Over the past few weeks we’ve been introduced to David, the shepherd boy who became king over all of Israel. David is described as a man after God’s own heart. He becomes the standard by which all future kings of Israel will be judged. Yet, 2 Samuel 11-12 describes a major moral failure by David. He commits adultery with Bathsheba, covers it up by having her husband moved to the front lines of battle to ensure his death, and then marries her. Wow! That’s a man after God’s own heart? He violated the trust of people in his care as the king and committed an egregious sin against God.

While we may not have sinned in the same way that David did, all of us have felt the weight of our sin. We’ve seen the pain we’ve caused others. We’ve felt the separation that sin causes in our relationship with God. The question is what do we do when we massively fall short? In Psalm 51, David writes a deeply personal and brutally honest prayer of repentance. This Sunday we’re turn to Psalm 51 to help us understand how we can walk in repentance regardless of what we’ve done.