Text: Psalm 51: 10-12
I don’t know about you, but for me a new car is a special thing. When I drive it off the lot, I try to be so careful. Listen to that engine run so smooth. Look how that paint gleams. Smell that interior.
But as time goes by something changes. I’m not as careful as I once was, careful to keep it clean. That once new car begins to fade. And not just the paint and the upholstery. It fades into the background of my life.
As Christians, we can be like that with our Christian life. When we first drive off the lot with our new found faith, there’s joy. God loves me that much. I want to serve Jesus. I want to study his Word. I want to be around God’s people.
But what can and does happen in our lives? Not just once and then we learn better. But again and again. We wander away. Or we begin to take for granted what God has done. Or like King David, we get ourselves all tangled up in sin. In any case, the result is the same. What once gleamed with joy and hope in Christ fades into the background of our lives.
Today it is Pentecost, the festival of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate that special coming of the Spirit to empower Christ’s church to go make and disciples of all nations. How many years has it been? How many generations? A lot. Yet after so many years the Holy Spirit came to you in the Word and changed your heart. He brought you to faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I wish I could say that we all then lived happily ever after as God’s people. But we know better than that. These words of King David are words I need to pray and often. For there hasn’t been one Sunday in my 61 years that I didn’t need to confess my sins to my God. And those sins, start right in here. So this is my prayer too:
RENEW ME LORD, BY YOUR SPIRIT AND YOUR WORD
I. Change my heart as only you can.
II. Have mercy on me, a sinner.
III. Give me joy and a willing spirit once more
In the Bible, King David is called a man after God’s own heart. But King David had polluted his heart and life with evil. We know the shameless details. The adultery, deception and murder. And God was not absent there. He never is. God pressed him hard with his guilt. Then he sent a prophet called Nathan who stood before him and said: You are the man.
King David’s heart sank in sorrow. He confessed his sin and Nathan assured him that he was forgiven. We’re told here that King David wrote this psalm, this prayer when Nathan confronted him.
We know the words well, but let’s take a closer look. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me. (KJV) How often I have prayed those words when I’ve let myself fall into some sin. I have prayed them when I was glad no one knew what I was thinking. But of course, my Lord did, the one who died for me. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.
Here David uses a word that teaches us something important. Create, the first verb in the Bible. God created. What David asks of God is something only God can do. In fact, it’s the work of God the Holy Spirit. Change my heart Lord, as only you can. How does the apostle Paul say it? …For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Phlp 2:13) So this is a good prayer. A prayer we often need to pray.
And how does the Spirit change us? A carpenter uses a hammer and nails. A plumber uses a wrench and then sends me a big bill. Some of us use a computer. The Holy Spirit uses this Word to change us. He uses this Word to renew us when we’ve made a mess of our lives. He leads us to repent, to see our sin for what it is. Ugly rebellion against God. And then he lifts our hearts by showing us in this Word the love and mercy of God in Christ. He lifts our hearts in the Sacrament as Jesus gives us the body and blood he gave for us and shed for us. For there at the cross God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. Well in that message the Spirit changes us. He renews us. He knocks down what does not belong and puts up something different. A clean heart, a right spirit moved by God’s love.
How we need it! How we need his mercy! King David sure knew it. In his words, David admitted what he deserved. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me. King David was so blessed by the Lord and yet he allowed himself to make such godless choices.
You see, every believer is a temple of God the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit brought us to faith, he came to stay. For some of us, that was our baptism when we were born again of water and the Holy Spirit. What does Peter say on this day of Pentecost, Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And now each one of us is meant to be a little church where God is glorified by the way we live our lives.
But David had trashed that little church. He trashed the temple of his body with his sin. He grieved the Holy Spirit. So he begged God’s mercy. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me. He knew that’s what he deserved.
King David was probably thinking of Saul when he wrote this. You remember King Saul. He had turned his back on the Lord and the Lord turned his back on him. David was painfully aware of Saul’s tragic end. Have mercy on me, a sinner. Renew me, Lord.
David lived long before God sent his Son. He did not know what God has now done to make us his children. A cross of suffering. An empty grave of victory over death was not something David knew. Yet the Lord made salvation real and personal for David. God promised that from his line would come the Christ, the Messiah. That promise had to be so exciting, so full of joy for David. That joy which is the fruit of the Spirit.
But David was like you and me. He knew he had let that joy slip away from his heart and his life. Have we? Don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about bubbling over with enthusiasm. I’m talking about the kind of joy I’ve witnessed in some unusual places. A hospital room where a dear lady was so sick. But there in her eyes was that joy in her Savior, that joy in his promise. Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
David knew he had let that joy slip away. His sinful choices, his guilt, had pushed that joy out of his heart. So he prayed what we need to pray: 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation… and uphold me with a willing spirit.
A willing spirit is what springs from this joy. A willingness to serve and obey God even when it’s hard. An attitude that surprises me sometimes. I think of the man whose young wife had a slow debilitating disease that would go on for many years. I would visit them in the home. By now she was bedridden. It had to be so hard for him day after day. Working and then caring for his wife. But he was so devoted to her. Give me that joy and that willing spirit. Lord, renew my heart by your Spirit and your Word.
So we look at our lives this morning. We have this wonderful gift called faith that God the Holy Spirit has worked in our hearts. He’s come to us in our Baptism and united us with Jesus. He comes to us in his Word. And he’s given us a hope in Jesus that shines through even the darkest moments of our life.
Yet with all that, we can still treat it like that car which is not so new anymore. So let this be our prayer. Renew my heart, O Lord, by your Spirit and by your Word. Amen.