「わたしたちの内に清い心を創造するために主は」
三月第三主日礼拝 宣教 2025年3月16日
詩編 Psalms 51編3〜19節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I greet you all with all my heart as you come back to church in the cold and rainy weather to worship with us. Welcome back to church. We thank the Lord for the blessing of being able to worship with you this morning. We also welcome those of you who attend our worship services online. It has been a very busy last week with some warm days and some cold days, but in God’s mercy, I am thankful to spend the Lord’s day with you all.
First of all, I have a report of thanksgiving to all of you. On the last Lord’s Day, we held a “Service to Remember 3.11” to remember the three churches that have been planted in the Tohoku area, prayed, and offered a support donation. Sister Fukuda prepared a beautiful and heartfelt letter on behalf of the churches, and we were able to send 30,000 yen each to the three churches on the evening of the 11th. Thank you for your prayers and support. One of the churches immediately sent us a letter of thanks by e-mail, and we received a new prayer request, which we have posted on the bulletin board. We have also included it in today’s monthly bulletin, so please check it out and continue to pray for the Tohoku region.
Now, this month, since the Lent began on the 5th, we are listening from the Bible to why and for what Jesus went the way of the cross and gave up His life on the cross as our substitute for us, for our salvation. In the first installment, we heard through the Gospel of John that Jesus is the Savior sent by God to remove sin from within us and to give us salvation, deliverance, and freedom. We also heard how He took away all our sins by His death on the cross. When John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” he was referring to Jesus.
Last week we heard from Colossians that Jesus went the way of the cross to bring reconciliation between God and us and gave His life on the cross. We only can sin and we can never bring about reconciliation with God. Only God can do that, so God took the initiative and moved first to send Jesus to earth as our Savior, making us holy, blemish-free, and blameless before God through His shed blood on the cross. We heard that the only way to be reconciled with God is to believe and receive the sacrifice of Jesus and God’s love.
In the same context, this morning I would like to share with you from Psalm 51 how the Lord Jesus Christ walked the way of the cross and gave His life to create a clean and new heart in our hearts, and how it is important to respond to His sacrifice and love. Please note that the title of the message is in the plural “we” in order to share it with you, but the noun of Psalm 51 is in the singular “I”.
It is important to respond together with you as a church, the family of God, but before that, it is important for each of us to respond to grace. In other words, each of us is loved by God, redeemed by Jesus, forgiven, and saved, and invited to “live today” in grace. We are called to respond truly to God’s love with gratitude, joy, and faith.
I think we tend to respond to God’s grace by hiding behind someone else in the church family, taking advantage of someone else, and relying on someone else. It is a very passive response. To put it in a harsher way, some people decide to keep receiving grace and not respond actively rather than responding. That may be fine at first, but as we are nurtured daily by God’s love and Jesus’ words, I think we will grow in some way. The pace of growth is different for each person, but I think it is natural that in the process of growth, there will be changes in our response to grace.
Now, Psalm 51 is one of the seven “repentance psalms” in the book of Psalms. The seven are 4, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. To have God’s love, forgiveness of sins, and reconciliation with God, we need a Savior, a mediator, and a nourisher in the person of Jesus Christ. But to receive that love, forgiveness, and salvation, we must be changed. We must ask God to change us anew.
We often suffer in our relationships, and one possible cause of this is that we make selfish demands of each other, saying, “I will not change, but you must change”. This can cause friction and relationship breakdown. Can you say to God, “I will not change, but God, love me and meet all my needs”? You could say that, but such a person would probably not be able to receive God’s love even if he or she wanted to.
Why is that? It is because there are many holes in our hearts, big and small. Because there are holes in our hearts, even though God’s love is pouring out in abundance, we are unable to receive it, and it all flows out. There is no way for us to plug those countless holes. There are so many holes that we have no first aid. Therefore, we always feel hunger and thirst in our hearts and suffer from unfulfilled thoughts. So how can we receive God’s love? The only way is to admit our weakness and cry out to God for help.
David, the king of Israel, was a man of many accomplishments who faithfully followed God, but he was also a man who sinned against God in many ways because of his weak heart. Chief among his sins was killing his men and plundering their wives to satisfy his own greed. If you are interested, please read chapter 12 under Samuel. I think you will be very surprised and shocked to know what kind of sins David committed against God.
But what is more surprising is that God still loves David and wants to use him for God’s purpose. But God does not use David in his sinful state. He sends the prophet Nathan to David to point out his sin and urge him to repent. Then, God creates a new, pure heart and gives it to David, who repents of his sins, and pours God’s Spirit abundantly into it. Therefore, Psalm 51 tells us that we too need to acknowledge our weaknesses and sins against God, and cry out for God’s mercy and salvation.
In verses 3-5, David says, “Have mercy on me, O God. Have mercy on me, O God. With deep mercy wipe away the sin of disobedience. Wash away all my iniquities and cleanse me from my sins. I know that I have transgressed against You. My sins are set before me always”. He cries out, “My sins are always laid before me. I am crying out to God to wipe away, wash away, and cleanse me of my sins, iniquities, and transgressions of disobedience to God. David knows that he has no such power, but that in God there is power and mercy to forgive sins. The first step in repentance is to acknowledge and apologize for his weakness and sin, and to seek God’s mercy and help; in verse 6, David honestly admits that “God is righteous, and there is no fault in his judgments,” and says he will submit to God’s judgment.
In verse 7, David says, “I was born in iniquity, and when my mother conceived me I was in sin.” This sounds misleading, but it is not. These are not selfish words that place the blame for one’s sins on the mother who carried one’s child, but words that express one’s sinfulness, which is sin from birth.
Jumping a bit, verse 9 says, “clear away my sins with the branches of hyssop, that I may be clean. Wash me, that I may be whiter than snow.” The “hyssop branch” was used in Jewish ceremonies to wash away sins and uncleanness, expressing the desire to be cleansed completely from the filth of sin, white as snow. Verse 11, “Turn not Thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.” is the same request. There is no other way but to plead with God.
Verse 12 is the central cry of this Psalm 51. David cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and give me a new and sure spirit.” David is not only asking God to restore him from his sin and reconcile him to God, but also to create in him a new and clean heart through God’s mercy. David knows this. With his old heart, there is a good chance that he will fall into temptation and sin again, so he prays, “God, create and give me a new heart, and give me the Spirit of God in that new heart. What was unbearable for David was to be withdrawn from God’s presence, to have God’s love and Spirit taken away from him, as in verse 13.
Does David’s request sound to you like an unreserved selfishness toward God? Do you feel sorry for God? But think about it. Who else but God would take hold of my weakness, forgive my sins, deliver me from my sins, and set me free from the fear of death by sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross?
What we are sorry about that we continue to live in darkness, rejecting and not receiving God’s love and forgiveness, Jesus’ love and life? Isn’t it most pitiful that we have so many holes in our hearts because of sin that we cannot receive God’s love? That is me, that is us. But God gave us Jesus and showed us His love on the cross. He walked the way of the cross to create a pure heart in us, to give us the Spirit of God in abundance, and to make us live in the abundance of God’s love.
It is only God and Jesus who can create a new heart, give us all a clean heart, and pour out His love on us. It is also God and Jesus who pours out the Spirit of God on hearts renewed by the blood of Jesus, giving them joy and peace, thanksgiving and hope, and the voice of joy and celebration and praise to the Lord. With hearts broken by this abundant love, our response to this abundant grace is to praise God and Jesus, and to live our lives testifying of Jesus. Let us walk this week praying and seeking how we should respond to the love of God and Jesus.