David's Heart: The Depths of True Repentance

David is repenting here not only for his sin of adultery with Bathsheba, but also for the contrived conspiracy he entered into with his general Joab to place Bathsheba's husband Uriah at the front line of battle to ensure Uriah's death that David may possess Bathsheba for himself. And so he is here expressing his guilt of bloodshed. [00:02:22]

Here David promises to use his voice, which is obviously accomplished, as he was a musician, to praise the mercy and the love of God and to praise God for being the God of his salvation and the God who would deliver him from his guilt. And then he says, "Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise." [00:04:13]

And so David here is asking that God will cure his mouth so that in his expression and experience of forgiveness, he will be able to use that organ to sing aloud the joy of his salvation. And he said, "Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth your praise." And He's asking God to open his lips. "Give me the possibility to speak, and my speech and my song will be about your greatness." [00:05:46]

Then he goes on to say, "For You do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering, but the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These, O God, you will not despise." Now notice that here David makes a direct reference to the provision for guilt and atonement and forgiveness that is established in the old covenant ceremonies. [00:06:28]

And so David already understands that there's no inherent power in those sacrifices in the Old Testament, and he realizes that what God wants from the soul of a person who is humbling themselves before him and who is genuinely repentant, is not the blood sacrifice of an animal. And so he says, "Thou desirest not sacrifices, or else I would give it. I would offer whatever sacrifices you wanted right now God, but I understand that that can't do it." [00:10:15]

Now, one of the most important things that we need to learn about repentance is the nature of true repentance as distinguished from false or inauthentic forms of repentance. And the distinction we make in theology is the distinction between attrition and contrition. If we want to look at attrition, we could look at an example found in the Old Testament of Esau who sold his birthright to his brother Jacob. [00:12:04]

And here's what attrition is: It is a repentance motivated by either a fear of punishment or a subsequent loss due to the consequences of the action. It's not a genuine remorse because somebody has done something evil or has offended another person or supremely having offended God, but rather it's a sorrow motivated by some kind of personal loss. [00:13:44]

That is attrition, but contrition comes out of a genuine sorrow for having offended God, for having done what we know is sinful and that is what David says that he is experiencing. "God my heart is broken. My spirit has been smashed because You have awakened me to the dreadful reality of my sin." [00:15:17]

We see throughout the Scriptures when people are broken by an encounter with God that there is an experience of humility that is genuine. I mentioned that I've been in the process of writing a book on the love of God, and as I've been working through First Corinthians thirteen, for example, I noted that one of the phrases in First Corinthians thirteen where Paul describes what love is and what it isn't, he says that, "Love does not parade itself and is not puffed up." [00:16:04]

It is just the extreme opposite to the experience that people have when they encounter the holiness of God. We see again Job, when God speaks to Job, just as David is saying here, Job says, "Behold I am vile, and I repent in dust and ashes; and I will place my hand upon my mouth and speak no more against thee." Or other saints of the Old Testament will say, "I am a worm and no man." [00:18:29]

Now I believe that the dignity of human beings is important and that there is a place that we should be protective of the fragile confidence of human beings and we not crush people's spirit. I certainly believe in that, but we can't go so far with this concern for self-esteem that we create people who are hardened to being broken by the spirit of holiness that drives us to our knees, just as David experiences here when he experiences contrition. [00:19:30]

And finally David ends the psalm with these words: "Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem." So now David is saying, "Don't punish the nation and the Holy City because of me. You have made me King over Israel, and because of my sin the whole land mourns. But, O God, please do good in Your good pleasure to Zion. Build the walls of Jerusalem." [00:22:10]