Forgiven - Psalm 32 (Psalms 32)
Dusty Burris
Summary
All humanity stands as rebels against a holy God, separated by sin that is rebellion, law-breaking, and perversion of His good. True blessedness and joy are found solely in God's forgiveness, where the burden of sin is lifted, guilt is completely atoned for by Christ's sacrifice, and iniquity is no longer imputed to the repentant. This divine grace compels believers to eager repentance, unwavering trust in God's loyal love, and joyful worship, while calling unbelievers to immediate faith and reconciliation.
Supporting Passages
Transcript
0:00And it is my privilege to do my favorite thing with you this morning, and that is open the Word of God. If you would turn with me to Psalm 32, that's where we'll be today, Psalm 32. This has become one of my favorite psalms in all of Scripture. If you're not familiar with it, I pray that after we're done today, that it will become one of your favorites as well. Let's begin just by reading the Psalm together, and then we'll look at it and break it down piece by piece. Psalm 32, beginning of verse 1.
0:28David writes, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. Surely, in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him. You are my hiding place. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose Trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise, they will not come near to you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked. But he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. Well, this morning, I want us to turn our minds to the concept of forgiveness. How long has it been since you've meditated on the rich truth of God's forgiveness? You know, if you have been in the church for any length of time at all, then you know that forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel, really the righteousness of Christ, that we need to be righteous, to be made right with God, and we don't have righteousness in and of ourselves, and we need God to forgive us, not to impute our guilt to us, but to impute it to Christ, and we need His righteousness imputed to our account. So you know that truth if you've been in the church, and yet I fear we often get tripped up when it comes to applying the truth of forgiveness to our Christian lives. And this morning, as we look at Psalm 32, I hope and pray that each of us will gain a new understanding and appreciation of forgiveness and how it is to affect our everyday as believers. I think generally we get tripped up over forgiveness and we struggle with confusion over the fact that as believers, though we've been forgiven of our sins in Christ, past, present, and future sins, we still need to ask forgiveness in our daily lives as we sin. That presents a conundrum for us. Of why do I need to continue to ask for forgiveness from sin if Christ has, in fact, forgiven me of my sin? And so, as we look at the text of Scripture today, I pray and hope that we will answer many of these questions because there are good answers in the scriptures and even here for us in Psalm 32. Now, before we look at the verses and sort of break it down verse by verse, I want to talk about some of the context of Psalm 32, just to give us an understanding of where we are. If you look there underneath the heading, it says this is a Psalm of David. And there are very, there are really no one that disputes that fact, that David wrote Psalm 32. He is the author. Not only that, but this is a penitential psalm. A penitential psalm simply means that the subject matter of the psalm revolves around the idea of repentance from sin and forgiveness. Now, when you think about penitential psalms, perhaps your mind turns to Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is the most famous of the penitential psalms, also written by David. But what's interesting is the context behind Psalm 51 that many of us are likely familiar with is also the context behind Psalm 32. And that is David's sin with Bathsheba and his murdering of her husband Uriah. After his sin, there was a long period there where he did not repent of that sin until he was confronted by the prophet Nathan. And when he was confronted, then he repented. And Psalm 51 is David's repentance. And if you want to know how do I repent from sin, how do I call out to God and ask for forgiveness? Go to Psalm 51, read that, and you have a picture on display of what it looks like to ask for forgiveness and to repent of sin. Now, Psalm 51, when we read it, is raw, it's emotional. It's as if David's right in the heat of the moment after his sin. He has just come to repentance and he's pouring out his heart to God. But Psalm 32 is really written after David's had some time to reflect on the situation, after he has learned from his situation. And so, Psalm 32 is not just David recounting his repentance, but it's his instruction to you and me on how we're to respond when we're in sin. So, we get instruction here on how we are to approach God when we have been in sin. It's much more reflective as we read David's words here. Now, notice also it says under the title there that this is a maskill. A maskill is a Hebrew word, and there's a lot of debate about exactly what it means. But here in Psalm 32, it means this is a teaching psalm. It's an instructive psalm that David not only intends to give us a picture of forgiveness, as I said, but he wants to teach us something. And he's going to do that this morning. Now, as you read Psalm 32, you come away with this one central idea. If we could wrap Psalm 32 up into one short statement, it would be this: The blessing of God's forgiveness must drive us to repentance and worship. The blessing of God's forgiveness must drive us to repentance and worship. And we're going to look at three. Observations about forgiveness this morning. Observation number one is in verses one and two, and it is this. Forgiveness produces joy. Forgiveness produces