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Sunday, January 2, 2004
Rev. Dr. Harold E Kidd
“Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10
The
self portrait given to us by David from his own pen through his writings in the
Psalms present to us the image of a man who for all intents and purposes has
been able to summarize through his own life experiences what is the framework
and makeup of our human condition. Many find so much comfort, encouragement,
and strength in His words recorded in the Psalms because David writes of those
experiences which we all encounter. We can identify with David, because as we
read his Psalms, we too have oftentimes been there. Whether it’s sorrow, fear,
thanksgiving, the need for strength, or patience, we too have been there.
In
some sense, the Psalms of David are his written spiritual autobiography, in
which David gives us a detailed account of his experiences in life, seasons of
fear, doubt, sinfulness, the need for courage and for strength, his joy for
worship, his attitude of a thankful heart, and much much more.
We
can identify with David in his writings because the longer we live, we too find
ourselves in seasons of life and circumstances very similar to those in which
David found himself. Some have suggested that God allowed David to sink so low
in depression, grief, and guilt and to rise so high in a spiritual experience
of praise and thanksgiving that He might use the record of David’s experiences
through which He might speak a word to us all.
Psalm
51 has been described as the hymn of a broken heart. In it we find the great
prayers of confession, repentance, and pardon. This Psalm was written by King
David following his taking of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. If there comes a
time in our lives when the burden of our sins close in and weigh us down like a
damp fog with guilt and grief, if there ever comes a time when we feel distant
from the Lord, who always desires to be our first Love, then just turn to the
51st Psalm, read its words, and pray it as our prayer of confession.
David
you see, was sick. He was not sick with a pain that wracked his body. He was
not sick with the worry or fret of his enemies but with a sorrow in his heart
giving him a sense of alienation from his God. Someone has said, "We know
our hearts are in the right place when the guilt of sin does bother us."
We can appreciate David and the words he has given us in this Psalm because
drifting away from the Lord in our hearts never happens all at once. Whenever
we leave God in our hearts, it never happens all at once. It happens bit by
bit. It happens little by little. That’s the pretext which gives rise to the
sins that caused David to write this Psalm. Amen. Thank the Lord that he was
able to reach David before it was too late. Thank the Lord that he is able to
reach us before it is too late. End up in our hearts, having departed from the
Lord and not know it.
David
was no super saint; he was human just like you and me, having all the range of
emotions, being subject to weaknesses in the flesh and possibilities that come
to each of us. And what made David, a Man
after God’s own heart, in God’s
estimation of him, was not that he was a great King, not that he wrote fine
poetry, not that he was blessed with the talents to be a fine musician and a
sweet singer of Israel’s songs and hymns. He was a man after God’s own heart
because he could feel the loss of joy and peace in his relationship with the
Lord, when his heart had drifted away from the Lord due to sin.
God
allowed David to rise especially high, because he saw in David the capacity to
never reach a point, in God’s having lifted him from a shepherd’s field to a
King’s Palace, where David would forget the Lord who had been so good to him.
O, what a blessing it is when, as God lifts us higher and higher in our station
of life, we continue to give him the praise, because we recognize that if it
had not been for the Lord … uh-hm.
That’s
why David is not shy about letting his joy bells of praise ring out in Psalm
103. “Bless the Lord, and all that is within me, Bless His holy name.
Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your
sins? Who redeems your life from the pit? Who satisfies your desires with good
things?" God had been good to David, just as he’s been good to you and me.
And like David we ought to bless his holy name, His praise continually on our
lips.
God
allows us to view the inner chambers of David’s heart through the record of his
Psalms. David loved the Lord with all his heart; he wanted nothing to come
between him and his relationship with the Lord. And I think that is why God
described David as a man after his own heart. In Psalm 18 he says, “I love you,
O Lord. My strength.” In Psalm 19:13 we
hear him praying, “Keep back your servant also from willful sins; let them not
have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from
the great transgression.” Another translation reads, “May sin not have rule
over me.” Then in verse 14 he prays, "May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O lord, my Rock and my
Redeemer.” David here is asking the Lord to approve his words and thoughts as
though they were an offering before the altar of the Lord.
In
Psalm 139 vss. 23-4 he writes, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me
and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any offensive way in me and lead
me in the way everlasting.” David was asking God to do some spiritual surgery
on his heart. Yes, some folk say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But David
dares to think that his heart was already perfect, totally pure, or without
ulterior motive, so he asked God to search him. Now that’s a prayer!
To
ask God to search our hearts, our thoughts, to ask God to reveal our sin to us,
David really had to have had a sincere love for the Lord, to ask him to search
his heart because God may show us what we really are not ready to see about
ourselves. Nevertheless, David prayed this prayer. Through this sampling of
prayers written by David, is it any wonder why God described him as a man after his own heart?
