Midweek Lent 5 – Pr. Anderson sermon
Psalm 51:15-17 “Removing Our Guilt”
April 9, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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Lord Jesus, who humbled Yourself to bear our sins in Your own body, and to suffer the shameful death of the cross, grant us Your Spirit of meekness that we may walk in true humility. Take from us all haughtiness and pride, that we seek not great things, and create in us that mind by which we count Your grace sufficient unto us. Amen. (Reading the Psalms with Luther, p. 317).
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. (Rom. 1:7, etc.)
As we go outside, it finally feels like the season of winter has changed into the season of spring. We feel the warmth, we see the plants are growing, and the grass is green. While we are relieved that the season has changed, it means that we have some work to do. With the arrival of spring comes spring cleaning. When we look around our homes, our cars, and our yards, we see that everything is in need of a little tidying up. Now there is no denying when it’s time to clean. It sticks out like a sore thumb and the longer it sits, the more noticeable it gets. As it gets bigger and bigger, it makes us less likely to want to jump at the chance to take action and clean up all the dirt and debris. Removing our guilt is kind of like spring cleaning. After time, the pile grows bigger and bigger. The bigger it is, the less likely we want to deal with it. When we think it’s time to tackle it, then God comes and tells us a key problem. Our dirt is stuck on to us so bad, we can’t get it off of ourselves. What are we to do? In our verses for today, we see how God removes our guilt. Only He can clean our sinful hearts so we can declare His praises.
After going through the verses of this psalm and watching David go through his stages of grief as he comes to term with the sins he committed and the law he has broken, it is great for our hearts to see at the end of the psalm David rejoices in his God who he knows has done the work needed to save him. In his weaknesses, he can’t even open up his mouth to give God praise for His goodness. David has figured out what it truly means for his guilt to be removed. The problem is that even with writing down the answer, his own people would try to take it into their own hands. Instead of finding themselves guilty of breaking the law, they would do all they could to make it look as if they completed it. God saw past that. He tries to warn them. Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:29) The easiest way to not feel bad for mistakes is to pretend like they are not even there. Unfortunately, there is no escaping God’s Word. It burns and breaks to the touch.
It is this burning and breaking which makes God’s Word not desirable for His very creation. Jeremiah points out why we can be so quick to cast it completely away. The guilt of our failures is tremendous. No matter what we do, we can’t cover up our mistakes. Jeremiah reveals how God sees through our hiding. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you’ (Jeremiah 7:21-23). As we will hear David confess in our text, and Jeremiah fleshes it out, the sacrifices of the people were not going to save them. God still needs to be first in our actions.
While the people tried to use their sacrifices as cover for their sins, their guilt remained. Their guilt remained because they weren’t putting God first. As we search through all of the guilt, this is going to be the stem of our problems as well. To reflect on repentance as our overarching theme means, we stare in the mirror and see the first and greatest commandment of loving God at times has been totally forgotten. The people of Israel failed to put God first as Jeremiah prophesied which goes back to Adam not putting God first and hiding among the trees. David had failed to put God first when He decided to take for himself. And we also see the moments where God wasn’t put first and our guilt reminds us of it. This is true for all mankind and why many shut out God’s Word. They feel tremendous guilt. We can’t cover it up, and we can’t ignore it by going through the motions. While God deserves better and we know we can’t give Him better, to remove our guilt is to take it before the judge because only He can remove it.
As God removes the guilt of His people, He wants them to perform sacrifices, remembering why they do them. They do them because the sacrifices are pointing toward the One atoning sacrifice that removes all of their guilt. And as the prophets prophesied and David confesses, this One atoning sacrifice would be none other than God Himself. St. John records, The next day [John] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) One lamb, one man, one God, sees the grime and dirt that plagues His people. He sees it and He came down to remove it. While He keeps the law, He knew this path of following the will of His Father would mean He would be burned by hellfire. This would happen not because He deserved it, but because He could do what was needed. Instead of having guilt, He bore His people’s guilt.
With Jesus bearing the guilt of the world, it is through His gracious work the words of David can be uttered on our lips. We ask, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Through the work of our Savior and only through Him, our mouths with joy declare God’s praise. We are able to do so, because David points us to the answer of removing our guilt. Our very joy of forgiveness is a request that we don’t deserve to ask, being granted to us by our loving God. God lays out our sins bare before us, not to taunt us with our mistakes that condemn, but that we would see them and with a contrite heart cling to Him in repentance. As we repent of our sins, the first and greatest commandment is made right. We love the Lord our God with all our heart which He has changed to do so.
This is what makes your love special as it is not your own. It is a greater love that is hard to understand because your Savior did the unthinkable by taking on your guilt and becoming your great sacrifice. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11-12). Jesus had no guilt, put on your guilt and shame, and removed it all shedding His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. There is no greater love than this. And as His death removes your guilt, His resurrection that you will soon celebrate declares to you this great love. Jesus perfectly loved the Father and now you have His love. A love that points out your guilt to create a contrite heart that seeks forgiveness. A heart that is not despised and is washed clean in the blood of the lamb.
The blood that blots out all of your sins blots out everyone else’s. Jesus tells you His blood was shed for the sins of the world. As the world searches for a way to remove the guilt that is on their hearts, the love of God is ever present for their salvation. For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15). God hears the cries of the afflicted. You know this as you sit here today. You have felt and confessed your guilt. And through the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, you hear and see John’s great cry, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The Lamb who shed His blood on the cross removing your guilt forever and forever you will declare His praise. 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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