Building the Walls

Thoughts from my reading in Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp. The devotional is indented.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem. Psalm 51:18

It's always the fruit of true repentance and it's captured in these words: "Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem." When my heart turns from sin, it turns to concern for what God wants and what others need. In repentance, my heart turns from the love-of-self-driven purposes of my kingdom of one to the transcendent purposes of God. And what is God's purpose? He calls me to love him above all else and to love my neighbor as myself.

I agree that sin is based on what we want; our desires and our kingdom. “Don’t get in my way and that includes you God!” In sin we don’t care about others and in truth we don’t really care about ourselves either, because ultimately sin hurts us and we are left unsatisfied. It’s like a mirage in the distance that becomes something else once we reach it.

David's sin wasn't just a sin of the eyes and the body. No, all the wrong that David did was rooted in the sinful thoughts and desires of his heart. David allowed himself to think things about Bathsheba that he should never have thought, and he allowed himself to crave what didn't belong to him. Then he permitted himself to plan what he should never have planned. With a heart now captured, David committed adultery and murder.

Do you think David had any idea of where that first glance at Bathsheba would lead? That’s the way of sin. It always gives much more than we expect and takes us places we didn’t plan to go.

The war of sin is not first a war of the body. The battleground on which the war of sin rages is the heart. It's a war between the desires of God and the desires of the sinful nature. So, is true repentance just about letting go of wrong behavior? No; true repentance begins with the heart. In true repentance I confess to my selfishness. I confess that my problem isn't just that I do bad things, but that I do bad things because I'd rather have what I want than what God has willed for me.

Sin is rooted in worshiping the creation more than I worship the Creator. Sin is about loving myself more than I love God. Sin is about desiring to be sovereign and constructing my own kingdom rather than finding joy in the greater purposes of the kingdom of God.

I think it can be harder to confess sin when we admit the motive as mentioned here. I want to be God, I want control, I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do, and I don’t want to keep the rules. It’s easier to say “I messed up” rather than admit why I really sinned.

The very fact that sin is about self-focus and self-love guarantees the fact that I'll not love you the way that I should. Here's the principle: if you and I are ever going to keep the second great commandment, we must first keep the first great commandment. It's only when I love God above all else that I'm free then to love my neighbor as myself. Now, what does this have to do with building the walls of Jerusalem? Everything! Let me explain.

Having confessed his sin and having rested in God's forgiveness, David's heart now turns toward the Lord and toward his neighbor. Jerusalem was the epicenter of the national and spiritual life of the people of God. It was the City of God, the place where the great temple of Solomon would be built. For Zion (Jerusalem) to prosper meant that God's blessings of grace were on his people. You see, in this prayer, David is no longer thinking of himself. No, he's praying that the riches of God's grace would be on the lives of all those around him.

What are my thoughts filled with? Do I think about others and their needs? Do I regularly pray for others? Is there only room for me in my thoughts?

But there's more. When he asks for the walls to be built, it's very clear that David is praying for the building of the temple in Jerusalem. You know that because he says (in v. 19), "Then you will delight in right sacrifices." Rather than his mind being dominated by his own purposes, his heart now goes to the purposes of God's kingdom. He's praying that God would receive the worship he deserves and the glory that's due his name.

Here's real personal transformation: the man once captured by dark and evil lust is now filled with love for others and a deep excitement with the glory of God. Only grace can create such a fundamental transformation.

The path to this point is hard. It can take a lot of pain in our life to bring us to this place; we don’t give up easily. But when we finally get there we wonder why it took so long…then we do it all over again.

A question from the meditation:

How is God giving you specific opportunities to be part of what he is doing in your family, neighborhood, community, church, and world? How are you responding to God's call?

One area is service. Setting aside even the good things I want to do to help meet a need somewhere or taking the time to listen to people when they need to talk about something. I have a hard time with both of these. I’m trying to do both in little areas and beginning to experience the pleasure of both.

Philip


Get this book and join the journey:

Olive Tree – PDA or Smartphone

Amazon - paper