Some
sins are obvious; they show up in our behavior or perhaps in our flesh, but
then there are those sins that lie invisible to the naked eye, invisible to
observation, sins of the spirit which only God can see and which God has to
point out, or we may never come to recognize them for what they are. As much as
David knew himself reasonably well, he was aware that there were aspects of his
deeper, inner being which, when rising to the surface, surprised even him. So
he asks God, “Search me and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts.”
When
we examine this text, we learn a lot about the effects of sin in our
relationship to God. It may manifest at the conscious or the subconscious level
of our being; no matter which, sin always leaves a negative effect in our
relationship with God. In fact one cannot sin and it not have a negative effect
upon our relationship to God and others. When God remains silent in our sin, it
does not mean that God is unawares or He is cutting us some slack. His silence
is His grace and mercy giving us time to repent and return unto Him who is our
first love.
The
record of David’s life is that he never drifted so far off course in his heart
that God could not reach him. His heart had not become hardened to being deaf
to the voice of God. There was that place in his heart where the voice of God
could still speak, reach him, and be heard. His heart still had a conscience
and could still be troubled with its errant ways when brought under spiritual
conviction.
It
is a blessing to recognize when one’s heart has drifted from its first love,
who is God. It’s a blessing to be touched with feelings of conviction by the
Holy Spirit that will move us to seek God once again when we have drifted. If
we drifted without a sense that we were drifting further and further away and
off course, it would be difficult for us to find our way back.
In
his awareness that he has drifted away from God, he prays, “Create in me a clean,
pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away
from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of
your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
Let
me suggest to you that David’s heart had been circumcised. Circumcision was
instituted by God during the time of Abraham. The circumcision of all males
eight days old was a sign they belonged to God. It was a sign of God’s covenant
with his people. The cutting away of the foreskin of the male was an outward
sign of a spiritual reality. The old life of sin had been cut off; circumcision
was a outward sign of the spiritual reality that God’s people were being
purified in their hearts and dedicating themselves solely to God.
The
term circumcised heart actually comes from the Book of Deuteronomy ch. 30:6,
wherein Moses told the children of Israel, “The Lord your God will circumcise
your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.”
What
Moses was telling the Jews is that God’s mercy is unbelievable. His mercy goes
far beyond what we can imagine. God wants to forgive us and bring us back to
himself. When we seek him, he’s promised to circumcise our hearts, giving us
spiritual renewal. And what this means is that God through the Spirit cuts away
the layers of human stubbornness, self-will, and hard-heartedness, so that our
hearts become soft and tender to the voice of His Spirit and conformable to his
will.
Some
folk expect revival in sixty minutes, but think about it -- the Spirit in
circumcising the heart has to work through layers and layers of resistance,
old
habits that are hard to break, years of living in an old mindset. It takes more
than sixty minutes to change a life, let alone the disposition of one’s heart.
So the Spirit through the word of God searches and probes our hearts and in the
process cuts away the hardness of the heart, in order that God can reach the
inner man and woman.
In
his confession the outer layer of David’s heart had been cut away by the
Spirit. And so we hear him in the tenderness of a repentant heart that is
seeking God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit
within me.” Notice that David, as much as he is a man after God’s own heart,
recognized there are some things, when it comes to the heart, that only God can
do. Only God can cleanse the heart. Only God can heal a heart that has been
broken by despair and sorrow. Only God can do the kind of spiritual heart
surgery we need, enabling us to walk right, talk right, live right, and do
right. In matters concerning spiritual things, people cannot pull themselves up
by their bootstraps or by force of human will. God has to fix our hearts.
And
I think this is what David recognizes, for when he gets to verse 10 he prays,
“Create in me, O God, a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” Well,
David has confessed his sin, he’s repented of his errant ways, but now God has
to step in. Have you ever come to a point in your life where you realized that
God had to step in, that you had done all that you could do? You confessed it,
you repented of it, but at that point God had to step in.
Yes,
God had to step in. Hallelujah!
I
grew up in the church always hearing the older folks giving their witness that He’s a Heart fixer and a Mind regulator.
And what this means is that God can fix us when we can’t fix ourselves. And
they use to sing a song in witness to the fact that there’s nothing broken in
our human condition that is beyond God’s repair. They use to sing a song in
witness to the fact that God has to step in from time to time, to repair hearts
that have become damaged by sin. Earth has not seen a cardiologist who can work
with the dexterity and precision required for open-heart surgery like our God.
…
The
song was Fix Me, Jesus. "Fix me
for my journey home." I want to live right. I want to walk right. I want
to do right, but O Lord, I can’t do it unless you step in. Fix me, Jesus, fix
me. Yes, create in me a clean heart, and renew a right Spirit within me.