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There's a moment in my Christian life I remember very clearly; a particular occasion that stands out to me when I was really, and deeply, aware of my sin. What do you do when you feel like that – really convicted by sin? What do you do when you think you've messed up in a way that's beyond forgiveness? What do you do when you've prayed and prayed for forgiveness but have no feeling of assurance or sense that your prayers have been heard? Well, our Psalm will help us with these questions. So do have it open in front of you – it’s on page 474 in the church Bibles. And you'll see the heading of Psalm 51 gives us its background:

A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

We read back in 2 Samuel that one day King David had been out for an afternoon stroll when he'd noticed Bathsheba bathing. Overcome by lust, he summoned her to him and committed adultery with her. She became pregnant, and as things spiralled out of control, and David's attempts to cover the whole thing up failed. He had her husband Uriah murdered, and he took Bathsheba as his wife. And God used the prophet Nathan to expose all of this – leading David to feel the terrible weight of his sin and to write Psalm 51. This Psalm, though rooted in David's experience, is much more than an account of his response to God. It's full of rich lessons for us today about God, and about who we are. And it's a model prayer for us; the Psalms are meant to be prayed, and Psalm 51 is a pattern of prayerful repentance. It shows us what repentance (turning away from sin and back to God) involves, and what repentance looks like. So, before we go any further, we need to pray…

What does this Psalm encourage us to do when we're burdened with sin? Here's the first thing:

1. Cry for forgiveness (Psalm 51.1-6)

Have mercy on me, O God,according to your steadfast love;according to your abundant mercyblot out my transgressions.Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,And cleanse me from my sin!For I know my transgressions,and my sin is ever before me.

So, David is aware (immensely aware) of the depth of his sin. He's crying out to God and saying, "Lord I am a perverse, crooked, misled rebel. I've rejected you. I've rejected your standard. I've done what right in my eyes". That's what sin is – rejection of God and the wilful determination to do what feels "most good or right" to us. David says (Psalm 51.3) that the weight of his sin is ever before him. It's out in the open, no longer hidden, and the crushing sense of it is inescapable. There's nowhere left to go. So, he cries out to God in prayer! And he asks for forgiveness – that his sinful record would be blotted out i.e. washed, cleansed, got rid of. How can he pray such a prayer? Because he knows the character of God. God is a God of steadfast love – he's always loving. And God is abundant in mercy – merciful enough to cover every sin again, and again, and again. David knew repentance meant coming to God and asking for forgiveness and a completely fresh start.

What's on your heart this evening? What sin is there in your life? Maybe you've blown it this past week – and you can put your finger on exactly how. Maybe there's something you keep struggling with, and it never feels too far away. Maybe there's something you've hidden – something you've buried. And you know it's time you confessed it to God. It's time you let him deal with it. I sat with someone once. A struggling sinner. With tears in their eyes they said, "That's it. God won't forgive me this time". But that's not true! When we come to God, and cry to him for forgiveness, his answer is always: "Yes, you are forgiven". Because on the cross 2,000 years ago Jesus took all of the punishment for sin on himself and he died for it. If we trust in that, we can relate to God without sin being a barrier between us and him – because Jesus has washed sin away. We are totally, and utterly, forgiven – and that is how God sees us. It is who we are.

When you feel the weight of your sin, be like David – cry to God for forgiveness! Do you need to do that tonight? Do you need to do that for the first time? Placing your trust in Jesus to forgive your sin, and to bring you into relationship with God. David's experience of sin and repentance has changed him. It's taught him important lessons about God and about himself. Reading Psalm 51.4:

Against you, you only, have I sinnedand done what is evil in your sight,so that you may be justified in your wordsand blameless in your judgment.

David had sinned appallingly towards Bathsheba and Uriah, but, in Psalm 51.4, he's consumed with the reality that his sin, first and foremost, was an offense against God. David thought he could take whatever (whoever) he wanted, and then cover it up – whatever the cost. But all of that was only a symptom; the disease was that he'd ignored God, and what God said about the right way to treat other people. So, actually, sinning against others is given more weight here. God loved Bathsheba and Uriah. He couldn't ignore how they'd been treated. He demanded justice. And David had come to the realisation that God was perfectly right to. So, Psalm 51.4 again:

Against you, you only, have I sinnedand done what is evil in your sight,so that you may be justified in your wordsand blameless in your judgment.

