Sun Kwak, “God Cleanses Us”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxC_nZQSdZU

TEXT: Psalm 51

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

[1] Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

[2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin!

[3] For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

[4] Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment.

[5] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

[6] Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

[7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

[8] Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

[9] Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

[10] Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

[11] Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

[12] Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

[13] Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you.

[14] Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

[15] O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

[16] For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

[17] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

[18] Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;

build up the walls of Jerusalem;

[19] then will you delight in right sacrifices,

in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;

then bulls will be offered on your altar.

SERMON: “God Cleanses Us”

Sally Lloyd-Jones shares about a story involving a young girl in Sunday school when she was reading a story from her Jesus Storybook Bible. And if you know the stories there, she was reading from the Daniel story involving the lion’s den. And as she recalls, this little girl was in the small crowd of children who were seated and listening. But as the story went on, this little girl inched closer and closer with wide eyed engagement — until she was essentially sitting on Sally Lloyd-Jones’ lap. And so, for Sally Lloyd-Jones, this was such a moving moment for her, because that’s why she had written these stories in the first place — to get children excited about the gospel story. So then, immediately after the story was read, she feels the impulse to exhort these children. And she asks — So, children, what does this story teach us about how God wants us to behave? And as she recalls, this little girl’s look of wonder dissipates and she visibly shrinks and lets out this disappointed exhale, as if the wonder in f her heart just got sapped out of her. I think sometimes, not just Sunday school but church can feel like that. We come here, wanting to hear about the marvelous story of Jesus. And instead, we leave wondering about the messy story of us. Thinking about ways we should behave and fix ourselves. And what a daunting thing that is. Because who amongst doesn’t feel the wrong within us? We all know we aren’t perfect. But what do we do with all that seems broken and needs fixing within us?

So, we’re coming to a Psalm today that’s both famous and infamous. We looked at the narrative perspective of this story during Advent, when looking at 2 Samuel 11-12, with the story of David and Bathsheba. But today, we’re looking at the confession. The Hebrew of this Psalm is so carefully and ornately organized. Because there are nineteen verseshere in Psalm 51. And at the very center of these nineteen verses is verse 10, which reads — Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. In the Hebrew text, that statement in verse 10 is a sum total of nine words. And the fifth word, meaning right in the middle of those nine words is the word God. Showing that in this messy scenario, in this deep scandal, in this overtly sinful situation covered in deep shame and guilt. Who does David put in the middle of all of this? God. And so, this morning, whatever shame or guilt or history of sin you’re bringing, my encouragement is for you to lean into the story and in turn, put God in the center of your confession. Because our Godis one who dives into scandal, our God is one who runs toward and not away from our needs and our confessions. So, hear and see Jesus today, as we together think about what we do with our sins, our guilt, and our shame.

One of my favorite philosophical postulations comes from an excerpt from Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. He depicts this hypothetical scenario where someone is behind a keyhole. And through this small hole, he looks into the room in secrecy. And as one who observes and sees what’s happening on the other side of the door, he gathers information about those he’s observing while not being exposed himself. And as Sartre writes, there’s this power that he begins to feel, because he can see everything while he himself is not seen but concealed. If you look at the top of the Psalm for today and above verse 1. Actually, in the Hebrew Bible, this isn’t a subscript but the beginning of the actual Psalm itself. And so, this part is inspired and meant to be read as authoritative. But if you look there, it reads — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. And there’s a whole lot here to unpack, because this spans what took place in 2 Samuel 11-12. And this Psalm, as we just noted comes as a result of Nathan going to confront David. And something that we’re going to be unpacking together is the Christian practice of confession — confessing our sins and calling out our shortcomings.

And in that analogy used by Sartre of the man who feels increasingly powerful, that’s often the picture people have of God. That when we confess our sins, he gets all this dirt on us. And even as he’s seeing everything behind the scenes, he’s looking in without making himself vulnerable. But when you look over at 2 Samuel 11, you have six occasions of David doing this act of sending. And these are ways that David mishandles and abuses his power in order to enact wickedness and to hide his faults and cover up his scandal. But then, you have this year plus of silence in the narrative. But the way that 2 Samuel 12 opens up is with that very word of sending. But it’s not David in his power abuse. But it’s God sending Nathan to David. And here is the good news for David, for you, and for me. That God doesn’t distance himself but rather draws near to those who have hurt him. He doesn’t hide behind the keyhole, but he enters in to the other side of the door. And with David, this elicits a confession — one of the most genuine confessions found in the Bible. And he teaches us through this Psalm what it looks like to confess our sins to God. And I don’t know what kinds of sins you’re hiding this morning. But when we call for confession, as we see in this distinct movement of our liturgy every Sunday, where we are shaped by how God cleanses us. When we do this, we’re not engaging in a mere habit. But together, we’re calling upon our God to draw near.

