Sequence Failed Continuity

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge…..Read the rest of the Psalm 51

Psalm 51 begins with a repentant King David, singing a remorseful melody to God and to an understandably, very upset prophet, named Nathan. King David the shepherd boy, mighty warrior, wandering minstrel, poet laureate, inspiring leader. Only one spring, when it is time to head to out to war, as all kings do, King David takes a little furlough. Kind of a vacation or rather
a “staycation”. One night he is lounging around the palace rooftop,
perhaps playing his harp, looking for inspiration for his next psalm, when suddenly he spies Bathsheba. And in short order goes from the scintillating heights of glory-seeking after God’s own heart to the murky depths of sin – an adulterer and murderer.

“Sequence failed continuity” is an aviation code word for a flight that does not make it to its destination; whether due to mechanical failure or worse yet, highjacked, it simply never arrives. In my own life, I’ve have had sequence failed continuity. Where the internal combustion of my sin imploded, and I didn’t quite make it to where God had called me and there were always consequences to my sin. When asked which biblical character I most identify with, I find at times when I want to glamorize my walk and be who I know God calls me to be, it is always a more prominent
figure like David. King David who for his sin had a life flight that should have been labeled a “sequence failed continuity” but instead was redeemed by God’s grace and mercy. I have come to know when I see the weight of my past and present sin, I realize what Jesus did for me. My sin didn’t deserve his grace. My life wasn’t deserving of his mercy.

It hit me one day, that had I lived in Jesus’ time that me and my sin, would have spent a lot of lonely time outside my tent, and on the fringe of polite society. Perhaps I would have been like the woman in Luke 7:36-50, who simply sat weeping, and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Saying nothing, pinned to the floor by the weight of sin, speechless and perhaps crying for the first time in years? Maybe never allowing herself to cry, because she didn’t know when she would stop?

Psalm 51 doesn’t just end with God’s grace. That’s where it begins. God didn’t grant His grace to David so that after throwing out a few apologies, he could return to his sin. David was repentant. He knew his sin and knew it was evil. He was ready to be repaired, like a fractured clay pot, pleading for God’s grace to smooth his divided spirit and make a steadfast and loyal heart. He wanted God to restore his joy and then he would teach transgressors, those who crossed the line, violating their relationship with God. But David wasn’t about about to stop there. With the zeal and fervor of a reformed smoker, David, a repentant sinner exhaled the stench of his sin’s internal combustion and inhaled the cleansing minty hyssop-symbolic of God’s cleansing grace. He promised to find those that reeked with the stench of their sin and return them to God.All the while, he would be singing praises to God and knowing that then, and only then, that his life would be a pleasing sacrifice to God. Today in our society, the lines of sin have blurred. And yes, perhaps even in our own lives. What God considers sin, current culture has renamed and put a balm on what is reprehensible to God, to soothe and not offend the sinner. Leaving out a desire to repent, to change, and live a life pleasing to God. As Christians, we must ask ourselves, “When man’s laws change and legislate our society, what will we use as the benchmark for our moral code? Will we allow our morality to be defined by what is legal or illegal?” If we stop having a desire to live our lives the way God wants us to live, in reverent fear of Him, we begin to have a schism in our heart. It is across this heart divide that we can call out to Jesus for reconciliation.

Psalm 86:11-13
11Teach me Thy way, O LORD; I will walk in Thy truth; unite my heart to
fear Thy name. 12 I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify
Thy name for evermore. 13 For great is Thy mercy toward me, and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

How do we answer to sin when it isn’t sin? Sin made over as choices,
indiscretions, revised ethics, anger displacement, lifestyle decisions, or
simply, we were made that way. David would have answered yes, we were
all made that way. It is called a sin nature. David knew it and yet didn’t use
it as the excuse for the sin.

Will a person ever be free from their sin if they are just “episodically
repentant”? Remorseful, accepting of His grace but still self-appeasing?
If David lived now, with all his “evident collateral damage” sin. Would we
call his transgressions slip-ups and his iniquities bad behavior? Or even
more, would we bother to frame it in the context of sin? Reducing it to a
man consumed by his passion and fearing no one’s reprisal? In his pursuit
of happiness, who could deny him his constitutional rights? If we read his
about his story today, would we simply say, “Gee, I’m disappointed…but I
still like his music”?