Set the Sail (Preparing for a Move of God) Sýnishorn

Repentance: Clean Hands & Pure Hearts

The Biblical idea of holiness has fallen on hard times. It can often feel a little bit too religious or self-righteous to talk about holiness. It’s detested by our world and often tip-toed around in our churches. But holiness is a beautiful thing.

To be holy is to be set apart for purposes much greater and more transcendent than our world could ever offer. To be holy requires two things: first,it requires honesty about who we really are; and second,it requires mercy.

The well-known Old Testament character David is a mixed man. He is at once “a man after God’s own heart” and also the same man who abused his power by sleeping with Bathsheba, impregnating her, and murdering her husband Uriah; who to make matters worse was incredibly loyal to his King, David. David thought he’d gotten away with murder (literally!) until the prophet Nathan confronted him in 2 Samuel 12. In the face of this confrontation David could have behaved like our first parents Adam and Eve, hiding and blame-shifting (see Genesis 3), but instead he takes the road of repentance. Psalm 51 is the record of David’s great repentance in the face of David’s great sin.

David recognises that “sin” or “iniquity” isn’t just him breaking a rule, it’s a state we’re all born in. Another way to say this is we are all born with capital ‘S’ Sin, which then leads us to commit lowercase ‘s’ sins. As human beings the first step towards clean hands & pure hearts is admitting that we have soiled hands & dark hearts. Holiness first requires honesty about who we really are.

But being authentically ourselves is not enough; holiness requires mercy – mercy from the God who we’ve offended but also from the God who is more ready to give mercy than we are to receive it. In Christ, we have the promise that all of our iniquities have been “blotted out” and this is good news. On the cross, Jesus had his hands soiled and heart darkened so that we would walk with clean hands & pure hearts.