Psalm 51:12 "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation"
King David writes Psalm 51 as a repenting response to the sins he committed against the Lord during his infamous incident with Bathsheba. The context for this Psalm is found in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.
God sends the prophet Nathan to expose David to the sins he has committed and in response David composes this Psalm.
Here is a really hard, but necessary thing to do in order to experience gospel-driven joy: we have to behold our sin.
Beholding your sin & feeling the weight of your sin before a holy God is the catalyst for deep joy.
This is extremely important and yet I don't think it is taught in most churches in a way that leads people to the atoning work of Jesus on the cross, but often simply leaves people feeling helpless or fearful because of their sin.
Sin is basically self-centerdness, it is the elevation of you over other people. The Scriptures teach that all people have failed to live under the authority of Jesus Christ for their lives, and have chosen their own way over God's. This is what happens with King David in 2 Samuel and this is what he is repenting of in Psalm 51.
Sin is a gradual numbing to the holiness of God. And this is what has been happening to David in the season leading up to his sins against Bathsheba and her husband Urriah.
David writes in Psalm 51:12 "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation." Let's briefly break this verse down in the context of Psalm 51 in order to get underneath what David is truly saying.
The Scriptures clearly teach that for all of those in God, in Christ your salvation cannot be lost. Christ has secured it forever when He saved you and delivered you, but there are seasons when the joy of God's salvation will wane. We all know this to be true. There are times when we are walking with the Lord, pressing into Him and bearing lots of fruit and feeling deep joy in Him, and there are other times when we can hear the words "God loves you" and it not move us an inch.
I believe that David wants the joy of God's presence, of God's salvation to return to him. And I believe that in order for joy to be experienced we have to confront our inner brokenness before the Lord. "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation." In order to understand how to experience this joy we have to unpack God's salvation.
David writes in Psalm 51:3-4 "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment."
We must always return to this. We must own our sin and continue to be honest with ourselves that we have failed to live as God has commanded us to live and have rebelled against him.
David is owning his sin, and and he is declaring the truth that God would be fully justified to do whatever He seems fit to do with him. God, fully holy and glorious, is blameless and justified to condemn us forever for our sins. This is the hard truth. But it is the truth. Yes, God is love, but his love does not compromise His holiness. And owning our sin starts with owning the fact that we are the problem. And we are in need of new hearts (not just all those 'other' people out there!). You know what I mean...how easy is it to shift the blame for our sins onto others, this is what Adam and Eve do in the Garden and it is something I continually do. But this is not a mark of maturity, but immaturity in the gospel and it has to be stopped in order to be healed.
David writes in Psalm 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." David has confronted and owned his sins and now he moves towards his need for purging and washing. God must act to save him, and God must act to save us. We can't purge ourselves and we can't clean ourselves fully.
God can. We can't.
As a Christian, we have been purged and washed by the blood of Jesus. God has purged us and cleaned us, but at an extremely high price--the price of His son. God sends Jesus Christ to not only remove our sins, but to bear them and to die as a substitute in our place. This is great news!
When you begin to understand the depth of your rebellion before God then you will begin to experience the joy found in His rescue of you as well. God has not rescued from something small, but from condemnation, judgment, and eternal separation. He has rescued us from His wrath so that He can save us by His Son.
This is salvation. This is joy. This is the gospel.
Let me encourage you to behold your sin! BUT...Don't stop there. Don't just think about your sin and start chanting "woe is me" all the time, that's not the point. The point is that if you don't begin with your sin, with your need for a Savior then you will never be restored to joy when you experience the Savior's grace towards you. You have to do both--behold your sin and then move to beholding your Savior who fully cleanses you from all of your sins.
Are you beholding your sin?
Where are you running from the presence and purpose of God for your life right now?
Are you experiencing real joy in Jesus or are you just getting by as a Christian?
There is joy to be found in beholding your sin. But only if it leads to gospel-centered repentance that cries out to God to be merciful and then rest in the glorious truth that He has been.
"The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believed, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope." - Tim Keller
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