Here is my Sermon from this last week on Psalm 51:
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Our text for tonight is from Psalm 51 with selected verses 3-5 and 10-12: “3For 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. 10Create 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.”
How many of you have ever seen the show “Home Improvement”. I love this show and a couple months ago I was watching some reruns of it. There was scene that I laughed especially hard at and it stuck with me. Tim the tool man Taylor is talking to one of his friends who is fighting with his wife. Tim tells his friend to just go apologize already. Tim’s friend in a huff still worked up from the fight asks, “Why should I apologize?” Tim responds by saying, “You know what I do every morning first thing when I wake up? I look at my wife and say I’m sorry.” His friend says, “Sorry for what?” Tim says, “Just for being a man.” Now to me this pretty comical that he would just say sorry right away before he has even done anything wrong, especially since it plays off of the difference of men and women which is usually worthy of a little laugh. This might especially bring a chuckle to husbands and wives.
It’s good humor when you look at it in the relationship of a husband and wife, however; when you look at it from a Christian’s point of view of their relationship to God, it is not so comical. Maybe we should take this more seriously in this setting. When we wake up every morning, first thing before we even get out of bed, as soon the alarm clock is silenced, open your eyes look up and just say “I’m sorry God.” Now you might be wondering, “Why would I do that, I haven’t even had time to sin yet.” Well actually in my case where I want to yell bad words at the alarm clock, I probably have already sinned before I even opened my eyes. But for morning people who wake up refreshed and ready for a new day, they might wonder what they have done to say they are sorry about.
Well in my mind that is completely the wrong attitude. Why do we think we have to wait until we have committed a sin that we are aware of before we can confess our repentance to God? Why can’t we say, “I’m sorry God, just for being a sinner.” This is how David expresses his view of sins and confession in our psalm tonight. Yes the introduction to this psalm tells us that he wrote this after the Bathsheba incident, so he is aware of certain sin. However, as he writes the psalm he does not focus in on that one sin. He does not confess that has sinned that one time. No he says, I know my transgressions – plural. I know my sin is ever before me. I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. From the point of conception he has been a sinner. Now please do not jump to the conclusion that I am saying or that David is saying that sex is sinful and that’s why we are conceived in sin. This is not at all what David is expressing here. Sex in the right setting and context of marriage is a good thing, a blessing and a gift from God. It is not the act of sex that made David a sinner from conception. Rather, it is because of original sin. Because his mother and father were sinful human beings, living in a fallen state of sinfulness that has existed since Adam and Eve fell, David is conceived and born in this same sinful state of being. He knows his sinfulness, his sinful state of being is ever present in front of him and has been from the moment his life began at conception. And just like David, you and I are entirely and completely in this sinful state of being and are sinners. This is just a cold hard fact, matter of fact truth. As surely as the fact that this pulpit is made of wood, or that those things you are sitting on are called pews, or the fact that you are a man or a woman, you are a sinner. It is as simple as that, as clean cut as that. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we are, is sinful. Even when we thing we are doing the right thing, we are still in this constant state of sinfulness. Isaiah says even our righteous acts, the things we do that we think are our good works, are like filthy rags to God. We are entirely sinful, everything we are, is sinful. It’s just a matter of fact.
So we live in this constant state of being, this matter of fact truth that we are sinners, we are completely and entirely sinful. Does that mean we just give in, accept we are sinful and keep living a life of sin? Absolutely not! Well if we can’t change the fact that we are sinful from conception to the casket, and we don’t just keep living a sinful life, what are we to do? However, notice David doesn’t ask what he should do or ask God if he should do this or that. No, he does not try to put himself as the subject of the sentences after he confesses that he is entirely a sinner. Hear again verses 10-12 and see who David is putting as the subject. “10Create 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.” See he is asking God to do all these things, he is asking God to create a new heart, renew a right spirit in him. He knows he is completely sinful, he knows he can do nothing about it, and he knows that it is not some small change or little switch God needs to do to save him from being sinful, but a major overhaul. A complete revamping. When David says, create in me a new heart, he is saying he understands that he needs God to give him a whole new heart. In other words, he doesn’t need bypass surgery, no not even quadruple bypass will do; he needs a transplant, a whole new heart! The same thing is true with renewing a right spirit in me. His old wrong spirit can’t be fixed, it needs to be started all over again and made new. This is true for you and me too, we need a whole new heart, we need a brand new spirit. And it is nothing I can do but God is the only one who can give me this new clean heart, God is the only one who can make my entire spirit renewed to be right.
So how does He do this, well He makes us born again. He changes us from this state of being sinful and to a state of being sanctified. He drowns the old Adam in us completely killing it. You see He doesn’t just scare straight the old Adam in us by holding it under water for a little bit, He is not trying to just wash clean this old Adam. No, He completely kills it by drowning it dead! Then we are reborn, made a whole new creation. Just as Christ explains to Nicodemus in our Gospel reading, we have to be born again. We are in a state of being sinful from conception of the flesh, but we are in a state of being sanctified from conception of the spirit, from our rebirth in our baptism. We receive the Holy Spirit who David is begging God not to take from him, and we now live in a state of being baptized. I cannot stress this next point enough… It is not correct to say you were baptized or I was baptized, but rather that you are baptized and I am baptized because it is just as much of a state of being as the state of being sinful. We are sinners, cold hard truth, matter of fact, but we are baptized warm hard truth, matter of fact!
God, our heavenly Father, sent His Son to die on the cross for us, to be our forgiveness, and to completely change this state of sinfulness. Christ our Lord died to the same death our old Adam dies every day, and then He rose from the dead, resurrected in the glorified flesh just as we are made a new creation each and every day. Our Father who sent His Son to be our state of righteousness, is the same God who sends His Holy Spirit to us to bring us into this state of being baptized, of being entirely righteous. This state of being baptized means this process of drowning the old Adam in us, killing our sinful flesh, and bring us back to life with a new clean heart and a renewed right spirit in us daily. So when we wake up and say sorry God for being a sinner, we can then immediately say thank you for the fact we are baptized. We know our state of being baptized means the Holy Spirit works this drowning and renewing in us each and every day. God is the subject who completely changes our state of being so that even though we are entirely sinful, we can be entirely righteous. He does keep us in His presence by this work and He does restore the joy of His salvation to us. So in all seriousness we can wake up every morning and say, “I’m sorry God that I am a sinner, but I thank you that I am baptized in your name. I thank you that You do create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. I thank you that you have given me the joy of Your salvation because I am baptized.”
In the same Triune name of God that we are baptized in, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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