Read Psalm 51

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
   sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
   you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins
   and blot out all my iniquity.

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
   you who are God my Savior,
   and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.

¹⁸ May it please you to prosper Zion,
   to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
¹⁹ Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
   in burnt offerings offered whole;
   then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Questions

1. David’s first cry (v1) is that he has sinned against God alone. Do we find it easier to say sorry to God than men? If so what does that say to us about the depth of our relationship so far? How can we deepen this so that it hurts us to hurt Him?

2. V2. “Wash” in the Hebrew means to stamp the dirt out! “Cleanse” here means to be acquitted in a court of law. We have 2 challenges here...do we want the dirt (sin) to be literally stamped out of us? How seriously do we think about sin? Do we ever? And secondly, do we know in our heart vs our head) that because of His blood we are acquitted and made righteous? Read Revelation 12:10&11. How do we overcome the Accuser of the brothers? Be practical.

3. V3 also has 2 similar words but with different meanings. “Sin” (Heb. Chattah) here means missing the mark. Think of the Anglican confession “through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault”. Are we prepared to spend time with the Lord allowing Him to pinpoint things in order that we may move in power because we are so clean? The second word “transgression” (Heb. Pesha) means deliberate rebellion. David is going a little deeper here. He is not just talking about what he has actually done, he is talking about his heart motives.

4. V17 says the sacrifices God desires are “a broken and contrite spirit”. How can we get to this place? Have we airbrushed this out of our current theology? As a group, how are we going to help one another to take cleanness seriously on a regular basis.

5. Remember every law of the Kingdom here in the Beatitudes has a godly consequence. This beatitude continues “for they shall be comforted”. God’s desire is not to leave us feeling condemned – who is the Comforter? If the comforter comes when we truly mourn, to what extent do we think holiness and power are linked?

Listen to the accompanying talk