joy. Let's look again at the text, verses one and two. Verse one says, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered? How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Now, in verses one and two, David lays the context for us and gives us an overarching truth about forgiveness. And then from that truth, he's going to give us several sub-points and sort of give us the implications of our forgiveness. But we're going to camp out on verses one and two for a few minutes because we've got to understand some crucial themes that he gives us there if we're going to understand the rest of his instruction in this Psalm. Now notice, he twice repeats the word blessed. How blessed begins verse 1, how blessed begins verse 2. And if you've read the Psalms at all, then you're familiar with this term, how blessed. For instance, Psalm 1 begins that way, how blessed is the man. But we need to talk about the word blessed for just a moment. Now, we can't just pass over that and assume that we understand what he means here. Because the Hebrew word and the meaning of the Hebrew word is different than we often use the word blessed in our culture today. And while I am confident, I know your church, I know your leadership, that the prosperity gospel is not taught here. The prosperity gospel is taught, however, on TV and in media. Churches around the world, and if we're not careful, we can adopt a wrong understanding of blessed because we hear this language around us in evangelicalism. Often, when we hear the word blessed, we think of physical possessions. God has blessed me, and in my mind, I'm thinking of all the things He's given me. That's not what David means here. Other times, when we say we're blessed, sometimes you'll ask someone, How are you doing today? and they'll say, I'm blessed. That's not a bad thing to say. But often we think by blessed, things are going pretty well in my life right now. Things are good, so I'm blessed. That also is not what David means by blessed here. The word blessed in Hebrew is really the word for happy or joyful or exuberant. So we could translate this as, How joyful is he whose transgression is forgiven? How exuberant is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity? And David's going to tell us here who the truly blessed man or woman is. And it has nothing to do with your physical possessions or your wealth or how well things are going in your life from your perspective. But rather, it has to do with whether or not your sins have been forgiven. The truly blessed person is the one, David says, whose sin has been forgiven. Now, he uses Hebrew poetry here. Hebrew poetry is not like our poetry. It's not really rhyming words as much as it is parallelism. That is, repeating the same idea, using just nuances of differences to get this idea in our head. He's going to use this sort of repetition in verses 1 and 2 to convey one major truth about forgiveness. And what's interesting here is if you look at verses 1 and 2, he uses three different words to describe sin, and then he uses three different words to describe forgiveness. And when we put this together and we look at the definitions of these three different words for sin and the three different words for forgiveness, we have a complete picture of really how ugly sin is and how beautiful forgiveness is. So bear with me for a moment as we look at just these words individually. The first word that he uses for sin comes in verse 1. The word transgression. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven? The Hebrew word for transgression refers to rebellion against God. That all sin, every time we sin against God, we are rebelling against our rightful owner, our rightful king, our creator. Every act of sin is an act of rebellion. Now, the second word is the word sin. That's the more common word that we think of. He says, whose sin is covered. But the Hebrew word for sin here refers to the breaking of the law, the breaking of God's standard, that we fall short of God's law, that none of us have kept the law of God in perfection, not even close. The third word for sin here is the word iniquity. And the Hebrew word iniquity is to corrupt or to twist or to pervert. That is all sin. Sin is a perversion of God's good things. You think about that in your life. As you commit a sin, oftentimes you desire something that in and of itself is a good thing that God has given, but you have twisted it for your own desires and made it something that God never intended. All sin is a perversion. So when we take those three words, we package them together, we come away with a full definition of sin. Sin is rebellion against God, falling short of his divine standard, and perverting or twisting what God has given to us. It's perverting or twisting the way he's called us to live, to act, and to think. Now, when we talk about sin in those terms, it ought to turn your stomach just a little bit. In fact, it ought to turn your stomach a lot because the reality is that's the description of us. We are sinners. And if you've come to Christ and you've been forgiven of your sin, but if you've not, then understand if you're an unbeliever here this morning, God sees you as one who has perverted the good things that He's given to you, rebelling against who He is and breaking His law, His standard. That is a definition of sin. But here's the good news: David gives us three words to describe forgiveness. Look back at Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. Forgiven is the first word he uses. It means to lift off, to lift off, like taking off a burden. And if you have been a Christian for any length of time, then you Know the burden of sin, the burden of conviction, the weight of conviction, and the joy of having that lifted off like a heavy load. That's this Hebrew word here of lifting off. David says true happiness is found in the man or woman who has had the burden of their sin lifted off.
