Our living God, Pt 2: A contrite heart

Psalm 51:13-19                         13Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.  14Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.  15Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.  16You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.  17My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.  18May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.  19Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Often our relationship with our God sits on a precarious precipice and we find ourselves sitting on the edge.  In the previous writing about Psalm 51 we saw David in just such a place as his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah threatened to destroy him.  But David turned away from the cliff edge, embraced God and sought restoration.

Cleansed heart/broken heart

But restoration without repentance is no restoration at all, so David humbled himself before God, confessed his horrible sin, and sought restoration of relationship.  The key, of course, is what happens next in the penitent heart:  Will the child of God return to his sinful ways having achieved temporary restoration, or will he begin a new season of submission to God?  There is a difference between a cleansed heart and a contrite one after all, and it takes a great deal of courage to honestly face one’s weaknesses and failures, expose them to the healing Light, and fully and completely turn away from them.

Contrite is an adjective which describes someone who is filled with sincere remorse and guilt over having committed a wrongdoing.  Certainly, that describes David in the first part of Psalm 51 and now in the last, he describes the new season he is about to enter.

Open my lips

Not even prayer can be initiated by the sinful human, and although many would argue against this, I can recall in my own walk towards God a time in which I never once prayed.  Somehow, I was aware that he was there, but I never talked to him.  In my flesh I could not get beyond my sense of control of my own life and direction.  There came a time of great difficulty that I couldn’t seem to get beyond when I cried out, “God what is going on?”  Then I realized I had just asked for God’s help…I had prayed.  Even the simplest act of righteousness or holiness must be initiated by God.  How he does this is beyond my understanding, except that, somehow, he manifests in a person’s heart a desire to know him better.  The first step in that knowing is conversation…prayer.

David’s first step after his repentance was to praise God for what he had done.  I can imagine his prayer.  “I want to sing your praise, Lord; I want to shout to the world the beauty of your name!  Show me how, Lord!”

Proper sacrifice

Remember, this was a time in God’s economy before the Messiah had come, when the Jews were interacting with God through the sacrificial system.  The whole system was orchestrated.  There were certain proscribed liturgies said in certain ways, at certain seasons, and with certain purposes.  At a certain level, this is a good thing as the human heart needs to know it is doing something properly.  God had initiated the sacrificial system to turn hearts toward him.  His idea was that he would teach his children that sin was bad, even teach them what sin was, so they would turn away from idolatry and other deceitful ways of the world and turn to him for salvation.

But the Jews had begun to think that the sacrificial system in itself was the source of their salvation.  David realized that sacrifice was the tool of expression, not the real thing.  He realized that if the heart-felt love of God was not behind the gesture of sacrifice, then there was no efficacy in the sacrifice.

Real sacrifice lies in the giving up of ownership that is so much a part of the average person.  When a man asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, Jesus answered that it was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  To which the man said,

32“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  33To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  34When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:32-34)

The sacrificial system had become a series of boxes to be checked off.  A person could bring his animal to be sacrificed, or the firstfruits of his crop, call himself good with God, then go off to cheat his brother in a business deal, or worship a pagan idol.

What about me?

Does all this sound familiar?  Even secular children of God, let alone believers, realize the world is a horrible place; 65 million unborn humans have been murdered in the name of convenience, same gender marriages have become legal, and we, who complain about such things are called intolerant and hateful.  Yet some of us go about our routines as if nothing has gone wrong.  We attend church on Christmas and Easter and then return to our questionable business and social practices.

It is time to turn back to God.  If you have never accepted Jesus as your Savior, then do it now.  I am sure someone in your congregation will help you.

But Psalm 51 is mostly not written to that person.  Through Psalm 51, God is calling the once-true believer back to fellowship with him.  God wants us to give up our self-centered routines:

12“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” 13Rend your heart and not your garments.  Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. (Joel 2:12-13)

7I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD.  They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart. (Jeremiah 24:7)

Believer, God loves you no matter what you have done.  He created you, you are his little boy or girl, and he loves you for who you are.  He doesn’t condemn you, but he does ask that you return to him, turn from your worldly ways, and sin no more.  The End of Days is approaching, the world is spiraling downward, and you are needed.  Turn back to God and he will turn to you.