Refresh 2: A Clean Heart (Psalm 51)

Part 2 of “Refresh: A Fresh Start for a New Season”
August 16, 2026
Glynwood Baptist Church, Prattville, AL
James Jackson, Pastor

[Refresh Title Slide]

Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Psalm 51. But I’d also like you to keep your thumb in 2 Samuel 11, because we’re going to be walking through it as well.

We are in the second week of a series we are calling “Refresh: A Fresh Start for a New Season.” It sounds like something we should have preached in January, but while January begins the calendar year, fall really begins the cultural year. It’s a new school year. Today begins a new Sunday school year. And perhaps most importantly in the South, it’s a new football season.

So we’re talking about what it means to give our spiritual lives a refresh.

Last week, we said that the theological word for what we are talking about in this series is sanctification. Sanctification is the lifelong process by which God makes us more like Jesus. And we started that process last week by talking about A New Mind. Romans 12 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Today, we are going to move from the mind to the heart. And I want to talk about A Clean Heart.

You know, we are probably the cleanest people who have ever lived. With the exception of middle school boys at kids camp, people are going to take a shower every day. For most of human history, taking a hot shower every morning wasn’t even an option.

But apparently ordinary clean isn’t clean enough anymore. Now we need to detox.

Juice cleanses have become a $5 billion global industry. There are detox teas. Liver cleanses. Colon cleanses—we aren’t going to spend much time on those this morning. You’re welcome. There are even adhesive pads you tape to your feet at night that supposedly pull toxins out of your body.

The common thread in all of these regimens is the assumption that we’ve put bad things into our bodies, and that if we can just get the bad stuff out, we’ll be clean again.

That’s actually a really good working definition of religion.

I’ve picked up some bad habits. I’ve made some bad choices. I’ve allowed some things into my life that shouldn’t be there. So if I can just find the right regimen of better habits, frequent Bible reading, church attendance, and so forth, I can have, like, a “sin detox” and start fresh.

Sociologists call one version of this “moralistic therapeutic deism”—the idea that religion is basically about becoming good, respectable people, while God helps us feel good about ourselves and reach our potential. Dressed up in Christian language, Jesus becomes someone who helps basically good people become even better.

But the truth of the gospel is that Jesus did not come to make bad people good, or good people better.

He came to make dead people live.

Our problem isn’t simply that we’ve put some bad things into a basically good heart. Our problem is the heart itself.

So we don’t just need a cleanse. We don’t need an angioplasty to clear out some arteries that have gotten clogged, or a bypass so we can avoid them altogether.

What we need is a new heart.

That’s why our big idea this morning is this: Only God can give us a new heart, and only God can renew the heart He gives.

So with that in mind, let’s look at Psalm 51. It is probably the most penetrating diagnosis of our sin problem anywhere in the Bible. Read it with me. If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:

[Read Psalm 51:1-10]

Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

[Pray]

Point 1: A Heart We Can’t TRUST.

Notice: David asks God to “create in him” a clean heart. He doesn’t ask Him to improve the heart he already has. Why? Because the human heart can’t be trusted. Jeremiah 17:9 says that,

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

And by the time David wrote Psalm 51, he had experienced this first hand. Notice the superscription that begins Psalm 51:

 WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET WENT TO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATHSHEBA.

The story is told in 2 Samuel 11.

The chapter begins by telling us that it was springtime, “the time when kings go out to battle.” But David didn’t go. He sent Joab and the army, while David stayed home in Jerusalem.

One evening David got up from his couch and was walking around on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman bathing. The Bible says the woman was very beautiful. David asked who she was, and someone told him, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

So by this point, David knows that Bathsheba is somebody’s wife. Her husband is one of David’s mighty men. She’s the daughter of Eliam, and elsewhere we learn that her grandfather is Ahithophel, one of David’s trusted advisors.

But in the moment, none of that mattered. David wanted Bathsheba, and as all the romance novels tell us, “the heart wants what the heart wants.”

And this is where the deceitfulness of the heart becomes so dangerous. Because our hearts are remarkably good at convincing us that what we want must somehow be what we need.

So David sent for Bathsheba. He slept with her.

By the way, there’s nothing in the text that suggests Bathsheba was complicit in this. Some commentators over the years have portrayed her as seducing David by deliberately bathing where he could see her.

But the Bible doesn’t say that. It doesn’t even say Bathsheba was on a rooftop. David was on the rooftop.

And notice who drives everything that happens next: David sees her. David asks about her. David sends for her. David takes her. Whatever else we might wonder about Bathsheba, the narrator places the responsibility squarely on David.

Bathsheba goes home.  And maybe David thought that was the end of it.

But then, Bathsheba sends word back to the palace that she was pregnant.

And instead of dealing with the hart problem, David tries to manage the consequences.

David brings her husband Uriah home from the battlefield. He figures Uriah will go home, spend the night with his wife, and a few months later everyone will assume the baby is his.

Except Uriah won’t go home. So David tries again. This time he gets Uriah drunk. Uriah still won’t go home.

Finally David sends Uriah back to the battlefield carrying instructions to Joab to put Uriah in the fiercest fighting and then pull back so he will be killed.

Uriah dies. David takes Bathsheba as his wife. The baby will be born after they’re married. As far as David is concerned, the problem has been handled.

Except for the last sentence of the chapter: Look at verse 27

“But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.”

David had covered his tracks.

He had not covered his sin.

Now here’s what I want you to notice: from the moment David saw Bathsheba until the moment Uriah died, David kept trusting himself.

•     He trusted that his desires were more important than God’s decrees..

•     He trusted that he was the exception to God’s rules.

•     When things began to unravel, he trusted in his ability to control the situation.

•     And finally, he trusted that he could get away with it.

Now, it would be easy for us to distance ourselves from David here. I’ve never stolen another man’s wife. I’ve never arranged to have somebody killed. Maybe my heart isn’t as bad as David’s.

But don’t focus just on what David did. Think about how David’s heart worked.

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you started finding reasons why it was okay for you to have it?

Have you ever crossed a line and then become more concerned about somebody finding out than you were about the fact that you crossed it?

Have you ever tried to manage the consequences of your sin instead of simply confessing it?

I have. And my guess is that you have too.

That’s not just David’s heart. That’s my heart. And that’s your heart.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

This may come as a shock for those of us who grew up watching Disney cartoons. Because the message of every Disney movie is that all you have to do is follow your heart and you will never be led astray.

Really?

What did Elsa get when she followed her heart? Cold.

What did Moana get when she followed her heart? Wet.

What did Ariel get when she followed her heart?

Possessed by a demon octopus.

Jesus said in Mark 7 that evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, deceit, envy, pride—all of those things come “from within, out of the heart of man.”

Our greatest spiritual problem isn’t something outside of us that somehow gets inside.

It’s already inside.

The Disney princesses are wrong. “Follow your heart” isn’t such great advice after all.

Because sometimes your heart will lead you exactly where David’s led him.

And that means our hearts don’t simply need to be cleaned up.

We need a heart we don’t have.

Which brings us back to David’s prayer in Psalm 51:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

Point 2: The Heart Only God Can GIVE

I want you to notice the word David uses there: create.

The Hebrew word is bara. It is the same word used in Genesis 1:1:  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It shows up again in 1:201when God creates the living creatures, and then three times in Genesis 1:27 when God creates human beings in His own image.

Whenever The Old Testament uses bara in this way, it’s God that’s doing the creating.

So David doesn’t pray, “God, help me improve my heart.” He doesn’t say, “God, help me get my heart back into shape.” He doesn’t even say, “God, clean up the heart I’ve already got.”

He says,

“Create in me a clean heart, O God.”

We need a heart only God can give.

Hundreds of years after David, God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel about a day when He would do exactly that. Look at Ezekiel 36:25–27:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Who is speaking? God. So notice that He is the one doing all the work:

•     I will cleanse you.

•     I will give you a new heart.

•     I will put a new spirit within you.

•     I will remove the heart of stone.

•     I will give you a heart of flesh.

•     I will put my Spirit within you.

God doesn’t say, “Let me rehabilitate your heart.”

He says, “I will give you a new heart.”

That’s the gospel.

Remember what we said at the beginning: Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good or good people better. He came to make dead people live.

Christianity isn’t a self-improvement program. It isn’t behavior modification. It isn’t a spiritual detox designed to get enough of the bad stuff out of you that God can finally work with what’s left.

It’s a heart transplant.

God takes a heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He takes people who are dead in their sins and makes them alive in Christ.

 Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

There’s that creation language again.

God isn’t asking you to manufacture a better heart. You can’t.

He isn’t asking you to clean yourself up enough to deserve a new heart.