12:19But secondly, he uses the word covered at the end of verse 1, whose sin is covered. Now, if we were Jewish people living in David's day and we heard the Hebrew word he uses for covered here, it would turn our minds to the day of atonement. This is a word that specifically brings us to the day of atonement. It doesn't mean, by the way, when he says that God covers our sin, I think sometimes we think that means that sort of here's the sin and God lays a blanket over the sin and covers it and he just kind of turns his back to it. It's there, it's in the room, we're just not going to talk about it. That's not what it means to cover our sin. It really means to atone for our sin, to completely pay for and wipe out our sin. Let me just remind you quickly about the Day of Atonement. It'll help us understand the beauty of this word. Remember, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies. And only on this day was he allowed to enter, and he was the only one allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies. And when he entered, he would bring with him into that place a bowl of blood that he had just taken from an animal, that he would have laid his hand on top of the head of that animal. They would have cut its throat and caught the blood in a bowl. And it is a symbolism to say, God, this one is dying for my sin and for the sins of the people. And he'd bring that bowl of blood with him into the Holy of Holies. And there he would have found the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, the Ark of the Covenant is basically a golden box. And on the top of that box, the lid of that box was called the mercy seat. And on top of the mercy seat are two golden angels, and they're bowing forward with their wings coming towards the middle of that mercy seat. And it was said, it was thought symbolically that there between the cherubim or the angels, the presence of God dwell. And so he would bring in this bowl of blood, and he would sprinkle that blood on top of the mercy seat. And remember, inside this box, this Ark of the Covenant, one of the items contained there was a copy of the law. And so this is beautiful symbolism. He's saying he's pouring this blood out upon the mercy seat, and it's if he's saying, God, let our sin be atoned for. We have broken the law of God, but let it be covered by the blood of this innocent one, coming between the presence of holy God and our sin. Let it be completely atoned. Let it be washed away. That is this word, covered. Blessed, he says, happy, joyful is the one who's had his sins covered or atoned for. That's the imagery that should come to our minds. Now, there's a third Hebrew word here. It's the word impute. Verse 2: How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. Impute is a great New Testament word, but it's also a great Old Testament word. It's an accounting term. It means to account to someone's account, to put it in their account. So we talk about imputation. That is the idea that for the repentant sinner who's come to Christ in faith and repentance, that God does not impute the guilt of my sin to my account, but he puts that in Christ's account, and he puts the righteousness of Christ and imputes that into my account. That is the word imputation. And what he's saying here is: Blessed is the one who God does not impute iniquity, does not impute or count the guilt of his sin to his account, but instead counts the guilt of that to the account of an innocent one. So we put all that together then and listen to the beauty of forgiveness. David says that the one that's blessed or happy is the one who is forgiven and the weight of his sin is lifted off. The guilt of his sin is completely covered and atoned for, and God has not imputed to his account the guilt that he deserves. That is the beauty of forgiveness. And that's the definition of being truly blessed. Well, we can say, God has not imputed to my account my sin. He's lifted off the guilt of my sin. He has covered my sin. Now, he gives us a fourth statement at the end of verse 2 that sort of rounds out the idea. He says, and in his Whose spirit there is no deceit. The one who's blessed is the one who has no deceit in their spirit. And he highlights for us a very important reality that we don't like to think about sometimes, and that is this. When you are walking and living in a pattern of sin, and you're claiming to be a believer who's right with God, you are a liar and a deceiver. You are acting outwardly as if everything's okay. Me and God are fine. When you know good and well inside, you are living in a pattern of sin. And what David says, blessed is the one who has no deceit in his spirit because he's confessed his sin. He's been honest. But as long as you harbor that sin and hold on to that sin, the Scripture would say you are living as a deceiver and a liar. Blessed is the one who does not live that way. Now, if you read these two verses and you say, wow, that just sounds like it could have come out of the New Testament. Well, the Apostle Paul thought so as well, because in Romans 4, 7 to 8, just write that down, he uses these two verses to argue the fact that salvation is by grace alone, apart from human merit or works. It's a wonderful passage of Scripture. But it brings a question to mind for you and I this morning. And it is the question, are you truly blessed according to David's definition? That is to say, have you had your sins genuinely forgiven, lifted off, atoned for? God's imputing your guilt to the guilt or to the account of an innocent one. Have you come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Because if you have not, then you are not, by definition, genuinely blessed. The blessed one who has confessed their sin, come to Christ, repented of their sin, put their faith in Him, that is genuine blessing. And if you are a believer this morning, if you say yes and amen, I have repented of my sin, I have put my faith in Christ. And let me ask you: have you begun to take God's forgiveness for granted? How often do you meditate on the richness of this truth that God has imputed the guilt of my sin that I deserve to the account of the innocent Son of God, Jesus Christ? Do you dwell on that daily, weekly? Is it a part of your thought process? I fear that we often think about forgiveness as sort of Christianity 101. That was the beginning stuff. That's what we learned in Sunday school as a kid. That's what I learned in Iwana if you've done that. But no, it's not Christianity 101. In fact, as we grow in Christ, what we realize is that we grow not in the sense that we learn new things, although we do, but we grow in the depth of what we know about the basic things. We grow in our foundation. That is, we grow in our understanding of the gospel. To mature in the faith is not to move on from the gospel, it is to grow in your appreciation and understanding and application of the truth of the gospel. We cannot take for granted the gift of forgiveness. Now, those two verses. Verses stand as sort of an overarching truth, and now David is going to give us many implications from that truth. And so, let's look at observation number two: forgiveness demands repentance. Forgiveness demands repentance. In verse 3, David's going to sort of let us be a fly on the wall for this time period when he refused to repent of his sin and what it was like for him. He says in verse 3, when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. When I kept silent about my sin, verse 3. We don't know exactly how long it was between when David committed these sins, these horrific sins, and when he repented, but it had to be at least nine months because the baby that came from that sinful union is already born when Nathan comes to confront David. So a minimum of nine months, probably more like a year, that David lived in this time of unrepentant sin, harboring this sin inside. And it was a terrible time for David. It had a physical effect on him. It reminds us that genuine believers do and can commit sin even over a period of time, but they cannot remain that way forever. God will not allow it. He will bring them back to himself, as he does with David. Notice David says that his body was wasting away. He said, I was so confused. Convicted under the weight of my sin, that literally I had a physical response. My body was wasting away. Literally, the Hebrew says, my bones were worn out. It was physically oppressive to him, tormented. It says, day and night. That is, David had trouble sleeping. He was tossing and turning in his bed. He couldn't get it off his mind. God wouldn't leave him alone because he's walking in unrepentant sin. And he acknowledges that this is the Lord's doing. He says, Day and night, verse 4, your hand was heavy upon me. This is God bringing his conviction to David, his servant, calling him to repentance.
21:37He goes on to say that my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. The summers there were very oppressive, much like they can be here. If you've ever been out in the sun too long, at the height of summer, working too long outside or whatever, you know what it's like to come in and feel like my strength is gone. It just zaps my strength. So David says, I was like that for that entire period, not because I've been outside too long, but because of the weight of my conviction. My strength fled from me as a physically sick because of this weight of conviction. He's holding on to his sin. But look at David's response. Verse 5. I acknowledge my sin to you, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
22:30Now, as I read David's experience there of what it was like for him as he was in that time of walking in a pattern of sin, some of you here this morning feel as if I just described your life, perhaps. Perhaps you're living in secret sin. You've allowed sin to enter into your life and you are not letting go of that. You're refusing to repent. And you feel like David, the oppression of the conviction of your sin is too heavy for you. And I pray this morning that it would become far more than you could bear to the point that it would drive you to repentance. And if you're here this morning and you're feeling that weight of conviction, the weight of sin, and you know that you're living in secret sin and you're saying, what do I do? How do I respond? It's verse 5. I acknowledge my sin to you. The word acknowledge is not just a flippant acknowledgement. The Hebrew word means I have a deep understanding and I fully disclose that understanding. It's a full disclosure of sin. David didn't brush over his sin, didn't gloss over his sin. You go read Psalm 51, you see he says, God against you and you alone have I sinned. That is the kind of repentance that needs to take place in your life this morning if you're walking in a pattern of unrepentant sin. Come, acknowledge your sin to the Lord. And he goes, On my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And look at this. And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Look at God's response. You forgave the guilt of my sin. Don't just Read over that. In the moment, the very moment that David comes in repentance, God says, forgiven. Immediately, when David repents, God says, forgiven. He doesn't say, now, wait, David, let's just talk about this for a moment. Remember all the things that I've done for you. I mean, I made you the king. He doesn't bring up that. He says, forgiven. I acknowledge my sin to you. I confess my sin to you. At that moment, he was immediately and completely forgiven. We see God pictured like the father in the illustration of the prodigal son, as if he's there, and as soon as he sees the silhouette of his son coming home, he runs to him and throws his arms around him in forgiveness. That's the picture here with David.
