Psalm 51 “Repentance Is Not Just a One Time Thing!” 07-11-21 Sometimes smart people do dumb things. Sometimes wise people do foolish things. Sometimes Godly people do sinful things and when we blow it big time, we need God’s help more than perhaps at any other time. In the days surrounding the Super Bowl in 1999, a player named Eugene Robinson made national news. He made a career in the NFL by intercepting passes. When quarterbacks threw the ball, he had a unique ability of knowing where it would go and stealing it. He was smart both on and off the field as a Christian. He was an inspirational leader and had a great track record as a competitor and as a Godly role model. On the Saturday right before the Super Bowl, Athletes in Action, a Christian ministry, gave him their Outstanding Citizen Award for demonstrating the Godliest character in the NFL that year. He spent Saturday giving interviews to the media making a public witness of his relationship with Jesus Christ. But that night he did a dumb, foolish and sinful thing. This all-star Christian leader was handcuffed by an undercover female cop who arrested him for soliciting prostitution. He landed in jail. His wife’s phone rang in the middle of the night and his coaches were called. Suddenly the reporters who had interviewed him the day before had a surprise ending for their stories. You should have seen the two men from the publishing company – they weren’t excited about the ten thousand fliers they had sent to Miami to publicize Eugene’s book that was coming out. Now what were they going to do? Eugene Robinson was left wondering what he was going to do. Would God help him now that he had blown it big time? He played the game and his team, the Atlanta Falcons lost to the Denver Broncos. When he was released he said: "What I really want to do now is apologize first to my Lord, Jesus Christ, secondly to my wife and kids, and thirdly to my teammates and the entire NFL organization for the distraction that I may have caused them." Before you shake your head at him – he’s not the first Godly person to do a sinful thing and he won’t be the last. People who love God with all their hearts – including me – have done foolish and utterly sinful things. You may have done something that you hope no one ever finds out and it probably will never make the headlines. I’m sure all of us can relate to King David who wrote this 51st psalm after he blew it big time. What were’ going to discover from our text is that true repentance always involves coming clean on the inside. God demonstrates through David what happens when sin gets stuck inside of us. We know that the Spirit of God empowered David to write this psalm after Nathan confronted him with his sin of adultery and murder. David was as smart and Godly (he was called a “man after God’s own heart”) as they come but he had a problem with his heart. One day he saw a woman named Bathsheba bathing and he wanted her, kept looking at her and committed adultery. He tried to cover up his sin by getting her husband Uriah to sleep with her but that didn’t work so he committed murder by having Uriah killed and covered up the murder as a casualty of war. Several months later, God sent a prophet named Nathan to confront David. Nathan told King David a little story about a rich man with many sheep who stole from a poor man the one ewe sheep his family owned. Nathan then asked David: “What should be done to the rich man to acted so ruthlessly?” And David’s answer was: “He should be put to death” David responded in anger. Nathan then looked at David and said, “You are that man!” David responded by saying the 3 hardest words in the English language: “I have sinned!” What we’re going to discover is: 1. FAILURE NEVER HAS TO BE FINAL WITH GOD! David didn’t shift the blame to another person, instead he admitted his sin and God forgave him. And here in this psalm we see the process of how God cleans or restores our heart. There are three parts to this prayer. First, David confesses his sin (vv.1-6), then he prays for cleansing (vv.7-12) and third he offers a prayer of consecration (vv.13-19). In verse one notice what David asks for: “Have mercy on me, O God according to Your unfailing love; David’s prayer begins with a request for mercy because he knows that God loves him. When you know that God loves you unconditionally, then you won’t be afraid to be honest about your sin. Do you remember when you were a child and did something wrong and tried to hide it from your parents because you were afraid of the consequences? When David’s sin was exposed, his desire was mercy because he trusted in God’s love. What he failed to realize was that his sin had damaged his relationships with those around him. But even more importantly, he had let his heart damage his relationship with God. Repentance literally means a “change of mind,’ and that change involves three things: our MIND (how we think), our EMOTIONS (how we feel), and our WILL (our behavior). In verse 2 he continues: According to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Notice that David didn’t try to cut a deal with God. “Transgress” is a very descriptive word. His response was, “I have sinned against the Lord, I have crossed the line.” You can’t get a clean heart without saying: “I’ve blown it Lord, and here’s how I’ve blown it...” David had to be honest and come clean with God, with himself and with others. That’s why he clearly asks God to forgive him and to remove his sin according to God’s “mercy”. Verse 3 is even more descriptive: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” There’s no doubt that David was replaying over and over in his mind this specific sin of adultery. We tend to do the same thing, don’t we? Before David ever committed physical adultery, he had committed spiritual adultery! We know that our behavior (whether good or bad) is really just a manifestation of what we desire the most. We’re sinners through and through! I’m going to say something that may surprise you: Even our good deeds are tainted with selfish sin! I like how one person has described it by saying: “Even our tears of repentance must be washed in the blood of the Lamb.” In verse 4 David says an extraordinary thing: “Against You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” David is crying out for mercy because he knows he’s guilty! Genuine repentance also involves our emotions! Hadn’t David sinned against Uriah twice? Yes. Hadn’t he also sinned against Bathsheba by stealing her from her husband? Yes! Had he not sinned against the people of Israel? Yes but finally he had to start with God where it mattered the most! Until we grasp this, until we see it and confess it, we cannot be forgiven! Verse 5 clarifies this: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” We all know this because you don’t have to teach a child to be selfish. It’s an inside job the moment we were conceived! If you look at the words in the Bible that are associated with “the heart”, they include: thinking, feeling, reasoning, knowing, selfish, hating God, hating self or others. Have you ever seen an iceberg? Only 10% of the ice is above the water. 90% of the mass is there but you can’t see it! The same thing is true of you, me and all people. This is why God wants to clean the inside of us as David writes in verse 6: “Surely you desire truth in the inward parts” or as Eugene Peterson puts it, “truth from the inside out." It reminds me of the famous Jack Nicholson scene in the movie A Few Good Men where he says to Tom Cruise, “You want the truth?” When Cruise says, “Yes, I do” Nicholson shouts in a rage, “You can’t handle the truth.” The truth can be hard to handle, especially the truth about ourselves. We live a culture of victimization, a culture that rewards us for blaming others. You may remember the shooting that took place at Virginia Tech several few years ago. The gunman left a note behind that said, “You made me do this.” That’s an easy way out, isn’t it? The problem goes back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. The serpent came to Eve and tricked her into eating the fruit. She offered some to Adam and he ate, knowing full well the consequences of his action. Suddenly the world became a very unfriendly place. Fear entered their heart for the first time. When Adam and Eve heard God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid.