Download Psalm 51:11-19 Truly Filled With The Spirit May 24, 2015 Create in

Psalm 51:11-19
Truly Filled With The Spirit
May 24, 2015
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. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. 14 Deliver me
from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would
bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and
contrite heart you, God, will not despise, 18 May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of
Jerusalem. 19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls
will be offered on your altar.
Today is Pentecost. On this day Jesus fifty days after his resurrection from the dead kept his promise to send the
Holy Spirit. It was loud and noisy and visible. There was the sound of a mighty rushing wind like God was
blowing from heaven. Tongues of fire landed on the heads of the disciples. They miraculously spoke about
Jesus in languages they had never heard before. Thousands of people were converted to Christ. Many today say
that God repeats this miracle today. They call themselves Pentecostals after the first Pentecost. They say the
Holy Spirit fills them in a loud and visible way. He enables them to speak in tongues. Worship is loud and
noisy. They often shout and fall to the ground and roll around. They say the Spirit enables them to do miracles.
Sometimes they say that those who do these loud and visible things are a step above other Christians – they are
“Spirit-filled Christians.” They even suggest that those who don’t do these things might not be real Christians.
Today in Psalm 51 David talks to us about being filled with the Spirit. He talks about how great and wonderful
it is to be filled with the Spirit. But this was not a great time in David’s life. These words about being filled
with the Spirit were not written by David after he killed the giant Goliath or after he played his harp and sang
beautiful songs to King Saul to cheer him up. When David wrote these words he felt so filthy with sin that he
had to pray to God to please not take the Holy Spirit from him. David committed adultery with a married
woman, got her pregnant, murdered her husband and then lied and said he was going to kindly adopt another
man’s baby. Sometimes we don’t really appreciate things in life until have almost lost them forever. Let’s pray
for God to bless us as David explains what a beautiful and wonderful thing it is to be “Truly Filled With The
Spirit.” What a great and wonderful thing it is to have the Holy Spirit in our heart. What a beautiful and
wonderful thing to have the Holy Spirit in our worship.
1-A Spirit-filled heart. What kind of heart does the Holy Spirit create in us? David says, You do not delight in
sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken
spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise, The Holy Spirit creates a broken heart. David
was a millionaire with thousands of dollars to give to God, but he knew this wasn’t pleasing to God. The
offering God really wants is a broken heart. All our worship and singing and praying is empty and worthless
unless the Holy Spirit is in the heart. God is pleased with a broken heart. What does that mean? Think of a
pair of chopsticks. You have to break them apart before you can grip the food. And even then it’s difficult.
This is what the Bible teaches about our heart. Unless the Holy Spirit breaks your heart, smashes you to pieces,
breaks your pride in yourself, shows you what kind of sinner you are, how you have failed God again and again
– you can’t grab hold of Jesus. God can hold out Jesus right in front of you, but you can’t grab hold of him
unless the Holy Spirit breaks your heart first. If you think you’re pretty good, live a pretty clean life, you’ll go
to heaven because you’re good – you don’t need Jesus. We need God’s Holy Spirit to come and break us
inside. That’s what happened to David. For a year he lied about his sins. But then the game was up. The
pastor came told him he deserved to die. David was broken. That's the kind of offering God wanted him to
bring to worship.
But the Holy Spirit also produces a confident heart. Once you know you’ve sinned and earned an all expense
paid trip to hell, the Holy Spirit’s real work is to point you to Jesus Christ. When David confessed his sin, the
pastor said, “The Lord has put away your sin.” God forgives you because Jesus died for you. And so David
prays, Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Pure means holy and sinless,
and that's what the Holy Spirit does when he brings you to believe Jesus died for your sins. He covers you with
the pure holiness of Jesus himself. He prays for the Holy Spirit to give him a steadfast spirit. The Holy Spirit
does that through the good news. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” He prays, Restore to
me the joy of your salvation. What kind of joy does the Spirit give? Heaven! Better than Disney, Ipads, better
than everything, whatever it is that makes you happy. Finally, he prays that the Holy Spirit give him a willing
spirit. It’s a volunteer attitude: “here am I, send me, send me.” What does it matter if you do everything God
wants, worship and work, but not with a willing heart? Does God like that? Does he like it if you worship and
do his things, because your Mom will yell at you if you don’t, or the church will fall apart or you wont’ go to
heaven. When the Holy Spirit creates faith in Jesus and all he does for us, then we ask: “How can I thank you,
Lord.” He creates a willing heart, happy to serve the Lord who first served us.
What kind of heart does the Holy Spirit create in us? He creates a broken, confident and willing heart. Does it
matter to you to have this kind of heart? If it is, what are you doing every day to give the Holy Spirit a chance
to fill your heart? Some people say, “I am too busy. I am too busy to find time to open my Catechism, to read
the Ten Commandments or the part on Confession or the Table of Duties or the Questions for self-examination
before Communion in the hymnbook or a two minute devotional book or the Bible. I am just too busy to do
that everyday.” Then how can the Holy Spirit break you heart to show you need a Savior? How can he make
you confident that Jesus is your Savior? How can he give you a willing spirit? If you are too busy to think
about God’s word or open up a devotional book for two minutes, then it seems you don’t care about having the
kind of heart that the Holy Spirit wants you to have. And those who do care and do turn to the word every day,
we are reminded from David to read the word with the prayer: “Holy Spirit, fill my heart today. Show me what
a terrible sinner I am and fill me with the confidence that Jesus died to save me from my sins. Restore to me the
joy of my salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” And don’t close the book until the prayer is
answered.
2-Spirit-filled worship. The same way the Holy Spirit fills our heart – with his word – is the way he fills
worship. David prays, I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. If the Spirit
fills our hearts through the word, then Spirit filled worship is when there is a lot of teaching of God’s word
going on – lessons and sermon, hymns and liturgy, psalms and prayers. The early church was filled with the
Spirit when the new converts gathered around the apostles teaching and sacraments every day. That teaching is
centered on telling other people what terrible sinners we are but what a beautiful, wonderful, loving Savior we
have in Jesus. When the Spirit fills the heart, there is also praising of God for his grace. Open my lips, Lord, and
my mouth will declare your praise. All the singing centers on our sin and God’s amazing grace in Jesus. When
the Spirit fills the heart there will also be thank offerings. You could bring a million dollars to God, and it is
meaningless if the Spirit hasn’t filled the heart with faith. But those who have Spirit-filled hearts with faith in
Jesus can’t help but bring offerings to God. David prays, May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the
walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar. God doesn’t need our offerings; we have an inner need to bring
offerings to God in thanksgiving for Jesus.
Genuine Spirit-filled worship is not a once a week, one-hour event. True worship goes right out the doors of the
church as we continue to teach transgressors the way of God, sing praises without the pastor telling us the hymn
number, and as we daily offer up our bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord, which is our spiritual worship. But
all worship is worthless if the heart isn’t what God wants you to have. Make some time for the Holy Spirit to
work in your heart every day. Pray God every day to use his word to show you your sin and the beauty of your
Savior’s forgiveness. Tomorrow it starts. In the heart it starts. And it continues in worship, all the way to
eternal praise in heaven. Amen.