And maybe that’s what you’ve been trying to do. Maybe you’ve spent years trying to give God a better version of yourself. You’ve become more religious. More respectable. You’ve cleaned up some habits. You’ve learned the language. Maybe you’ve even learned how to act like a Christian.

And oh my gosh, aren’t you exhausted because of it?

Because you’re trying to do for yourself something only God can do. You’re trying to create a new heart.

You can’t.

And the good news of the gospel is that you don’t have to.

God says, “I will give you a new heart.”

3. A Heart Only God Can Renew

Up to this point, we’ve been talking about God giving us a new heart. But David wasn’t an unbeliever when he prayed Psalm 51. David already knew God. He already belonged to God. So David isn’t asking God to save him for the first time.

That’s why Psalm 51:10 doesn’t end with “create”:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Even after God gives us a new heart, we still sin. We still wander. David certainly did. And when that happens, we don’t need God to save us all over again.

We need Him to renew what He has already given.

So let’s talk about that.

What does it look like for God to renew a heart that He has already given?

Let’s go back to the story behind Psalm 51.

Second Samuel 11 ends with “the thing David had done displeased the LORD.” In chapter 12, God sends Nathan to confront him. Nathan tells David a story that finally forces him to face the sin he has been hiding. And David responds with six words:

“I have sinned against the LORD.”

That’s it. No justification. No deflection. No blame-shifting. Just confession.

That’s where renewal begins.

And you see that in Psalm 51:1-4

Psalm 51:1–4 ESV

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. ⁴ 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.

David doesn’t try to dress up his sin. He doesn’t call it a mistake, or a poor choice. He calls it

Transgression. To transgress is to step across a boundary you aren’t supposed to cross.

Iniquity: The word carries the idea of something twisted or crooked, something that isn’t as it ought to be. God is holy; we are sinful. God is whole; we are broken. God is perfect; we are woefully incomplete.

And sin. The word carries the idea of missing the mark. God has established the standard, and David has fallen short of it.

David says, I can’t save myself. I need your mercy. According to your great compassion, blot out my trespasses. Wash away my un-equal-ness.  Cleanse me from my sin.

I have done evil in your sight, and every time I look at myself, I am reminded that you are pure. You are blameless. You are justified in condemning my sin.

David can’t make himself clean, so he comes clean. He brings his sin out of the darkness and into the light.

And he asks God to take care of it.

Look at Psalm 51:7

Psalm 51:7 ESV

⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

That reference to hyssop probably doesn’t mean much to us. Trish has never said, “James, we’re out of hyssop. Could you pick some up at Publix?”

But David knew exactly what it meant.

On the night of Passover, the Israelites took hyssop, dipped it in the blood of the lamb, and put the blood on their doorposts. Later, hyssop was used in Old Testament purification rituals.

So when David says, “Purge me with hyssop,” he’s saying, “God, cleanse me in a way I cannot cleanse myself.”

And then hyssop appears one more time.

At the cross, John tells us that they put sour wine on a sponge, put it on a hyssop branch, and lifted it to Jesus.

Hyssop.

At Passover, hyssop was dipped in the blood of the lamb.

At Calvary, hyssop appears as the Lamb of God sheds His blood for the sins of the world.

And the same John later writes:

“The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

That’s how a dirty heart gets clean.

And some of you need to hear that because you know exactly what you’ve done. Maybe nobody else knows. Or maybe everybody knows, and the person who still hasn’t forgiven you is you.

But if you belong to Christ, your failure does not mean God is finished with you.

David doesn’t pray, “God, save me again.” Look at verse 12:

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”

Restore.

Maybe that’s where you are this morning. You belong to Christ, but the joy is gone. Your relationship with God has grown cold. Prayer feels mechanical. Worship feels distant. And maybe there’s something between you and God you’ve been trying not to deal with.

Don’t hide it. Don’t manage it. Don’t minimize it.

Confess it.

Because 1 John 1:9 promises:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We confess. God forgives. God cleanses.

That’s renewal.

So which do you need this morning?

Maybe you need a new heart. You’ve spent your life trying to become a better version of yourself, and you’re exhausted. Jesus isn’t offering to make you better. He’s offering to make you new.

Or maybe God has already given you that new heart, but today you need Him to renew it. Stop hiding. Bring your sin into the light. Confess it. And trust the blood of Jesus to cleanse you.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Only God can give us a new heart.

And only God can renew the heart He gives.