God allows us to have experiences of ongoing sin so that we see that he's right in what he says about us – we are terribly flawed. He's right in saying something needs to be done about our sin. He's right in saying that the only hope for the sinner is his mercy and forgiveness. How do we know we're sinful? It's not just because the Bible says so. We know it because we experience it. We feel it. God lets us feel it. And he uses it to do his work in us. That time I mentioned at the beginning – where I really felt the pinch of my sin, God taught me things about himself, and myself, that I needed to learn. Maybe I should have learnt those lessons another way – if only I'd listened, trusted and obeyed. But isn't it better to learn the hard way than not at all? God wastes nothing. Isn't that extraordinary?! Another thing David learnt was just how his deep sin runs. Reading Psalm 51.5-6:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,and in sin did my mother conceive me.Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

The other day, I told my 17 month old, Simeon, to stop running around with a toy in his mouth. I pulled it out, and put it firmly into his hand. But when I turned round a minute later…there he was, with the toy in his mouth again. Staring at me. Knowingly. Defiantly! Sin is untaught. It's inbuilt – right from the beginning of life – at conception. The ugliness of sin runs deep. Imagine, somehow, that on my phone I had a recording of everything you'd ever said, and thought, and done. And imagine I went to the tech team and they put that video on the big screen for everyone to watch. There might not be atrocities that David committed on your video. But how long could you stick watching it? Wouldn't it show just what you're capable of? Sin is not just the things that we do. If we're honest, it is part of who we are. There's encouragement though in Psalm 51.6 – God teaches us the right, and wise, way to live in his word. This is the resource he gives us to faithfully live for him. David had no excuse. He should have known better. But if he failed, so can we. And we do. And when we do, we need to cry for forgiveness. And, secondly, we need to:

2. Plead for renewal (Psalm 51.7-12)

Psalm 51.7-9:

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.

David longs to be free from the destructive nature of sin – which he likens to having broken bones. Hyssop was used in cleansing rituals in worship at the temple. To purge is the best translation of what David is getting at in Psalm 51.7, more literally, he's saying, "God please de-sin me". This theme continues from Psalm 51.10-12:

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.

David is pleading that God would remain committed to him, and give him a new clean heart. So that going forward, at the very core of his life, everything that negatively affected relationship with God would be removed. He's pleading for a willing spirit so that his energies, thoughts, ambitions, his passions, his will, would be driven and directed by God. So that he wants nothing but faithfully living for him. When we become Christians we are, to quote the Apostle Paul, new creations. We're reborn by the power of the Holy Spirit, and slowly but surely, we become more and more like Jesus. And, yet, we remain inconsistent. Sin always has a habit of rearing its ugly head. We tell ourselves, "I'll try harder". We put plans in place. We ask our friends to help us. We pray for forgiveness. A friend a while back said to me, "I've got to the point where I'm asking God in prayer to completely get rid of sin in my life". That's the sense Psalm 51 carries – it's more than forgiveness, it's a prayer for complete inner renewal. How does the old hymn put it?

Take away the love of sinning;Alpha and Omega be;end of faith, as its beginning:set our hearts at liberty.[Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, C. Wesley (1707-88)].

Do we pray for hearts that don't want to sin? Do we pray that the core of who we are would be more like Jesus Christ? So that sin is not just something we've stopped doing, but it's something that is undesirable or ugly and not part of who we are, or ever want to be. Do we pray, like Psalm 51.12, for a restored joy in God's salvation? A fresh sense of wonder and joy: Jesus has saved us from sin! We know God. He's with us, and we're with him. One day, we're going to eternity with him. If we fix our eyes on that, if we have joy in Jesus, it will shape us. We'll say, "because my saviour died for me, I want to live for him". That desire is the exact opposite of sin. Friends, let's follow David's example and plead for renewal. Thirdly, let's:

3. Share the good news (Psalm 51.13-15)

Psalm 51.13-15:

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,and sinners will return to you.Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,O God of my salvation,and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.O Lord, open my lips,and my mouth will declare your praise.