24:45And notice following this description in verse 5 is the Hebrew word selah. Selah is probably a musical term that tells us to stop and focus on what we've just read. And David is drawing our attention to this reality of forgiveness. That the response when you've been walking in sin is to confess that sin, acknowledge that sin, repent of that sin, and then you too, at the very moment of your repentance, will receive the forgiveness of the guilt of that sin. What a wonderful truth. You forgave the guilt of my sin. We have to stop and realize God really is this good. He really is this kind and compassionate and gracious and this quick to forgive the repentant sinner who. comes in genuine repentance to him. This is our God. Just let that soak in for a moment. If you're a Christian, that's what God has done for you. Forgave the guilt of my sin, not because I deserve that forgiveness, but because of what Christ has done on my behalf for all who would come in repentance to him. He meets us there at the moment of repentance with immediate forgiveness. No caveats, no fine print, just complete forgiveness. Now, this is not to diminish the fact that there are often temporal consequences for our sin. David had many consequences for his sin, but I'm talking about in our relationship with the Lord, the moment of repentance, there is absolute and free forgiveness. But this brings us back to a fundamental question that we hit on as I began. This question of why do I need to keep repenting? If I was forgiven at the moment of salvation, then what gives? Why do I need to continue in repentance? And the answer for us comes in Hebrews chapter 12. I want to turn there quickly because I think it will help us understand what's going on here as we contemplate Psalm 32. Hebrews chapter 12. And we're going to look at verses 4 through 11. And in Hebrews chapter 12, the author here describes for us what our relationship is like with God now for those. Who have come to know him through Christ. And it's very instructive as we think about this issue of forgiveness and why we need to continue to repent after we come to know him as our Lord and Savior. So, Hebrews 12, let's read verse 4 down through 11. It says, You've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood and you're striving against sin, and you've forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you're without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you're illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems to be not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
28:22Now, let me explain to you how this answers our question, our conundrum of why we need to continue to seek repentance and forgiveness. The answer is: if you are in Jesus Christ, if you've come to him in repentance and faith, it is true your sins have been forgiven, past, present, and future. That's Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That is absolutely true. Before Christ, when you were an unbeliever, you relate to God primarily as our judge and our creator. He is a holy, righteous God. We are separated from him by a massive gulf of sin, and our relation to him is one of judgment and fear. We need to come to him for forgiveness, and we have not done that. But in Hebrews 12, it hits on this reality that once we come to God through Christ, we become literally his children, adopted into his family. So now, no longer then, does the Christian relate to God as judge, but as father. And just like, and he uses the illustration of an earthly father and his son, just like my son, Luke, he may sin against me, disobey me, and there will be discipline for that sin. He never ceases to be my son. The issue of our relationship is settled. He will always be my son. But his sin, his disobedience, does put distance between our relationship that has to be dealt with to bring us back into harmony and unity together. The same way for the Christian. We sin against our father, and it brings distance between us and our Holy Father. He disciplines us, as it says in Hebrews 12, to bring us back into repentance. Repentance and into perfect fellowship with him. But notice, if you are truly justified, if you have received the righteousness of Christ because of your repentance and putting your faith in him, then the relationship is settled. Never again will you be brought back into the courtroom to decide your case of whether or not you will be forgiven. That's been done. But now it's an issue of your relationship with God as Father, and that must be reconciled when we sin. Now turn back to Psalm 32.
30:30That was where David found himself. He was a true believer. He had come to know God. Of course, he's an Old Testament believer, meaning that he looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and put his faith in that substitute. But nonetheless, he was a child of God, but he had experienced this distance in his relationship with God because of his refusal to repent. So God brings him back to repentance, and now he is restored. And don't miss the point of this. The point is righteousness. And Hebrews 12, 10, that last verse we read, said that the whole goal of God's discipline is to produce holiness and righteousness in us. There are some who falsely teach that, you know, when you come to Christ and you're justified, you don't really need to worry about sin anymore.
