Keys: Transformation

2 Cor. 5: 17

Romans 12: 2

Psalm 51: 10 – 12

October 19, 2025

In one of the churches that I served we were placed within a community that was upscale, fairly affluent, and the church was filled with families that reaped the benefits of great education, tremendous jobs, hard work, and positions of authority and influence. These were people with fairly significant amounts of discretionary money and so they took advantage of goods and services that many cannot afford.

And let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. These wonderful folks were also gracious and generous with their resources and funded ministries at the church at an abundant level. So don’t hear the upcoming story as a negative commentary on abundant resources.

Within this church there was a family that I was particularly close with. Both the husband and wife were significantly involved in the life of the church, and I worked closely with both of them in a number of ministries. They are, to this day, close and dear friends. I respect every member of this family greatly.

But that isn’t to say that they didn’t have their quirky side. I found one of those quirks both amusing and actually much more prevalent than I knew at the time.

They lived in a large, three-story home. There were a number of very active children and a dog that took it as her life mission to dig up every new plant that was ever planted in their backyard garden and to then bring both the plant and an accompanying amount of dark, smelly, well fertilized earth into every floor of the house.

As many folks do, the family had a cleaning service that came in every week ready to scrub that house from top floor to the basement. There was nothing that they weren’t willing to clean and this service was very responsible and did a great job. They had been with this family for years. Again, nothing is wrong with this.

But what I always found interesting was that the day before the cleaning service came, the family spent several hours cleaning the house. The kids had to make sure that their rooms were neat, tidy, and that everything was put away. All the common rooms were vacuumed, and the kitchen was made spotless with the dishwasher emptied and every dish and piece of silverware put away.

By the time they were done the house was immaculate. The house was now ready for the cleaning service. Huh? The service would come; vacuum everything that had just been vacuumed, wipe and disinfect the already spotless countertops, and dust everything that was already clean. The service went home impressed by how clean the family kept the house. The mom said goodbye to the service every week thrilled, satisfied, and proud that the service didn’t see how messy – and normal - their family really was.

Again, the question being raised here is not over the appropriateness of employing a cleaning service. That is absolutely fine. But, at the time, I was struck by the need of the family to not embarrass itself by presenting a dirty house to a cleaning service that was directly tasked with cleaning their home. I was struck by that then, and I am struck by that now.

And I have to wonder, do we not also do the exact same thing with God? How often do we ask God to transform us, how often do we ask God to cleanse our sinful hearts, how often do we ask God to fill us with spiritual wisdom and direction and then – as an act of preparation for God’s actions seek to do all of the work for ourselves? To quote one writer, “We pray, “Lord God, make me new,” but we don’t really trust him with the whole mess.

We mouth words of confession; we read the latest advice column or tune in to the hot podcast. We skip over spiritual disciplines hundreds of years old so we can catch a young adult influencer. We think we are handing over to God a polished, cleansed, wise and directed version of ourselves. And we wonder why all this talk about transformation makes no sense, or even worse, is unnecessary.

The writer of our Psalm is under no such delusion.

King David — though celebrated as Israel’s greatest king and “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14) — was also deeply human and morally flawed. Scripture records several of his sins and failures that reveal both his brokenness and God’s grace working through repentance:

1. David saw Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, bathing and desired her. He committed adultery with her, and when she became pregnant, he tried to cover it up by recalling her husband Uriah from battle. When that failed, David arranged for Uriah’s death in combat. This was a grave abuse of power and betrayal of trust. (2 Samuel 11)

2. David had Uriah sent to the front lines where the fighting was fiercest and ordered that the surrounding troops should then abandon Uriah to his death. David ensured that Uriah would be killed — effectively committing murder. Nathan the prophet later confronted David with this sin, declaring, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).

3. As an act of pride and ego and against God’s command, David ordered a census of Israel’s fighting men — an act rooted in pride and self-reliance rather than trust in God. This led to divine judgment, resulting in the deaths of thousands. (2 Samuel 24)

4. David often failed to administer justice within his own household. He did not discipline his son Amnon after Amnon raped Tamar, nor did he properly reconcile with Absalom, leading to Absalom’s rebellion and a devastating civil war.

5. Early in his life, David lied to Ahimelech the priest (1 Samuel 21) and feigned insanity before the Philistine king to save himself (1 Samuel 21:13). His deceit reflected moments of fear and lack of faith.

Yet what distinguishes David from many other biblical figures is his heart of repentance. When confronted by Nathan, he immediately confessed: “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:13). Psalm 51 is his sincere prayer of repentance, asking God to “create in me a clean heart.”

Friends, transformation doesn’t occur when we think we are handing over to God a polished and renewed version of ourselves. Transformation doesn’t occur when we think we are inviting God into a clean house. Transformation occurs when we dare to trust in the love, grace, and mercy of God and handover to Him the whole dirty mess – the doubts, the fears, the habits we can’t seem to fix and maintain in the dark, secret places of our lives.

Friends, look again at our Psalm.

· “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”

No amount of religious words, not set of religious actions, no commitment to right rituals will cleanse us until we give up the delusion of cleaning ourselves and instead throw ourselves wholly and completely on the grace and love of God.

The humility that drives a sincere confession of the totality of our self-centeredness and then trusts that God can:

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

That confidence in the absolute and unconditional forgiveness of God calls us to experience a forgiveness – and resulting transformation – that then makes us less judgmental and more forgiving of others. One of the hallmarks of true spiritual transformation is the humility to recognize that we have ALL fallen short of the glory of God and that we are ALL dependent on God’s grace. Spiritual transformation helps us to understand that true faithfulness is not the absence of sin but is instead the willingness to repent and seek forgiveness.

David, the shepherd boy, the slayer of Goliath, the successor to Saul and the greatest of the kings of Israel was a sinner – dark, devious, murdering….. and beloved by God. Why? Because he brought his whole self to God – unvarnished, unpolished, striving to be faithful but falling woefully short. This glorious king, and broken man, brought his whole self to God – receiving grace and experiencing transformation.

Friends, it is time to give up on the delusion of self-restoration. It is time to quit spending the energy that it takes to maintain the fantasy that apart from God, we can truly transform ourselves. It is time to claim David’s words, and spirit of humility, as our own. Then, and only then, can we enter the spiritual road that leads to transformation. Amen.