and then make use of that external sign that God has given for us to use.

Conclusion

Well, let us conclude here. First of all, understand that the forgiven long for conversions. They want to be used by the Lord despite their own failings and sin and vices and all those things we have. They want to be used by God and involved in the work of the gospel of the kingdom.

Secondly, the forgiven worship with a view to their salvation. Yes, we can worship God for his wonderful creation, but David says that his tongue will be loosed when he considers the deliverance of his God.

Thirdly, the forgiven understand what matters to God. Going through the motions by rote tradition will serve no purpose. The desire of God is that his people would have broken and contrite hearts before him and repentance over sin.

Fourthly, the forgiven fear the effects of their sin. We ought to be careful about our lives and our actions and the actions we do not take because the effects of our sin can be catastrophic and can influence so many more people than we realise. And if we are in that place, we must come again to the Lord and repent and ask for his grace and help to not forsake him.

And finally, the forgiven make proper use of God's means of worship. When the heart is in the worship, then the worshipper may make use of the externals that God has given to glorify him through. But only when the heart is first saved and delighting in the Lord.