31:19Sanctification will just happen on its own. You don't need to worry about it. Just live your life and don't worry about sin. That's not true. After justification, the process of sanctification begins, and God does take. Care about our holiness and our righteousness. And he begins to take us from that moment of justification on this journey of growth. It'll look like this, but it is an upward pattern generally of growing in holiness and putting off sin. The goal of the discipline of the Lord is obedience in his children. So our repentance, then, as believers, is essential, not because it determines our justification over and over again. That's been settled, but because it's part of the process of sanctification. Now, that brings us to a final observation, observation number three. And this is our response to these truths that we've seen. Look at verse 6. Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. And surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him. He says, verse 7, you are my hiding place. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance. Now, in these two verses, essentially, really through the end of verse 11, the call, the major response for us as we read about forgiveness and learn about forgiveness is one of worship. It's a response of worship. And he's calling us to do that in a number of ways. The first thing he tells us is it should draw us to repentance, but also to trust God in the midst of the trials of life. As we think about the fact that we've been forgiven, it draws us to repentance and to trust.
33:01Notice he says in verse 6, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. Similar to Isaiah 55, 6, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. And the reality is, if you're here this morning and you're living and breathing, and you are, praise God for that, then you can turn to him now. The season is now for repentance. Come to him today and find forgiveness. But there will come a point where we breathe our last breath and that opportunity is gone. And so you are now in a season where there is opportunity for forgiveness. Come to him and seek that forgiveness. Now, I love what he says in verse 7. I wish we could just camp out here all morning. He begins in verse 7, you are my hiding place. Now, think about that. God is the one he has offended by his sin. And our temptation, of course, is to run away from the one we've offended. But David says, no, you, the one I have offended, are my hiding place. You're the one I have to run to for forgiveness. And the same is true for us. God is our hiding place. He is the one who forgives us of our sins, and he's the one we've sinned against. And so resist the temptation to flee from him, but run to him, begging his forgiveness. And you will find that he becomes your hiding place in forgiveness and in the midst of the storms of life. It's such a crucial point.
34:25And when you look at verse 7, he says here, you preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance. And in verse 6, he said, Surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him. Now, some might read that and falsely think that it means that for believers, no hardship will ever come into your life, that God's just going to protect you from all trouble and trials. The problem is, if you've lived any length of time, you know that's not true. In fact, the Bible tells us that's not true. God does not remove us from the trials of this life. Far from it. He intends to use and sanctify those trials for his good, for his glory, and for our edification. So, what does David mean here when he says, You'll protect me from these waters, and you're going to surround me with songs of deliverance? It is the reality that for the believer, when the trials of life come, that our eternal security is never at stake. We have this hiding place, this resting place, that no matter what may come, we can trust that all is well because I have my Savior Jesus Christ, and I know the worst that man can do to me is take my physical body, but they can never affect my soul. And the fact that I am grounded upon forgiveness through Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus says in Matthew 10, 28. He says, Don't fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who's able to destroy both soul and body in hell. He says, Look, the worst that man can do to you is kill your body. Don't be afraid of man. Be afraid of me, essentially. Be afraid of God, because he is the one who can affect not just your body, but your soul. And if the soul part is taken care of, and you know that you rest upon Jesus Christ, then what can man do to me? Jesus says a similar thing in John 10, verses 27 to 29. He says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who's given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. That is the perseverance of the saints, or rather the preservation of the saints. That is, that God holds each believer in his hand, and he will not let us go. And praise God for that. And so David's reminding us that even in the midst of the trials of life, we have a sure hope if we have the blessing of forgiveness. Now, in verse 8, David puts on his instructor hat. He puts on his teaching hat, and he says, Now let me teach you what I've learned from my experience. Verse 8, I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Verse 9, do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you. It's interesting. In verse 8, he tells us he's going to instruct us. And in verse 9, he begins to give the instruction. And this is his instruction. He says, stop being stubborn when it comes to repenting of sin. That's what he says. He compares us to a horse or a mule. I don't know how much. Experience you have with horses. Some of you may own horses. I love horses. I spend a lot of time with horses. Even a well-trained horse typically does not just come to you unless there's something that you have they want. That's why you usually bring food with you and you call them to come, but you have food that's bribing them to come to you. Then, if you want to ride the horse, you've got to put a saddle on the horse and a bridle on the horse, otherwise, they're not going to go the way that you want them to go. And he's using that as a negative example, saying, Listen, when it comes to your relationship with God, don't be like that. God shouldn't have to come and wrangle you to come back to Him, but you should want to run to Him in repentance. Don't be stubborn when it comes to sin, but flee from your sin and return to God eagerly, desiring to restore that relationship and that fellowship with Him.
