Many of us who have been a Christian since the eighties remember Keith Green who was an inspirational Christian songwriter that God used to touch many of us of that generation with his songs and music. One of his most popular songs “Create in me a pure heart” was not a song he wrote the words to, they were the words of King David that he added the music to in 1984.
Psalms 51:10-12
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Please Read 2 Samuel Chapter 11 and Psalm 51
Psalm 51 was written by King David after what transpired from the events we read about in 2 Samuel Chapter11. The Spirit Filled Life Bible For Students in its introduction of Psalm 51 gives us this summary. The Prayer of Brokenness. David’s prayer of repentance remains on record as a tearstained testimony of his brokenness before God and as instruction for all others who sin. David’s repentance did not stem from fear of punishment or concern with future success. He repented for having offended God. At the prophet’s rebuke, David realized he had foolishly squandered something precious and cried out for restored fellowship with God. Although his heart was crushed by his shame and sorrow over sin, he knew the great breadth of God’s mercy. See how, once his sins are confessed, forgiven, and purged, David dares to ask for God’s choicest gifts: joy, restoration, God’s presence, His Holy Spirit.
Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of his repentance and displays to us the transparency of his heart and the many thoughts and concerns he had as the result of the sins that he committed. What David expressed and wrote about in this Psalm are some of the very same spiritual principles and attitudes of repentance of which in most instances should be present in us when we come to God asking Him to forgive, cleanse and restore us from the sins we commit.
In verses 1 through 9 of Psalm 51, we read how David acknowledges his sin to God and his plea to be cleansedfrom his sin by God.
In verses, 10 and 12 David asks God to do two of the many things in him that that the sin he committed had affected. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
The first thing that God needed to do in David’s life was something he knew God could only do. David recognized that he had a serious spiritual heart condition. This was not a spiritual heart condition that could be correctedor repaired similar to what we try to do with an angioplasty or inserting a stent or even with a bypass. All these are efforts to correct a damaged heart and only assist the heart to continue to function in its damaged and debilitated state. David also knew this was not a spiritual heart condition that could be fixed somehow by a by heart transplant. A heart transplant is receiving someone else’s used heart. David knew to reestablish the intimate relationship with God that he once had whichhis sins had ruined, it could not be done with a healed heart or with a heart “just like” some other person who has an exemplary relationship with God. David asked God to “Create” in him something new, not from something that already exists, but create something from nothing.
David was not asking God to create in him a better heart from the damaged and scared one he had because of his sin. David was asking God to do what only God can do. W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of Old Testament words says the following about the Hebrew meaning of the word “create”. “Bara’” – CREATE, to create, make.” This verb is of profound theological significance, since it has only God as its subject. Only God can “create” in the sense implied by bara’. The verb expresses creation out of nothing, an idea seen clearly in passages having to do with creation on a cosmic scale: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” Genesis 1:1.
The kind of heart that David asked God to create in him was not a strong heart, nor even as good as it sounds, a holy heart or consecrated heart. David asked God to create in him a “pure heart”. Why did David ask God to “Create in me a pure heart…? David knew without a “pure heart” he could not approach and stand in the presence of God. He knew that he could not have fellowship and a relationship with God without a pure heart. In Psalms 24:3-4 David understood this fact when he wrote, “3 Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart…”. Jesus also makes this fact very clear in His sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8.
In verse 11, David asks God that he would not experience two of the many results of sin in the life of a person. 11 a) Do not cast me from your presence b) or take your Holy Spirit from me. As stated previously in Psalm 24:3 David knew that with a heart that was not pure because of unconfessed sin, he could not stand in the presence of God “3 Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” He also knew that it was God’s Spirit in him or God’s anointing that gave him the ability to be who God intended him to be and to do what God had called him to do as King. 1 Samuel 16:13a, “So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.”
In verse 12a, David is calling out to God to give him once again the HIS joy he had experienced before his sins had taken it away, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation…”. David knew very well the feeling that the burden of sincauses one to have when it is not confessed and forgiven. Psalms 38:1-4, 38 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 For your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down upon me. 3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. 4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.
Let us not allow unconfessed sins in our lives which gives us a spiritual heart condition which robs us of the pure heart that is needed to enjoy our relationship with our God and to experience the joy we can have with Him.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
Pastor John
