Brokenness and Mercy
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Background to psalm
Background to psalm
David is caught committing adultery and murder
He is confronted by a prophet Nathaniel and is called out
This psalm is the response to David’s sin and repentance.
IT is full of emotion and raw appeal before God.
By the time we get to the psalm, David realizes his fault and makes his appeal before God.
I recieved a parking ticket a few years ago in Providence. I have recieved others since but let’s not talk about that. It turns out I was wrong, I parked in a no parking area but there were about 20 other cars there and the signs were not very visible. When I got the ticket I knew that I wanted to make the appeal to the judge. So I took pictures of the signs and got ready for the court date.
I had never fought in court before so I dressed nicely, had my pictures ready to go, rehearsed my argument that I was going to communicate to the judge. I got in line and waited my turn while the judge saw all the other municipal cases.
It was my turn and I addresed the judge through the microphone, hello your honor. I had my pics in hand and was ready to fight it out.
It turns out that I was before Judge Caprio. If you don’t know who that is, google, caught in providence. HE is a very kind and good natured judge and followed my case by asking how long I’ve been driving. about 25 years I responded. No other providnce tickets. No your honor. Case dismissed.
I went ready to plead my case before the court and he didn’t hear a word of it before dismissing it entirely.
- We are going to see David get a chance to plead his case before the Lord. And in so doing we will see how the Lord desires to respond in our lives when we are covered before the Lord.
David walks into the courtroom as we find just covered in guilt and shame.
And as we walk through the psalm we will see that guilt and shame transform into mercy and renewal.
This morning we will find that our brokenness is only a step away from mercy and renewal in Christ.
This morning we will find that our brokenness is only a step away from mercy and renewal in Christ.
When we sin it sticks to whatever it touches
When we sin it sticks to whatever it touches
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
David is trying to figure out how to reconcile His sin with God’s love and grace.
He is saying two things at once
1-God’s abundant mercy is available
David immediately appeals to the mercy of God.
In the narrative in 2 Sam, David tries everything. He has exhausted his resources
In so doing he points his entire being to the mercies of GOd. He knows God is merciful but He is in a state where He needs to know more than God’s mercy. He needs to experience it.
he needs God’s mercy to do something
2-Sin is deeply connected to the person. It is not just behavior, there is something that is deeply inherent in the mans condition
these words “wash” and “cleanse” are almost violent. cleanse can mean destroy
David needs the Lord not just to remove, it is something that needs to be scrubbed out. It is not just something that is covering or like a jacket. It is somethign that has to be removed, that has to be scrubbed out, somethign that only God is able to do.
With these two realities we are kind of stuck in the tension of who will come out victorious. David knows the reality of his situation but also knows the reality of the mercy of God. What wins in the end?
have you ever been stuck in the middle of the tension between sin and mercy? We know God’s mercy wins in the end but it sometimes feels like sin just won’t let up. Take some time as a group to pray for those in the middle of that tension.
When God acts He acts completely
When God acts He acts completely
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
While the first few verses of the psalm are in tension between two realities, God’s mercy and the stickiness of sin, we see the hope of the psalmist in the mercy of God
He knows that he cannot remove his own self from his own sin.
He needs another to do it for him.
And while he understands the reality of his own sin, He knows that God can do something about it.
The words “cleanse” “wash” and “blot” are aggressive, are violent. David wants what is on him gone and will go to any lengths to do it.
But not he is not asking only to have the sin aggressively removed He is specifically asking the God of the Universe to do it.
Purge me
Remove the sin from my life and I will be clean.
God if you do it then it will be done completely
Wash me
And I will be whiter than snow.
When God does something He does it completely. He doesn’t procrastinate or cut corners or take incompletes.
God sufficiently does a sufficient job in completing the task at hand.
We know that by looking at Jesus. He completely went to the Cross for us, giving everything. Telling us it is finished.
Paul tells us that what God begins He will complete in us
IN that we know His mercy will not give up. It is perseverative.
where have you experienced God persevere in your life? or in someone else's?
William Wilberforce, a UK politician and abolitionist began working on ending the slave trade in britain in 1787. It took him 20 years to achieve that goal. in 1789 he produced 12 resolutions against the slave trade. HE spoke and wrote and petioned against it. Year after year he brought resolution after resolution to to see slavery’s end but was always beat out. Until 1807 when his resolution passed. But that didn’t change previously enslaved people so it was another 10 years before slavery was completely abolished.
20 years given to one cause. 20 years given to one area, to one thought and one goal. IT’s amazing. And it should astound us honestly that one man gave so much to one idea.
