We're going on a journey in today's #bible911 blog post. And today we will be looking at Psalm 51, King David's plea for forgiveness. But while this is the focus of the message today, we're going deep into the world of...Sin.
I was reading an interesting back and forth today on social media with an account I follow. The creator asked a simple question...What is sin and does it even matter these days?
What is sad is that most people engaging with the creator couldn't find the biblical definition of sin and that makes a lot of sense if you see the state of the world right now.
Let's look into a few verses that will help us prime the Psalm that we'll be focusing on today...
This is the biblical reminder that none of us are guaranteed heaven. We have a solution, and we will go over that in a bit but we see from the book of Romans that everyone has sinned. We are after all, the children of Adam.
And what are the consequences of sin?
At first glance, we see that death is the end result for all sin. But in this same verse we find the answer. The Way, the Truth and the Life! But sin is obviously a pretty big deal...And we know the solution but this still doesn't answer the question...
What is sin?
Thankfully the bible explains itself and the answer is found here:
Ahhhhh! The answer to the question...Sin is the TRANSGRESSION of the law.
Now we need to do a deeper look into what is the law, because according to some Christians...The law is over and is no longer binding.
Yet here we are in the new testament seeing that the apostle John (of all people) is saying that sin is the transgression of the law, well after Christ was raised to heaven...But that's a different topic all together.
Let's get back to the Psalm 51 because I hope I put some stuff into context here...
There are 19 verses in this Psalm and it goes over the repentance that David had when the prophet Nathan called him out for his adultery. We see here that King Dvid truly was repenting as he knew that he...Transgressed the law. Specifically the one that has to do with adultery. Look at his words...
Real repentance. David goes directly to God in prayer, admits that he transgressed the law and asks for the power of God to cleanse him. We see right here how long suffering our God is.
Which brings me to one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture...
I can't begin to tell you the amount of times I have prayer this exact prayer. Knowing that it's not by my works that I can be cleansed, but by the power of the blood of the Lamb. Want a second witness for the ability for God to cleanse us?
How about this in Isaiah...
There's power in the blood!
Let's put Psalm 51 all together....
David knew he sinned.
He knew, that without God's power to cleanse us, he could never atone for his transgression.
Christ can. He did. He can clean us!
The real power of the gospel is that when we surrender everything to Christ, we become changed. Our sins, while red like crimson, become white like snow. Not from anything we do, well...Let me rephrase that....
We do confess Him. We admit our need for a Savior (read the verses in Romans to confirm that). We humbly repent and turn from sin. We allow Christ to change us with His sacrifice.
To me, that is not just the good news....It's the best news!