And maybe it’s silent between you and God at this moment and has been for a season. My aim for our time this morning is to show you a king — one greater than David who made himself vulnerable, putting on flesh, who wore our sins, our shame, our curse. Who didn’t just see us from the other side of the door. But he who would enter into our shame and our secret hiding place by making himself visible in entering our world. And as he relinquished his rights and stepped toward us, he would become ultimately shamed for us and in our place. Where he moved toward us and broke the silence by leaving his place of comfort and his seat of privilege. And when we see this king who, unlike David, didn’t exploit the vulnerable but rather chose to protect and cover us, by disrobing himself and feeling the exposure, by being falsely accused, by being ultimately sent by his Father. And when we see him and his movement toward us, there we learn the practice and the habit of confession. For in Jesus is the prophet and the king who not only came to confront sinners but came to confront sin itself. So that his grace and not our sin might get the last word. With all that’s packed into this Psalm, my hope is that we might become a confessing community — not out of habit or out of fear but as those moved by God’s grace and his movement toward us.

And as we stated before, at the very center of this Psalm and this confession is God. David here is acknowledging the mess of his situation. In the Hebrew, iniquities refer to the evil and corruption within. Transgressions are about actions that crossed the line, things done that were wrong. And sins are about omitted acts of goodness — things you could have and should have done but didn’t. These encompass the fullness of our wrongs before God. And right from the beginning and throughout the Psalm, David brings these to light. The whole gamut of what was wrong about this story, he lays out. And right from the beginning, in verses 1-2, he says — Blot out my (1) transgressions, wash me thoroughly form my (2) iniquity, and cleanse from my (3) sin. The whole gamut of his wrongdoings and sinfulness. And what is he appealing to? By saying he’ll do better next time or asking God to look at how sorry, how remorseful he is? No, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy. That word steadfast love is covenant faithfulness. And covenant faithfulness is to take a step back and to look at the bigger picture. That in isolation, he knows that his sins deserve punishment. But he appeals to God — I know that sinners like me deserve condemnation. But I know your Story, that if sinners confess and ask for forgiveness, you have mercy upon us. And so, David here is asking God to be faithful to he is. David saying here — God, this is not about me. This is so much bigger than me. Will you come and meet in this place of brokenness and mess? Here, instead of trying to fix it himself, he’s coming in full confession, saying — God, only you know what to do with this mess. And I bring it all to you.

If you come to our membership class, there’s a part of the class where we discuss the authority, along with the false forms of authority in the church. And we survey some of the epochs of church history, but when it comes to the modern church, in a Post-Enlightenment world, something that wears the hat of authority is the self. What Robert Bellah has called the autonomous self. Every single person is shaped in our living to view everything in accordance to number 1 — me, myself, and I. And so, what Michael Horton says about the mission of the church in our modern context is that we need to help people uncover not just the metanarrative but the meganarrative of God’s Story. That we understand him not according to us. But that we learn to understand ourselves in accordance to him, with God as the ultimate reference point. And this has everything to do with how we’re prone to understand repentance. For isn’t it the case that we make repentance about how sorry we are or how willing we are to change. But a true and biblical understanding of repentanceis not centered upon the person repenting but upon God who turns people and changes us. Because David could have used any word in verse 10 to call upon God to move and to act. Bu the word he uses is create, which in the Hebrew Bible is exclusively used with God as the subject. And thus, here is David calling upon God and asking him to do what only he could do, as God and creator. And in this request to create in him, he’s acknowledging that he must die and that God the creator must make alive. And that’s what occurs in our confessing — we put our sin to death and are made alivein Christ.

