Week Seventeen-Day Four: Knowing Human Beings - Sinners

Yesterday we talked about sin. That’s a challenging topic to deal with devotionally, isn’t it? Here’s why: sin has very little value as an academic concern.

We can talk about the nature of God as an academic exercise and usually we will be benefitted. There is certainly a great difference between knowing things about God and actually knowing God. The first means knowing His attributes and character and how He acts in certain situations. The latter means being in relationship with Him and experiencing His presence and power. Certainly, God is after the latter with us – the relationship and the experience.

But knowing things about God often helps our relationship with God. So an academic exercise concerning the nature of God is usually beneficial.

It is not the same with sin. Knowing what sin means, and that we are all impacted by it has very little value by itself. Until we feel the grip of sin, until we know by experience how it has corrupted our nature and how it impacts our actions and our relationships we will not be benefitted. But when all delusions have been broken, when all denial is gone and we are ready to look sin in the face – not just an objective, academic view of sin, but our sin – then we will be greatly benefitted! This is spiritual brokenness. This is always the starting point for obtaining new spiritual ground.

Brokenness is a necessary part of the healthy human condition. We are all sinners!!!!!! (Add enough exclamation points there so that you get the point.) We do not come to God without a recognition of our need for Him; and we do not come to a recognition of our need for Him without being confronted with the incredible mess we have made of things. We are a screwed up mess and we create screwed up messes. There’s simply no nice way to say it. Seeing this is horrifying, frightening, miserable, depressing and profoundly freeing and ultimately empowering!

We cannot get God without, at least in part, getting ourselves. And we cannot get ourselves without getting our sin. Until we see this, we see nothing at all. Let’s join King David this morning as he gets a real look at his mess. (For extra credit, read the context for this Psalm by reading 2 Samuel 11. You will be glad you did.) Let’s hear his response to the frightening, depressing, and altogether freeing experience of facing his own sin. Let’s look at 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.

BEFORE YOU START YOUR DAY

1. Use this Psalm as a launching pad for your own prayer.Read 2 or 3 verses and pray them back to God in your own word.