Have Mercy....

When I see that title I immediately think of Uncle Jesse from "Full House" which I guess immediately dumbs down the tone of this post..... but seriously.... here we go:

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions." Psalm 51:1

David writes this after his conversation with Nathan the prophet. The Lord sent Nathan to see David, and to speak truth into his life about his sin, through a simple story. 2 Samuel 12 records the story of Nathan confronting David about his sin with Bathsheba and his orchestration of Uriah's death. Nathan tells a story which enrages David and causes him to cast judgement on the "criminal" in the story, not realizing, as Nathan puts it, "“You are that man!" In Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 are the two places in Psalms where David reflects upon his sin; the first in Psalm 32: 3-4 where he remembers how:

"When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer."

And then in the verse above from Psalm 51. There is something so pure and utterly desperate about verse 1 of chapter 51 that strikes a chord in my spirit. David has been slammed with his sin, called out by someone he knows and trusts, and called about by his Lord. He is exposed and desolate as he crawls before the throne of God, seeking mercy and forgiveness. And yet, in this deep state of despair, I envy David. I long to be broken by my sin in such a way that I become aware and transformed by the fact that Christ is my saving grace and my portion forever; that He delivers grace and mercy when none is deserved.

I think that as believers, as least for myself, if we are honest with ourselves, we live our lives somewhat ignorant of our sin, however minor it may seem, and in that we lose sight of how desperately in need we are of God's grace and mercy. Just look at David, he was called "a man after God's own heart" and yet he was blind to some major sin in his life, consistently falling short of the glory of God; as we all do. But the difference in David, is that he never remained in darkness permanently, but was made aware of his sin, as if standing in a spotlight, by the power of the Lord in his life. David was a man who experienced the unfathomable grace of God, over and over again; and he was transformed because of it. I want to be that person, I want to be a woman after God's own heart, that lives in freedom rather than slavery, and that lives in the light of God's grace and mercy.

Here is what I have learned and been mulling over in terms of our sin as believers. In his CD entitled "The House Show", Derek Webb is discussing the song "Nobody Loves Me" and he said this concerning our sin.....

"We have got to be honest. We should have no fear in being honest to one another about who we really are - not just offering up the sins that we feel safe confessing, but being completely bold, completely forthcoming about who we really are, and saying "I am going to stop hiding from you, and I am going to tell who I really am because I believe the gospel is really true."I can only admit who I really am to you because I believe Jesus is who he really is as well. You will never be truly filled w/ joy unless you truly know yourself for who you are. And until you are a real sinner with a real savior, you will be a hypothetical and theoretical sinner, with a hypothetical and theoretical savior..." he goes onto say:


"If you confess, ‘aw man I know I’m sinful, scripture tells me, we’ve all fallen short right, and that’s me too man I’m sinful’; but you can’t honestly put your finger on one sin you committed all day; because your view of sin has become nothing more than this cultural hiding game, then you’re not experiencing real joy. Because if all I can confess is the knowledge of how sin has affected me, but not any of my real sins, if I don’t really know that I’m sinful, then I don’t really know and I’m not truly encouraged by the fact that I’m saved; because saved from what? If I’m not really sinful, then what’s the big deal, what’s the good news? It’s just news. But if you know yourself, as exposed by the cross, then I believe that you will begin to experience true joy because you will not be constantly looking over your shoulder all the time, constantly checking the knots in this great suit of fig leaves you have sown for yourself, but rather you will be comfortably exposed in your sin and boasting in your great savior. Charles Spurgeon once said, 'If your sin is small, then your savior will be small also. But if your sin is great, then your savior must be great.' And folks, our savior is great..."


I remember the first time I was listening to this CD; this whole section before "Nobody Loves Me" really hit me and compelled me to examine my heart. I took a good look at my life and my heart and realized that I couldn't really point out specifics times that I had sinned that day; there in lies my problem, I didn't even realize the depth of my own sin. What Spurgeon says in response to a realization like that is that "if your sin is small, then your savior will be small also." Spurgeon isn't encouraging us to sin great so that God is great. Christ is great no matter what, no amount of sinning or lack of sinning changes His worth. But for ourselves, in our own lives and relationships with our Savior, if our sin is small, then He will remain small to us as well. Over the following weeks after hearing all of this, I began to pray that the Lord would reveal my sin to me, to teach me to "know myself, as exposed by the cross"; and he did. It was incredibly humbling to have my transgressions laid before me by the Holy Spirit, to be confronted with the ways in which I defiantly chose selfishness, pomposity, and ultimately sin over life in the Spirit. And this wasn't a one time thing; this is a purifying fire that I have had to ask the Lord to pour out on me time and time again, because as Martin Luther puts its "time and time again I forget it". Derek Webb brings up a story about Martin Luther and his ministry a few years after the Reformation...

"[Martin Luther] had a church there that he was pasturing over and some came to him from his congregation and asked “Pastor why is it that week after week after week, all you ever preach to us is the gospel”, (implying certainly that you know we are ready to move on to something else, you know, certainly we know this by now), why is it that you continue to preach it to us week after week? And Luther’s response was, “well, because week after week you forget it; because week after week you walk in here looking like a people who don’t believe the gospel. And until you walk in looking like a people who are truly liberated by the truth of the gospel, I’m going to continue to preach it to you”; and till his dying day he did."


It is the desire of my heart, and a most ardent prayer that I would live as someone who is "truly liberated by the truth of the gospel" that I might rejoice and be encouraged by the fact that I am saved and set free in Christ; "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)