Song Spotlight: Create in Me (Psalm 51)
by Michael Lennox
Let’s face it: we don’t like to admit that we are wrong. If you’re anything like me, you will do just about anything to justify your behavior in one way or another. This can affect a range of things and include excuses such as “I was totally right to yell at my brother, he was being a jerk” or “its okay to have a beer with friends once in a while, most teenagers drink a little bit anyway” or even “It’s really not that big of a deal if I look at porn once in awhile. It’s natural to have curiosity.”
This is not an exhaustive list, but I think you get the picture. We love to justify our sin by normalizing it. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. It’s very much a part of the human condition. In fact, all throughout history, humans have been trying to justify sin. Just take David for example.
In 2 Samuel 11 we find the very famous story of David & Bathsheba. Let me summarize really quick. David was chosen by God to be a righteous King of Israel following Saul’s failure to seek after the Lord. The Lord provided for David and was with him in a myriad of ways, protecting his life, giving him blessing and favor, and eventually raising him to the throne as promised. In this story, we arrive as the Israelites are fighting a war and rather than leading the army, David is chilling at his palace. At some point, he notices a naked woman (Bathsheba) bathing on a nearby rooftop (this was not uncommon at the time) and becomes infatuated by her. He has a moment to make a decision: will he allow his lust to prevail and guide his choices or will he move on?
David decides to pursue his feelings and orders for Bathsheba to be brought to him. They sleep together & she becomes pregnant. Desperate to cover up his sin, David digs an even deeper hole that results in him having Bathsheba’s husband killed on the front lines in the war. At the end of all of this, the prophet Nathan comes to David and tells him a powerful story centering on a rich man who steals, cooks, and eats a poor man’s precious lamb. David reacts enraged and tells Samuel that this rich man should be punished, even killed, for the act of cruelty. In 2 Samuel 12:7-14, Nathan replies:
“You are that man! This is what the LORD God of Israel says: ‘I chose you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives into your arms. I also gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all that somehow seems insignificant, I would have given you so much more as well! Why have you shown contempt for the word of the LORD by doing evil in my sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ This is what the LORD says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you from inside your own household! Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. He will have sexual relations with your wives in broad daylight! Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’” Then David exclaimed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD!” Nathan replied to David, “Yes, and the LORD has forgiven your sin. You are not going to die. Nonetheless, because you have treated the LORD with such contempt in this matter, the son who has been born to you will certainly die.”
And just like Nathan said, the child born of David and Bathsheba dies. David is struck by the weight of his sin and begs for forgiveness, which God gives him. It’s in this deep despair and reflection of the weight and consequence of sin that David writes Psalm 51. Let’s take a moment to read the full Psalm:
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 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.”
When we read this Psalm, we can feel David’s heartbreak over his sin pour through the beautiful language used to convey his grief over his sin. This is a powerful Psalm that has helped believers throughout history work through and wrestle with sin and its consequences. Now, let’s take a closer look at the song, Create In Me.
We see right away in the verses that the lyrics of this song are pulled pretty much directly from David’s Psalm:
I know all my transgressions, my secrets and my lies
All the times I've fallen short and done what's evil in Your sight
You'd be blameless in Your judgement, to turn away Your face
But according to Your steadfast love there's a never ending grace
O God of my salvation, You open up my lips
I praise You for Your mercy and all Your faithfulness
You're not satisfied with sacrifice, an offering won't do
Unless You have my whole heart, so I give it all to You
The lyrics of the first verse are pulled from verses 1-5 of the Psalm and reflect the need for sinners (all of us) to be repentant of our sin and run to the Father. He doesn’t owe us anything, but according to his love, he offers grace unending. The second verse pulls from verses 15-17 and speaks to the need for the sinner’s response to God’s redemptive work to be full and complete devotion to the Lord through worship.
In the chorus, we get to the heart of this song of confession: a plea for God to change us, forgive us, and make us holy.
Create in me a clean heart O God
Renew in me a spirit that is right
And cast me not away from Your love
I wanna dwell within Your presence all my life
So, what makes this song special? A few things come to mind that are really cool about this song:
The lyrics of this song pull directly from Scripture. We know from reading the Bible that as believers in Christ we are called to worship God in Spirit and truth (John 4:24) so we must be careful that the songs we sing in worship to God reflect the truth of his Word. This is something that we devote a lot of time and energy into at FBC. We want the songs that we sing to be biblically accurate so that we are worshipping God in our spirits and with the truth of his Word
This is a song of confession and repentance. If you think about it, we actually don’t sing a lot of songs with this element of confessing our sins and asking God to forgive us. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t be singing songs like this - we absolutely should! When we worship God through songs, we sing the truths of his Word & one of those truths is recognizing our sinfulness and need for a Savior. We see that confession and repentance are commanded of the believer all throughout Scripture (James 5:16, 1 John 1:9, Proverbs 28:13). Thus we should be regularly confessing and repenting of our sins.
This song points to our hope in Jesus. In the verses, we sing on the knowledge that God is our salvation and His steadfast love and mercy are what saves us from our sin, so in response to that knowledge, we plead for His forgiveness and work in our hearts.
Songs like this one are powerful because they force us to confront our sins. We all have things that we hide (our “secrets and our lies” as the song says). But before the throne of God, there is no room for secrets or lies. He knows our hearts. He knows our thoughts. We can’t hide our sins from him. We do often try to hide our sins from others, but when we sing a song of confession like this together with the body of Christ, we bring to light the reality that we are all sinners in need of God’s grace.
REFLECTION
Listen to Create in Me
Are there any sins that you need to confess to God and ask for forgiveness for?
Are there any sins that you have been keeping secret?
Who is someone that you trust that you could confess your sin to? Identify that person and share what is going on with them - there is power in community and in the cross of Jesus to set you free from any sin!