The Restoring Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Recently a dear sweet lady who is a faithful member of my church came to me and asked me a very good biblical question. I love it when church members come to me with biblical questions because it reveals to me they are digging into the Word. Her question was regarding the verse in David’s great Psalm of confession, Psalm 51:12, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." She said, “I have read this verse many times. I don’t know if I have ever really thought about it or if I have always just focused on the first part of the verse, but what do you think it means, ‘grant me a willing spirit?’”

The Hebrew word translated willing is nadiyb and can be translated "generous." It has the idea of a free movement of the will to do service for someone. It is a willingness which is pleasurable to the doer. I think this is a reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, God’s Spirit is generous and willing to help render aid to the believer in times of greatest need. So in other words, the Holy Spirit takes pleasure in sustaining the believer. In the context of Psalm 51, what was David’s (the writer of the psalm) greatest need? Psalm 51 was written in response to David’s sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). David yielded to lust, committed the scarlet sin of adultery with Bathsheba and sought to cover it up which ultimately led to the death of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, who was a very loyal soldier to David. God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David over his “secret” sin. In response to Nathan’s message and God’s discipline, David wrote this great song of confession being overwhelmed with guilt and conviction. David’s greatest need at this time was forgiveness and total restoration of fellowship with God.

When a believer sins against God, what is one of the greatest obstacles on the road to restoration? It is overcoming the tendency to be cast down and depressed. After a great moral or spiritual failure we want to give up; we want to quit. We have a tough time forgiving ourselves. The writer of Hebrews said there are two basic extremes a believer must resist when we are disciplined by the Father. Hebrews 12:5 says “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you.” One extreme is to take God’s discipline lightly, the other extreme is to lose heart and just quit. David was no doubt overwhelmed with the guilt of what he had done. He needed at this moment to be upheld and sustained by God’s generous and willing Holy Spirit. When the man in the church at Corinth sinned by committing gross immorality, then repented some time later, Paul wrote to the believers in that church telling them how to act around the repentant man. 2 Corinthians 2:7-8 says “so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.” This man needed to be upheld. That is exactly what the Holy Spirit will do for a repentant and guilt-ridden soul. An example of this is also demonstrated in the ministry of Jesus. When Peter sinned and denied the Lord he afterward repented and wept bitterly. But, he was also so overwhelmed with guilt that he quit. John 21:3 says, "Simon Peter said to them, 'I am going fishing.'" The verb “going” is a present tense Greek verb meaning he was going back into the fishing business. In Peter’s mind, he had messed up so much that he didn’t think he could be restored. At that time, Jesus went out of His way to affirm Peter. Three times Peter denied Jesus and three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me? Then feed my sheep.” It is in these times of our failure that Satan works to place the believer on a major guilt trip. It is at times like these that we need to be constantly reaffirmed and upheld by God’s gracious Spirit. If Peter and David needed this restoring ministry, then no doubt other believers need it after they have confessed and submitted to God’s discipline. There are two applications for our lives from this verse. First, let us learn from this that we need to yield ourselves to be instruments in the Holy Spirit’s hand to affirm other believers after they have fallen and repented. Second, let us also be like David and ask for the gracious sustaining and restoring work of the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives after we have come to our senses and repented. I close with the words of the great Puritan, Matthew Henry, commenting on this verse, “I am ready to fall, either into sin or despair; Lord, sustain me; my own spirit (though the spirit of a man will go far towards the sustaining of his infirmity) is not sufficient; if I be left to myself, I shall certainly sink; therefore uphold me with thy Spirit, let him counterwork the evil spirit that would cast me down from my excellency.”