David's infectious joy at his forgiveness has changed his view of the world around him. He's saying, "Lord forgive me, as I know you will, and I will tell everyone who needs to hear it all that you've done for me! I'll tell people how forgiving, and righteous you are!" Put simply: David longs to tell people his story. He knows he has received so much from God, and he wants other people to receive it too! People he knows need to receive it. Our friends and family might argue about our explanation of Jesus and his claims, but they'll find it harder to argue with our experience of Jesus – how we know we're sinners who have been undeservedly and graciously forgiven. Are we praying, like David, that God would use us? That he would open our lips to speak of his goodness to the world? Are we ready to tell people our story? What a difference following Jesus has made to our lives? Saying to people, "you know that's the great thing about being a Christian…" Are we involved in ministry here at JPC, so that together and as effectively as possible, we are declaring the praises of God to a lost world?

Remember that sin I asked you to think about at the beginning? The worst moment of your Christian life; that thing you’re most ashamed of; Jesus paid for it! When he died, the penalty it deserved died with him forever! As far as God is concerned it’s gone from our record! We’ve a new life in Jesus; a life of relationship with our loving God, a life of purpose and hope, a life that will never end – but will extend into a perfect eternity, which each day is better than the one before, because Jesus will rule this new world. And sin will have no part of it. This is the joy of salvation – time doesn’t allow us to unpack all that our tongues could sing of it! Nothing could mine to its depths. Our words could never do it justice, but speak of it we must. And try and stop us! May God himself open our lips to declare his praise, and to share the good news. Lastly, in our pattern of repentance:

4. Be sincere with God (Psalm 51.16-19):

Reading Psalm 51.16-19:

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;build up the walls of Jerusalem;then will you delight in right sacrifices,in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;then bulls will be offered on your altar.

At the time of the Old Testament, the sacrificial system was the way of coming to God and saying, "Lord, because of my sin, I deserve this punishment". And as the animal died, it was a visual way of God saying that the punishment of sin had fallen on another – and that his people were then free from it. But David had come to the realisation that all of this could very easily become empty religious activity. Perhaps he was looking back to how he'd brought the very best sacrifices, meanwhile not examining his own heart, and hiding his sin away. Now that attitude had been exposed, David knew what was needed was to come to God with a broken spirit and a broken and contrite [i.e. deeply remorseful] heart. Sacrifices brought like that would not be despised because they'd come with the right attitude: the attitude of a hopeless sinner asking a loving Father for forgiveness. God doesn't want hypocritical performance. He doesn’t want us to hide behind how much read our Bible, or how often we come to church, how stuck in we are with serving, or how good a Christian we appear to other people. Repentance isn't saying to God, "I know I've messed up, but, look…I've done this! I'll make it up to you…" Repentance is coming as we are, begging for forgiveness, and trusting in the cross to save us. God wants all the ways we worship him, and all the good things we do, to be for him and about him – and not ways of trying to cover up our sin. Any way of trying to hide sin from God is simply an act of spiritual insincerity.

God knows everything about us. And he's ready and willing to forgive us, and work in us, just as we are. So, we need to be sincere because, as Psalm 51.18-19 show us, the good of Zion (God's entire people) rests on the spiritual health of all us as individuals. David begs God that his sin would not damage the spiritual health of the nation. We are family. Connected together by a web of relationships. If you can't bridle your gossip, sooner or later your gossip with hurt someone here. If I leave my anger unchecked, sooner or later I'll blow up with one of you. In all sorts of ways. My sin will damage you. And your sin will damage me. So, we need to be ruthless with it, and, together as God's church sincerely bring it to Jesus – the saviour of it. That's Psalm 51 – a pattern of repentance. So, may we, like David, when burdened by sin and brought to despair…Find again the total forgiveness and all-encompassing love of God. Though we are sinners – God loves us! And, may we, when we feel the pinch of sin…get on our knees, open Psalm 51, and pray through this astonishing pattern of repentance that God has given us. Let’s pray.