Midweek Lent 3 – Pr. Anderson sermon
Psalm 51:9-11 “Remembering God’s Perfect Demands”
March 26, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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“Yea, Father, yea, most willingly I’ll bear what Thou commandest; My will conforms to Thy decree, I do what Thou demandest.” O wondrous Love, what hast Thou done! The Father offers up His Son; The Son, content, descendeth! O Love, how strong Thou art to save! Thou layest Him within the grave Whose might the boulders rendeth. Amen. (ELH #331 v. 3)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
When I was in college, I had a professor who was always excited by the way he graded the class. He would grade the class on a bell curve. Now what makes the bell curve appealing is that there will be many students who will not get a perfect score. Let’s say the top score was a score of 90 out of 100. That means the 90 would be the new 100 and it would go down from there, boosting your grade. That sounds nice since there were so many of us who knew they were not going to get a perfect score, but in college, there were some students who, even though they knew they were graded on a curve, they were going to and they did get a perfect score. As we remember God’s perfect demands for His holy law, it’s not just many, but all of us who fail the mark. Since we fail, God said, “I will pass with a perfect score myself and I will do it all for you.”
When the world hears this answer, many wonder, “well, what is the point of even trying?” Maybe we have had those same thoughts creep into our heads. This thought is a very dangerous thought to have. It is dangerous because it brings us closer to the rejection of God which is where the devil would like us to end up. King David with this psalm is confessing that, and asking God to have mercy on him and not abandon him. He does so, because as we see in Scripture, David knows what it is like to see God’s rejection. His predecessor rejected God. Saul did not remember God’s perfect demands and eventually, God left him. It was written, “Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him” (1 Samuel 16:14). Do you remember what happens next? The kingdom is searched and David is found to play his lyre and soothe Saul’s pain. Even with seeing the absence of God first hand, David, like his predecessor, failed to remember God’s demands and he rejected God for his life of sin.
After being called back by his loving God, David with the forgiveness of Nathan is reminded about God’s great mercy. This is a mercy he has realized that God does not have to give him. In our verses for today, David is pleading to God that He would remove his sins and not cast him out of His presence. This is a real fear for David, having witnessed it and with Scripture in our hands, it should be a fear for us. The devil wants us to be completely oblivious to how easy it can be to fall from God’s grace. He will lie and say our sins are tiny. They aren’t as big as some of the sins others commit. Maybe we will be like David and think we simply have gotten away with our sins and there is no one who can hold us accountable. We then tune out remembering God’s perfect demands. When this happens, we forget that while it is God’s mercy to turn from our wicked ways, God at any time can say enough is enough.
Scripture has given us Saul’s detailed account of what happens when we reject God for a reason. It is in His right to cast us out of His presence. He can cut us off from His grace in this life. To our sinful hearts, this does not seem fair at all, but it reveals that God is indeed a righteous judge who can read and judge our hearts. David’s fear is all too real because this is what the worst part of suffering in hell is. It’s not the pains of the eternal fire which I’m sure we can all agree we don’t want to experience, but the worst part of hell is the absence of God. Our deserved punishment of being completely cast out of His presence forever. This is deserved when we don’t remember His perfect demands. Where do we find hope with these perfect demands we can’t keep? St. Paul writes, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
For God to perform this work and to change the hearts of sinners, it must be a miracle. This is what David is asking for and believing in. It is a miracle and a miracle the world knows well because it happens daily. David asks God to create in him a clean heart. Can God do this? The answer to David’s question is found in the very first verse of all Scripture. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The only way for David to see clearly what God demands of him, and for him to remember them is for God to be the One who creates the heart clean. In that clean heart and restored memory, there is the miracle of God. David realizes what his job as King was and his job as a servant of God. He is restored to the role of shepherd of the sheep. A role that though he would always struggle with, God would perfectly remember and follow His perfect demands Himself for David and you through the work of His One and only Son.
It is through the work of your Savior you can confess at the beginning of service that God would, “hide [His] face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. In this season you focus on the way in which your sins were blotted out. Instead of hiding His face from you, He does hide His face from your sins because He hid His face from His Son. Jesus remembers God’s perfect demands, and follows them to the letter. What many would say is a tragedy, you see your Savior dying on the cross completing all of this. Your sins are gone, you have a clean heart, Jesus dwells in your presence in the Means of Grace, and all of this is yours through the work of the Holy Spirit. What David and you confess can only happen and give you peace of mind through God doing it for you. God’s absence is deserved, but instead you have your Savior who dwells with your forever.
It is hard to focus on forever when at times forever looks so far away. The danger of being cast out by your rejection is there. The temptation was there for Jesus to do the same. Jesus didn’t need to take the test that demands a perfect score. It is here where you see the mystery of the God man Christ Jesus. As the Word made flesh, He created you. Since you are His creation, He humbly comes down from His glory, to create your new heart. Being publicly despised by all and dying on the cross, He did this as St. Paul writes, for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14). You remember your failure of God’s perfect demands and find them forgiven by your Savior’s grace. In His gracious work, you can have confidence this is so because, like the disciples, the promise of the Holy Spirit also comes to you. He resides in you bringing you your saving faith.
Seeing the work of the Holy Spirit outside of yourself, is a message for many to hear. Whether the world wants to admit it or adamantly reject it, they feel the weight of failing God’s perfect demands. For many though, they will think that God has already cast them aside, when like Nathan, He is still calling out to them. This is a message you know as each and every one of us has remembered our failings to God’s perfect demands and have been called back. You know you are not better than anyone else, and you know from Scripture the true meaning of God casting someone away from His presence. On calvary God turns His head against His Son. His One and only Son who took your place on the cross. Just like your sins, God has washed away theirs as well. And through the Holy Spirit, He doesn’t stand idly by, but miraculously will clean their hearts. With your faith, you can bring them comfort in the cross, the same comfort you have. It won’t be easy and you will tell them it won’t be easy. And as your God is merciful, and until He calls you home, you continue to pray, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me,” remembering His perfect demands are fulfilled for you in Christ Jesus, the crucified. 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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