And it’s with this heightened understanding of who God is that we read verse 4. And we read there in verse 4something that might have stood out as almost offensive in its wording. We read there of David’s confession — Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. And it might outrage some of us to thinking — What about Uriah? What about Bathsheba? David certainly wronged and sinned against them, didn’t he? Of course, he did. But what David’s leaning into is something he heard that prompts him to confess in accordance to God and his mercyand his covenant faithfulness. This doubling of against you, you only is not only emphatic but it points back to something that David heard that leads him to this confession. Over in 2 Samuel 12, when David is told by Nathan, the prophet — You are the man. There, David responds in confession — I have sinned against the LORD. But what does Nathan say in response? In 2 Samuel 12:14, we read: “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” Two things about this verse. When he says — The LORD also has put away your sin. The part that’s translated The LORD also is actually The LORD himself. Doubly emphatic, as if the Lord was to say to David — Hey David, that’s on me now. I’m taking care of it. You put this sin on me. Because that verb for put away is the same Hebrew word we translate as pass over or pass through back in Exodus 12 with The Passover event. That he sees the blood, he sees the payment, he sees the one covering David.

So, here’s how I want to begin bringing our time to a close here. Because this confession is a response — it’s in response to what’s seen and heard. And that’s how David teaches us to respond. For with every confession of sin we’re lead to the blood payment of a sacrifice. And what do we confess every week? Christ, our Passover, sacrificed for us. That the blood of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross marks us as God’s people. And so, whenever we come before God and confess our guilt, we do so in accordance to his mercy, to his steadfast love, his covenant faithfulness. And so, David here confesses with full trust in God’s currency of grace and with full remorse. We read in verse 3 — I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. And he says — I know in full acknowledgement of his guilt. I’ve shared this story before.

When I was in third grade, I had a music teacher — we’ll call her Mrs. Blake. She had on her desk what she called Spider Eggs, which was her way of saying Skittles. And I’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth. My children pay taxes to me, as their chauffeur, on their Halloween candy every year. And the Skittles are the first to make it into Daddy’s tax collection, especially the larger than fun size. Which brings us back to music class. Mrs. Paul had this tantalizing jarfilled with Spider Eggs. And one day, the temptation from where I was sitting was just far too strong. So, I left my seat to sneak in some unearned Spider Eggs, while Mrs. Paul had been out of the classroom for a short moment. And I thought it was just enough time to get my hands on some of those Spider Eggs. The problem was that she had returned, and I hadn’t realized. And she saw the whole ordeal unravel before her eyes. And so, she came up behind me and did her teacherly Ahem. And so, I froze, I clenched my fist, and after a second or two, shoved my hands into my in pockets. And she proceeded to ask me what I was doing. And what do all kids say when they’re in trouble, and they’re asked what they were doing? Nothing. And by this time, because I had shoved my hands into my pockets and opened my hands,I thought I had put all the evidences of my misdeeds and criminal activity involving these Spider Eggs into the darkness of my pockets — never to be exposed by anyone, especially Mrs. Paul. Because I knew what was coming next. And so, I thought I had outsmarted her. And just as I had expected, she proceeded to say — Show me your hands. And I did so gladly, because I thought I had hidden the evidences into the darkness of my pockets. But to my dismay, when I showed her my hands and opened up my palms, there were the incriminating evidences of Yellow Dye 5 and Red Dye 40. I was literally caught red handed.

When we confess our sins, we show our hands to our God. And our hands are colored in our guilt, evidences of our transgressions. And in seeing our hands, our need for him, in hearing our confession, in walks in Jesus from the other side of the door — to show us how he had made himself vulnerable. That he would show us and his Father his hands. And we know what power came out from those hands — he healed the leper, he multiplied bread, he raised a dead girl. But in this moment, the cataclysmic power from those hands would emanate — the power of forgiveness. Because Jesus is not just our Passover Lamb, but he’s also our high priest. And as our high priest, he intercedes for us who confess our sins by his name. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we ask our Father to look at his hands and not ours. And when we see those hands wounded, marred, and punctured with holes, they speak a better word that not only removes our guilt but cleanses our dirty hearts. Reminding his Father, this was for him, for her, for them. Because they are my people, and I died for their sins. And in doing so, he protects us from the wrath of God. But this doesn’t just happen once, there is a continual intercession. Because he protects us not only from the wrath of God. But he protects us also from our own self-accusations. Every time we do something wrong, every time we hear words of accusation, every time we wrestle with self-doubt, wondering if Jesus loves us and is for us and if he could forgive even that sin. Every time, we look to the hands of Jesus. And we can say — Show me your hands. And there, the bloodied and nail-pierced hands are there to remind us that he loves us and is on our side. And that his voice as our intercessor, as our protector, as our shepherd is greater than the voices of accusation that come from outside and from within.