Psalm 51:1-19 vs 13 “make me to hear joy and gladness” vs 12 “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation”
Introduction: Sin provides pleasure and happiness for a season however, what it brings into your life is despair, heartache, and shame. In Psalm 51, what we see is the response that David had after he realized his sin against God when he took Uriah’s wife and then killed Uriah to cover up his sin.
The main thing to get out of this lesson according to vs 4, is that sin is against God and we need to cut off that sin and get it cleaned out of our life in order to enjoy the benefits of having the Lord’s Joy in our lives.
Sin will rob you of your Joy and you get it back by:
Being truthful with God– Vs 6 “thou desirest truth in the inward parts/hidden part”. When a person is gripped by sin or sin has gripped a person, the person naturally wants to hide it from others and from God. Not realizing that God saw the sin or continues to see the sin as it is being committed. Psalm 139:8 “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” I John 1:8 -God wants us to acknowledge our sin and bring it out to the light and repent of that sin that is robing us of our joy. Psalm 32:5 -God is looking for the person that is honest, He knows it all.
Enduring the Chastening of God– Vs 8 “that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice”. Sin has some natural consequences; you cannot avoid those. But then there is the chastening of God that comes because of the sin that his children commit. II Samuel 12:9-14 God told David that he would raise up evil out of his own household, that He would take their wives, and the child that was conceived because of sin would die. Hebrews 12:11 “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: Like David, if we are going to get our Joy back, we must understand that sin has consequences and God is the one who administers the chastening. Take the chastening, make the corrections, and begin to experience the joy of the Lord.
Dealing with the Sin which is against God– Vs 10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Vs 17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” If we don’t deal with the sin we wont have the Lord’s Joy restored in our lives and we will have shame and regret according to Vs 9. This person will just think and meditate on what they are doing or have done against God and that doesn’t bring Joy. John 1:9 we have to confess our sins to God. John 1:7 the blood of Christ will wash away our sins and have our joy back. This is the process that God wants us to have when we have sinned against God and want to restore our fellowship and Joy with Him.
Restoring the fellowship with God– Vs 11 “Cast me not away from thy presence”. Continual sin by the believer will lead to chastening, continual chastening will lead to God giving the person over to uncleanness. Romans 1:24 “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:” We don’t want to get to this point as a Christian. Where we knew the truth but we didn’t obey God and God gave us over to our lusts. II Corinthians 6:17 “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
Starting to Praise God- Vs 14-15 “sing aloud/shew forth thy praise”. God is full of grace and mercy and when we do all these other things, the last thing is to praise God because he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and we have Joy in our lives which stirs us the praise for God. Hebrews 13:15 “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name”.
Conclusion: As we have seen from the life of David, after he committed his sin against God by committing a sexual sin with Bathsheba and then having her husband Uriah killed to cover up the sin, this caused David to not have Joy in his life. What we have learned today is that sin has consequences, one being the lack of Joy produced by the Holy Spirit of God in our lives.
To restore that Joy, we need to be truthful with God about our sin, we must endure the chastening of God, we need to deal with the sin, we need to restore our fellowship with God, and start praising God for his grace and mercy.
Anchor Baptist Church 