Third midweek sermon 3/7/12

Third Midweek Lent sermon 3/7/12 Psalm 38 Title: Make Haste to Help Me. Last week we heard in Psalm 32 about some of the harm to the soul that does not confess its sin. This week in Psalm 38 we see a whole flood of problems that weigh us down. No health to the body, overwhelmed by guilt, festering wounds, bowed down, searing pain, feeble, crushed, failing strength; the list could go on and on. Psalm 38 presents the picture of a man who has been deeply wounded and crushed by his sinfulness. But David’s problems get worse: his friends abandon him, and his enemies use David’s weakness to try and destroy him. What a true picture of life under sin! While we might not have health problems, be overwhelmed by guilt, have festering wounds, or be bowed down by life, or have searing pain, or be feeble, crushed, and have failing strength; spiritually speaking, as far as our sinful nature is concerned, we are sick with sin and quite often that sin sticks out like a festering sore that those around us can see, except for our self. Our pride won’t let us see the plank sticking out of our eye. Peter could not see that his pride led him to a great fall by denying Christ to the world. In the same way, we are all by nature spiritually blind and dumb and incapable of seeing our sin for what it truly is. When that is the case and it quite often is God deals with us through his Law and Gospel. David, in our psalm, has God’s Law lying heavy upon him. The arrows of God’s Law have pierced him. The Law has awakened in him the knowledge of his sinfulness. As Paul said in Romans 3:20, “through the law comes knowledge of sin.” David finally sees how his sin has destroyed his life. His health his gone, his friends have abandoned him; his enemies are at the gate. It is not good and he is desperate for salvation. Saint Augustine once said the strangest thing regarding this psalm, “But happy he is who is wretched after this manner!” Sounds weird doesn’t it? Who wants to have any of the stuff King David is describing, much less be happy about it. But Augustine is only saying what the words of Jesus, as they are recorded in Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”. David mourns and laments his sins. He recognizes the depth of his sinfulness and the harm that his sinful nature does to him in both body and soul. So the question for us today is this. It is a hard one, one that our pride might not let us see or even ask for that matter. Do you see yourself in this psalm? I know I do because God’s Law has found its way into my heart. I mourn with David, as he fears God’s just wrath. Maybe you do maybe you don’t mourn with David, for we live in an age where no one is responsible for anything. It’s in my genes. I am not that bad we say, and to a certain extent that is true. We are not as bad as those who purposely do evil. But God’s Law will not let you or I pass the buck. As David prays in verse 18, “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.” Notice in this psalm that David never tries to pass the blame. These troubles of body and spirit weigh heavy upon him because of his sin, not someone else’s. That is why confession is so critical to living our Christian lives, for confession is saying the same thing about ourselves that God says about us. We are sinners who are desperately in need of forgiveness. Through the lens of the Law we can see ourselves in this psalm. Crushed, broken, alone, forsaken, apart from God. We only thing we have left is the cry of the beggar David in verse 22, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.” That is the Law. Now look at this psalm through the eyes of the Gospel, Jesus for he alone is the Gospel. Isaiah said of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:5, “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities.” And from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5: 21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” And most importantly from Christ as he cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” a quote from Psalm 22. This same Jesus who shed tears of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane prays this psalm with you. So pray this psalm again in light of confession and forgiveness. Remember what Jesus gave up for you. He took your sin upon himself. He groans, he suffers, he bleeds, he has no health in his body, he is abandoned by his friends, betrayed by his disciples, his enemies rise up around Him. His back is filled with searing pain. His strength fails. The light left his eyes in death. The one who had no sin bore that sin, that wretched pain and death for you on the cross. The Law struck and killed Jesus thus giving you the gift of forgiveness. Today you and I still suffer the earthly consequences of sin. We still hurt. There are still aches and pains and even worse consequences for our sins. We die. But those consequences have no teeth. Ultimately, they cannot harm us, for we are in Christ, and his words of forgiveness have released us from our bone crushing debt. Those words of forgiveness were bought with a terrible price; the death of God’s Son. But God gives this forgiveness to you freely with joy! He claims you as his own. You are not abandoned. You are his. So in verse 22 of Psalm 38 we pray with David, with Jesus, and with all the hosts of heaven and all those who recognize their sinfulness, “Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” We pray this with repentant joy because we know that God comes, and he forgives your sins and my sins and makes our lives new. Amen.