Continuing with reflections from Psalm 51, David doesn’t just want to be restored, he also cries for spiritual renewal.
As David was becoming increasingly aware of his sin, it could have led him to despair, but instead it emboldened him to take God at His Word as He continued to appeal to Him based on His character. David experienced a renewed joy of God’s Salvation as he felt and leaned into the presence of the Holy Spirit and delighted in doing God’s will once again.
My Creator God will not only create a clean heart, but He will also sustain a clean heart as He daily renews a right and persevering and steadfast spirit in me.
Jesus made the way
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit could come and go. Now He resides within God’s children. This is only possible because of the sacrifice of God’s Son. Being cast away from God’s presence and separated from Him is death. When Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, was grieved and sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane, He asked that the cup be removed from Him. In part this was because of the horrific suffering of the cross, but in full it was because His Father God would have to turn His back on Him as He took on our sins. And at that moment He would be separated from God’s presence. Then He, the Son of Man, experienced death. Even knowing this, He still responded in Luke 22:42, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”1
God’s covenant people are made up of transgressors and sinners. Because our Lord submitted to His Father’s will, He made a way for my relationship to be restored. My prayer is that the joy this produces will be infectious and lead others to return to God also.
Humble Worship
The Old Testament sacrifices were not acceptable to God if the people were merely going through the motions as a token. God was and is looking for a heart that knows how little it deserves and how much it owes.2 Sacrifices that please God are a broken spirit and contrite heart. This shows God how thoroughly sorrowful one is for their sin.
Heart shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. The Message3
This way of thinking is so contrary to my sin nature. As God put a new heart and new spirit in me, He enabled me to genuinely worship Him. David said He would teach sinners God’s ways so they would return to Him. This Psalm itself is the richest answer to his prayer as it has shown generations of sinners the way Home, long after they had thought themselves beyond recall.2
David’s response is one of humble worship as he never gets over what God has done for him. And that should be my response as well. David continues to be horrified by his sin and at the same time accepts the forgiveness afforded him. A heart of contrition is what leads a sinner back to a holy God. In His presence, the only thing for me to do is sing of His Righteousness and declare His praise.
Why does God need to break my heart?
Thankfully my days of thievery ended in Jr High. But not before I had brazenly stolen my sister Toni’s picture money. I used the money that was supposed to be for school pictures to take my oldest sister Robin to Mother’s Pizzeria. She drove of course. She was about to go to college and I was going to miss her. Toni said, “how did you have money to take Robin to Mother’s Pizza?” To which my answer was -as you may have guessed- babysitting. I did babysit a good bit before I could drive, and those I babysat for were good tippers. I don’t know what I actually did with the money I got from babysitting, but it appeared to miraculously multiply. Only Toni wasn’t buying it since her picture money disappeared at the same time I had money to take Robin to Mother’s Pizza. It’s so true that one deception has to be covered up by another to keep the ruse going. My thirteen year old self thought I was so clever. Little did I know God would break my heart to get me to change.
As I look back on my life, it seems heartache of some kind is what God uses to change me. He tries the easy way, but I don’t listen. Suffering is what gets my attention. At first, I am angry I have to suffer. But then as I see my sin how God sees it, I come to realize, in His mercy, He does what is necessary and no more to grow me in my relationship with Him. And then there is nothing I desire more. I long for the day when I am made perfect. Until then, I am reminded even Jesus Christ my Lord suffered in order for His Father to complete the work He started.
Making David’s cry my own
To close out these reflections, I am initially confused by how asking God to do good to Zion in His good pleasure flows with the rest of this Psalm. Kidner says this is the people’s prayer and that the generation between those taken captive and those who returned to rebuild likely made David’s penitence their own.2
When I confess, I see sin the way God sees it. Sacrifices are only beneficial after humble and penitent faith is displayed. Then God can restore me to the joy of my salvation and renew a right spirit in me. Today, because the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world with the perfect sacrifice of His precious blood, my offerings are acts of service and declarations of praise. May I never get over it!
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right[a] 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.