38:21He goes on in verses 10 and 11 to say, Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. He compares and contrasts for us the life of the wicked man and the life of the righteous man. And it's interesting because he says, in the case of the wicked, verse 10, many are the sorrows, or literally the pains of the wicked. Many are the pains of the wicked. Now, you might say, well, I have many sorrows in my own life. I have many struggles that have come to me, and yet I'm a Christian. So, what's the difference? There are many, many sorrows in the wicked's life, but there's a Many pains in my life as well. The end of verse 10 helps us. But he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. Here's the difference. Yes, troubles and trials come into all of our lives, but for the wicked, they have no hiding place. They have no one to flee to. They are living on their own. They have no hope of forgiveness. But for the Christian, he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness, that is the Hebrew word has said. It's such a beautiful word. It's often translated as God's loyal love, steadfastness. It refers to his covenant love, this binding agreement that God has with his people, that they will never be, as John says, snatched from his hand, that his covenant love is upon them, his steadfast love. The believer has the hope and the assurance of the steadfast, loyal, faithful love of God. That in the midst of the troubles of life, he will not let us go. That our eternity is sure. And so, unlike the unbeliever who experiences many sorrows and pains, but has no hiding place or foundation, the true believer experiences the loving kindness, and it says it shall surround him.
40:15The goodness, the loving, faithful love of God surrounds him. Now, finally, he calls us to worship in verse 11. This should be the response of each one of us here this morning. Morning, if you're a Christian, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. The forgiveness of God must draw us to rejoice. How long has it been since you have been long in prayer because you couldn't stop thanking God for what He's done on your behalf? How quickly does it come to your lips to rejoice? When you sing songs here as a congregation, do you sing with your full heart because you're so overflowing with gratitude for what God has done on your behalf? David says that should be the immediate response of every Christian. Rejoice, and he goes as far as to say, shout for joy over what God has done for you. Does that describe you this morning? Do you rejoice over the forgiveness that you have received in Jesus Christ?
41:23There are many responses that we should have to such a text as this. We've mentioned many of them. But let me just ask you: if you're a Christian this morning, are you hiding sin in your life? Is there any hidden sin, secret sin that you're harboring and you know it's there and you've been stubborn and you're refusing to repent of that sin? Let me call you to repentance this morning. Take the instruction of David, one who's been down that road and he says, Listen, it's not worth it. Blessed is the man who has that burden lifted off his shoulders, who has the sin covered and atoned for. Run to him for forgiveness. Are you stubborn? When it comes to the confession of sin, does God have to wrangle you like a cowboy does a horse? Listen, don't be that way. Repent eagerly to the Lord, and finally, rejoice in your forgiveness. Be characterized by a disposition of gratitude despite your circumstances, because you realize the true person who's received blessing has nothing to do with my circumstance, has everything to do with the fact that I've received God's perfect and full forgiveness.
42:29But this morning, if you're an unbeliever, understand that you have not been blessed in the truest sense of the scripture, that you still stand as a rebel against a holy God, that you need to be reconciled to God, that you are the stubborn person that it says here that is resisting God. When He has come, He's offered to you His Son, the perfect life of His Son, the perfect death and resurrection of His Son on your behalf. If you would just come in repentance and faith to Him this morning, understand that while these things don't apply to you yet, they can if you would simply do as David did in verse 5: I acknowledge my sin to you, my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And if you will do that, then this will be true of you as well. And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Listen, don't leave here this morning. If you're a Christian walking in sin, repent of that. If you're an unbeliever and you've not come to Christ, turn to him in repentance today, because Psalm 32 teaches us that the blessing of God's forgiveness.
43:30Must drive us to repentance and to worship. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, you've done so much for us in your willingness to come to die on our behalf. We are sinners. We recognize that we need you desperately, that we have run from you. We are stubborn in our sin so many times. And I pray this morning, if there be any Christians here who are harboring secret sin in their lives, that today they would feel the crushing weight of conviction to the point that they'd be brought to repentance and restoration with you. For the unbelievers here, God, save them, reach into their darkness, open their blind eyes, help them to see the truth of the gospel and the goodness of Christ. May they turn to you in faith and repentance. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.