We have a God who didn’t give 20 years HE gave lifetimes and generations and eras in order for us to know and experience His mercy in our lives. HE gave all of who He is through the plans of the Father for generations. And then all of who He is completely through Christ. Then all of who is HE completely through the Spirit in our lives.
We love stories of perseverance and we have to understand God does not give up and has not given up on you. Like Wilberforce but exponentially more, God will continue to bring the resolution of His mercy and His grace completely. God does not go part way, what He does He does completely.
Be assured that God works in our lives and HE will continue to work His mercy. He makes us whiter than snow. He washes and cleans and restores us.
When God does something He renews
When God does something He renews
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Up until verse 10 it is about getting David to neutral. Just getting David atoned (bring back to God) for his sin. David had fallen down and the first part of the verse is David asking God to help him to stand again.
But then we get to verse 10. And David isn’t just asking for God to stand, He is asking God to help him to run and leap and fly.
He is asking for renewal. For David to experience God again, to experience joy again.
And David gets it right because He understands that renewal and joy are not bought or transacted from God. David isn’t asking God because they are earned or because David deserves them. David asks because God is merciful and because God gives out of His mercy.
And to be renewed by God is not something we can fake or something we can create or even beg or transact. We can receive that which God already offers.
That is grace. That is mercy. When God raises us up. When He is the one who not only helps us to stand but who helps us to run and to leap and to fly. When He offers us His strength.
We are one step away from God’s mercy no matter where we are. We are one step away from God’s strength and His forgiveness and His love for us.
Sin keeps us miles from God. But mercy brings us meters from Him.
Sin keeps us miles from God. But mercy brings us meters from Him.
We can trust God not only to lift us up but help us to move forward.
Look at what Isaiah says in his prophecy
isaiah 40:28-31
English Standard Version Chapter 40
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
We change. God does not. We get exhausted. God does not. God offers mercy and renewal and joy through His Spirit. Something that only He can bring. Something that only He can do. It is a grace that we get to be a part of. And our role is to trust Him to renew our strength, our joy.
tell about a time when God renewed you.
Where do you need God to renew you?
Look through the list in psalm 51:10-12. In what ways do you need God to interact with you in that list?
Pray with one another in your group to see the renewal of the Lord.
JRR tolkein spent his life telling stories that could help people to understand the goodness of grace in our life. He tried to help his readers make sense of God in their lives when they were facing the uncertainty of the first world war. His stories are a collision of grace and of chaos.
One of the greatest moments where we see this happen, and we can see it happen all throughout the Lord of the Rings triology is at the end.
Now I am going to spoil the ending of the Return of the king for you but the books have been out 68 years and the movies for 21 years so at this point I don’t feel too badly.
What you need to know is that the whole story is a journey of a hobbit named frodo who has to destroy the ring of mordor by dropping the ring back into the center of the mountain of mordor. A lot happens but eventually he, his friend samwise drop the ring in the volcano. And the mountain of mordor erupts. There is lava coming down the sides and our heroes are trapped on a boulder surrounded by lava. No way out. exhausted and weary.
Let’s watch the clip
When our heroes were exhausted, when they were empty, when they were doomed, just at the right moment, the eagles came and saved them with Gandalf the white.
Tolkien talked about the use of the Eagles in his essay called On Fairy Stories. Tolkien grew up in the first half of the 20th century, he served in WW1, he wrote the LOTR through WWII. He understood pain and loss and grief and sin and brokenness. So his writing comes from a place where he wants to show a broken world what grace looks like.
And the eagles are a literary trope that he developed called a Eucatastrophe. It comes eu meaning good and catastrophe meaning an unravelling. It is a good unravelling that helps the characters in the story beyond their ability to act. IT is an act of grace. The eagles help when Frodo and Sam cannot.
a Eucatastrophe is an act of grace when the character cannot conjure one on their own.
God’s activity in our lives is eucatostrophic. God acts when we cannot. God moves and restores and renews steps from our own brokenness.
We need to face our own reality, meaning looking at our brokenness and pain and sin and then more-so to God’s reality which is the eucatastrophe in our lives.
Renewal is reality only a step from where you are. But we have to look to Christ to find it. We need to take a step.
Renewal is reality only a step from where you are. But we have to look to Christ to find it. We need to take a step.
The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's
The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's
history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the
history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the
Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-emi-
Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-emi-
nently the inner consistency of reality. There is no tale ever told
nently the inner consistency of reality. There is no tale ever told
that men would rather find was true, and none which so many
that men would rather find was true, and none which so many
skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits - J.R.R. Tolkien
skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits - J.R.R. Tolkien
We are going to turn our attention to communion, where our community wide action is to turn our attention to Christ and His work on the cross.
We can take this time to look to Christ for His mercy because of his action. His death and resurrection are eucatastrophes in our lives.