Good Friday – Pr. Anderson sermon
Psalm 51:18-19 “Restored by His Sacrifice”
April 18, 2025 | Christ Lutheran Church
In Nomine Iesu
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This season of Lent we really drove home why the season is so long. Our overarching theme was Reflections on Repentance. As we dove into the topics of: realizing our need for repentance, recognizing against whom we sin, revealing our sinful nature, remembering God’s perfect demands, relying on God’s grace, and removing our guilt, what more can we find? We realize there is a lot to think about in our daily struggles with sin. David has guided us through his journey of falling into the depths of unbelief and when all looks lost, He is picked back up and restored again by God. God who loves His creation though it will always make mistakes. David is ready to teach us his last lesson. Reflecting on repentance reveals there is a purpose of God coming to us and asking to see us with a sorrowful and contrite heart. For David, it was the relief of being restored. David had sacrificed his soul to chase his sin. While we try and fail at times to avoid this sacrifice, we have learned the true sacrifice God wants. God wants the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. A sacrifice He can only receive if He restores us with a sacrifice of His own. Reflecting on repentance finds the sacrifice of His One and only Son.
As David looked forward to this great sacrifice, David was desperate for something else during his reign. He had won the city of Jerusalem and built the city of David. He longed for a place in this great city for a wall to be built around God’s ark for worship. David is told he won’t build such a place but is promised his son will. In our last verses of our psalm, David prays for the walls of the city for right sacrifices to God. God keeps His promises. Now the word of the LORD came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.” So Solomon built the house and finished it (1 Kings 6:11-14).
Solomon finished it. This was a glorious temple for right sacrifices, burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. And though this temple stood for over four hundred years, it was a temple built with human hands and the fine print was forgotten about. They were forgotten about even in King Solomon’s lifetime, as he would go to worship the false gods of his wives. By forgetting about God and losing sight of true repentance and sacrifice, the temple was taken away and the people were carried away to a country they did not know. For the people who were left, it looked like they were so far away from being restored by God. Would God even want to restore them? David echoed these thoughts when he was deep in his sins. Yet, as we have reflected on repentance, God in His mercy, pulled David out of the mire. As God would restore David, God would restore His people and the walls of Jerusalem would be built again. They needed to be built again, for David’s line was going to sit on the throne forever.
While the second temple would be built with the original intentions, once again, over the years the temple would not function with right sacrifices. Instead of doing the job of looking ahead to the great sacrifice God was continuing to promise, they were geared toward the works they had done to appease God. In reflecting on repentance, we have learned over the last few weeks how wrong we are when we try to appease God. It will look and feel like we have done good things, but we have learned that anything on our own falls flat to God’s commands. This can be frustrating to see. It is frustrating to see that no matter how hard we try we aren’t good enough for God’s standards. It’s frustrating to see people who don’t care about God and His commands living what appears to be life to the fullest and we are struggling. And this is not the point David is making when he writes all of these psalms about this exact thing. His enemies rejoiced at his downfall. He was failing God at every turn. How do we change our mind that God is just and does care about us? As David teaches in the fifty first psalm, we can’t change our mind.
David had sacrificed his life of freedom for slavery into his sin. A slavery we have the option of running head long into every minute of every day. And we kick ourselves when we choose the slavery every time. While we focus on our slavery, and our weaknesses, and think God is abandoning us; our pains and trials, are nothing to what the Son of God went through on our behalf. Jesus is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isaiah 53:3). Reflecting on repentance means we must stand before the cross and witness the damage we have done. We crucified the Lord of glory! Jesus is in pain, agony, and suffering not because of anything He had done. He prayed for another way. In great humility we will never be able to grasp, the Son of God suffers for every sin that has been committed and will be committed. To be restored is to be restored by the right sacrifice of God’s lamb. A restoration only God can give.
Psalm fifty-one begins with a plea for God to have mercy. A plea to wash us thoroughly from iniquity and to cleanse from sin. It asks for the creation of a clean heart. And acknowledges for all these things to happen, God must do every part. And it is in His good pleasure to build up the walls of Jerusalem and protect His people. A good pleasure David had not fully grasped. A pure atoning sacrifice David did not see. God in His mercy would tell His people He would have mercy on them. Isaiah prophesied, then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall come up with acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful house… for in my wrath I struck you, but in my favor I have had mercy on you (Isaiah 60:5, 7, 10b). The right sacrifices, burnt offerings, and whole burnt offerings would come up with acceptance because the people would have created clean hearts, looking ahead to the promise of the One atoning sacrifice.
As David prays for His people and city, he writes this as a prayer for all people. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. Instead of bulls, your sacrifice is your contrite heart of repentance. It looks at all it has done and knows it can’t satisfy God. Instead of looking ahead, you now look back. You look back and see the cross standing on Golgotha. Your sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart is delighted in the One atoning sacrifice who carried all of your sins on His shoulders. You are restored with a right relationship with God through His great sacrifice. This is God’s good pleasure. This is the picture you go to for God’s mercy. He protects you from eternal death and condemnation by taking your place and shedding His blood on God’s mercy seat. Instead of sacrificed to slavery and death, you are restored to eternal life. The man of sorrow hangs His head with your sorrows. Jesus finished it. He takes on the wrath of God, and through His judgment and sacrifice you are saved. Amen.
We Pray:
Lamb of God, pure and holy, Who on the cross didst suffer,
Ever patient and lowly, Thyself to scorn didst offer.
All sins Thou borest for us, Else had despair reigned o’er us:
Thy peace be with us, O Jesus! O Jesus! Amen.
(Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #41 v. 3)
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