Midweek Lent 4 – Pr. Anderson sermon
Psalm 51:12-14 “Relying on God’s Grace”
April 2, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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Heavenly Father and God of all grace and mercy, we praise your name for sending your one and only Son to save us sinners who have left your ways. We know how dangerous it can be when we transgress your ways and that as we follow the devices of our hearts, we could be cast out from your presence. As we deserve your wrath and punishment, in your grace which we can’t fathom, you continue to call us. Like David, we plead that you would send your Spirit, who is our comforter, changing our hearts in service to you. We ask this in the name of the One who promises to hear our pleas for mercy and intercedes for us on our behalf. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
Who do you find reliable in your life? Maybe you have a few individuals you can go to in a time of need. For some, they might only have one confidant. It can also vary who brings you the reliability. It might come in the form of your whole family. Maybe it’s your spouse. For the congregation, you find your Pastor as the one you rely on for teaching the truth of God’s Word. Whoever it might be, Scripture reminds us no person in our lives will be one hundred percent reliable. We don’t have to look hard at all to find a time where we were unreliable. David knew that he was unreliable. He was given the keys to the kingdom and God even tells him He would have given him more if He would only ask. David did not ask and in a moment of weakness he thought he could take something that wasn’t his. Like David, as we hear and see how we are unreliable, we must rely on God’s grace. For it is God’s grace we sit here now and it is God’s grace our Savior died on the cross in our place.
While we can sit here with joy because of God’s undeserved grace, when we have been unreliable, it is hard to see that joy and find the cross of our redemption. When David was buried in his transgressions and had cast out the Holy Spirit, at first the loneliness seemed alright. His plan had worked for the most part. There were a few extra casualties during the death of Uriah, but his secret had remained a secret. David would later confess in Psalm 32, “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer (Psalm 32:3-4). He had dug the hole so deep, there was no way he was getting himself out. In his confession we are meditating on during our midweek services, now we see David can’t plead enough for God to not abandon him. As we heard last week, David knows abandonment. While David repents, his people would find out what it looks like to lose the Lord. For because of the anger of the LORD it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence (2 King 24:20). David truly sees he can only rely on God’s grace for him to be restored to joy.
As we look at David’s confession, we might think that it looks easy to turn from our wicked ways and be like David, truly seeing we can only rely on God’s grace to be saved. Psalm 32 reveals this is not the case, and it wasn’t easy for David to change at all, in fact, he simply could not. He was helpless and doing all he could to ignore his helplessness. When we are in sin, being restored in heavenly joy is far from our minds. We can do our best in saying we want our spirit to be willing to listen and follow out God’s laws, but when we easily fall, and we know it is easy, we see Psalm 32 in many spots or our lives. As we try to duck and dodge God’s judgment when we are in our sins, we will try and flip the judgment seat around. “Shouldn’t God have to rely on us? We have tried many times to be reliable with our friends and relatives. Of course, we have tried to be reliable to God most of the time. Why isn’t He willing to throw us a pass?” The devil uses these lies to circulate in the world as he did in the past. The first temptation was to get us to crave and want to be like God. If we are like God, then we wouldn’t have to change any facet of our lives, and we could be our true selves.
As we look at all the times we have demanded reliability from God and have been unreliable with Him and others, it is our true selves that are the problem. We fail at being reliable because the majority of the time we are only focused on one person. While we think we are hurting no one, God reveals just how much we cause hurt. We cause hurt and anger to the only One who matters and we can’t do anything to stop ourselves. Our Savior watched as the twelve men whom He called to follow Him would become unreliable at His most important hour. He even tried to warn them when He says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31-32). Even in this warning, Jesus knew that they weren’t going to be reliable. So, we feel the fear deep in our bones of God’s judgment to hold from us joy and it is our spirit that is not willing to turn. We are stuck in the hole with David and the only option is to rely on God’s grace.
The willing spirit David craves because he is unreliable is found in the Spirit of God who has brought him back into God’s grace. The Holy Spirit was with him from the beginning. Scripture records, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13). Though David had cast the Holy Spirit away, by God’s grace, it wasn’t the end of David’s life forever. The Holy Spirit called him back through the Prophet Nathan and once again made His dwelling in David’s heart. With this changed and remorseful heart, he sees there is only one way he can even hope to remain faithful. It is, relying on God’s grace. By God’s grace, his joy is restored and by God’s grace, his spirit is willing to hold fast to the Word he was taught. And while David still did not do this perfectly, the descendant he was promised would rely on God’s grace perfectly for him.
You are also pulled out of the hole David was in by his descendant. Jesus would have the Holy Spirit rest on Him at the beginning of His ministry and He would follow everywhere the Spirit led. His first stop would be into a battle with the devil where he would rely on God’s grace that comes through the Word to defeat and cause the devil to flee. In Jesus’ victory over the one who wants you to think you are a god, you can pray, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.” Jesus is the joy of your salvation. He had the willing spirit to take your punishment of being despised and rejected by God. Jesus knowing the persecution He would face, taught transgressors God’s way to return sinners to the hands of His loving Father through His deliverance.
In repentance and the realization of how unreliable you are, you need to be delivered with blood. David knew the law allowed for his blood to be spilt because of the blood he shed for his own gains. His only deliverance and your only deliverance comes to you through the work of Christ who shed His blood on the cross in your place. He could be relied on because He could perfectly do all the Father needed. He followed God’s law and He completed God’s plan of salvation. In His cross that is raised above all, joy is given to you and the world. Joy you only have relying on God’s grace. This grace that is freely given to you, was prophesied long ago. God said, “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7). You have returned. You have been brought back through the One who changes hearts with His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Your God relied on Himself to save you.
As you rely on Him for your whole heart to be His, your willing spirit is also His to change for His purpose. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel prophesied, “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19). The world around you must also rely on God’s grace. When the you and world fail to heed God’s commands and fail to acknowledge the Salvation He does bring, there is no joy in the sight of His anger. With your penitent hearts and acknowledging you haven’t been reliable; God points you to the One who relied on Him fully. And through His reliability and with the Spirit who is reliable, your sins are forgiven, you have joy, and your tongue will sing aloud of His righteousness. You have a heart of flesh and willing spirit because you rely on God’s grace freely given to you. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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