A Plea for Grace -- Tim Phillips

 

My family just returned from a weeklong vacation in Georgia. While it was good to take a week off, the work of the pastor really waits for no man, so this morning began with sermon preparation for the upcoming Lord's Day.

I resolved several weeks ago to preach through Psalm 51 this summer. I've wanted to preach through this psalm for quite some time, but for one reason or another had not yet done so. The inspired title of the psalm begins with these words: "For the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." Even though the background of the composition of this psalm is well-known, I preached through 2 Samuel 12:1-12 the two weeks prior to my vacation, to "till the ground" or "set the stage" for preaching through Psalm 51.

I was struck this morning by a slight difference in the opening words of Psalm 51:1. I typically preach from the New American Stand Bible (1995) translation, which reads, "Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness." The King James Version, however, reads slightly differently, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness." It's the same Hebrew word in both cases, but translators decided to go with the different renderings. The latter version may be the most memorable, because of the longevity and popularity of the KJV, as well as Richard Redhead's fine hymn based upon Psalm 51, "God, Be Merciful to Me" (# 486 in the Trinity Hymnal).

This plea of David for God to be gracious is also repeated in Psalms 56, 57, and 86. It is a cry of a penitent (i.e, remorseful, repentant, contrite) sinner for God look upon him with great pity and to be moved with great compassion. Even if we prefer to translate that as "have mercy" or "be merciful," it is a calling upon God to extend His grace to us -- in full recognition that we are not worthy of that grace.

And what a wonderful word grace is! When my wife and I were expecting our first daughter, we decided to give her the first name "Grace." That was not because it was a family name (I know of no one in either of our families who has that name), but because of the biblical aspect of that name. For the first few years of her life, we actually called her "Gracie." And then, around age 5, she told us that she no longer wanted to be called "Gracie" but "Grace." When I asked her why, she said words that every Christian parent longs to hear: "Because it reminds me of God's grace."

Alec Motyer, in his helpful devotional book Psalms by the Day, defines grace as "the unmerited, undeserved goodness of God, specifically shielding us from His wrath." The last part of that definition is critically important, and for support Motyer notes that the first time the word is used in Scripture is in Genesis 6:8 -- "But Noah found favor [i.e., "grace"] in the eyes of the Lord." Even though the wrath of God was to be poured out upon a thoroughly wicked world (Genesis 6:5-7), God showed extraordinary grace to Noah and his family. Later, in Jesus' Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14), the cry of the penitent tax collector is "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" This gets missed in most translations, but the cry of the tax collector is literally "God, be propitious to  me." He uses a verb form of the word for propitiation (itself related to mercy and the mercy seat which covered the Ark of the Covenant). In essence, he is asking God to turn aside His wrath from him.

How can we ever hope for God to respond to us in such a gracious way? It because of who He is and what He has done through the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has stood in the place of penitent sinners and paid the debt price for sin upon the cross. Through faith in Him, the wrath of God is turned aside, precisely because He has endured the wrath of God in our place. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

Even in the depths of his great and terrible sin, David would know the grace and mercy of God. "Then David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die'" (2 Samuel 12:13).  Do you know the grace and mercy of God, dear friend? Have you looked to the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins with a humble and repentant heart?

Thus says the Lord,

"Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.

Where then is a house you could build for Me?

And where is a place that I may rest?"

"For My hand made all these things,

Thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord.

“But to this one I will look,

To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word." (Isaiah 66:1-2)

May God grant to us, by His sheer mercy and grace, contrite and penitent hearts to call upon Him. He is merciful to those who call upon Him, and His grace is more than sufficient, even for the greatest of sinners.