Psalm 32: Forgiveness, For You, For Joy

[Music] [Music] all right so we're in psalm 32 and we continue our sort of walk through the psalms our series on the psalms we're not going through all of them systematically of course as 150 Psalms that would take a very long time but today we're going to be in psalm 32 and the reason for that is that out of the sermon last week on Psalm 103 bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits and we enumerated some of those benefits he heals your diseases and he caused you to mount up with wings like eagles and one of them was he forgives all of your sins and perhaps no other Psalm in all of the Psalter with the possible exception of Psalm 51 really gets to the heart of the importance of confession and the beauty of forgiveness and so today I opted for psalm 32 and our sermon is titled forgiveness for you for joy and in keeping with the the last couple Psalms that we've talked about here I sort of intro by talking about something that I had watched earlier in the week and we mentioned last week the interview with Eugene Peterson and pop star Bono the week before that was in TED talk by Sam Harris this week's a little different this was a movie that I watched this last week a documentary that I've been looking forward to for quite some time and the title of the documentary is the dawn wall the dawn wall now for those of you that are not aware the dawn wall is one of the most sheer sections of the formation in Yosemite National Park called El Capitan or sometimes just called short El Cap and on all of El Cap there are many dozens and dozens of routes for routes perhaps more than a hundred on El Cap but the Don wall is by far the most difficult free climb of allude up El Cap in fact it's the hardest rock climb in the world of its size and of its length and the documentary is describing the journey of Tommy Caldwell who's there in the picture on the right and his partner Kevin Jorgenson ascending what is effectively a wall with almost no holds on it as somebody who's been a rock climber since I was a teenager 17 years old I can tell you that the of rock climbing up this wall the the technical grade the difficulty the skill to strength the stamina the mental fortitude required to do what these gentlemen have done there would be you know less than 10 people on the planet that could do it and what Caldwell and Jorgensen did is they actually did what's called a first ascent so when you're doing a first ascent you don't have the luxury of knowing that someone's done it before you right it's been done before and this is the grade and this is where the anchors are and this is where the holds are when Caldwell and Jorgensen were in the midst of their seven-year journey to try and free climb the dawn wall they didn't know if it was even possible so they're venturing literally into the unknown and here are just a few pictures that give you a feel for how difficult it would have been to to summit this 3500 foot so just over a thousand meter cliff sheer granite face there in Yosemite how many here have been to Yosemite ok so you've seen El Capitan and it's breathtaking am I wrong am i right it's just it is such a large monolith of rock you cannot see with the naked eye people on it it requires binoculars right and so this particular climb the dawn wall Tommy Caldwell there on the left and Kevin Jorgenson on the right they were on the wall took them seven years to work out all of the sequences all of the moves to become mentally and physically ready to do the climb but when they actually got on and attempted to do the climb it took them 21 days and they were able to finally make their way up the wall and and the the documentary describes the sort of in cinematic form at the the feet but there's also a book the book there on the right that's written by Tommy Caldwell which I'm actually reading right now titled the push and that's what you call it in climbing when you're you've done all of your preparation you've put in all of your anchors you've put in all of your time and work and you're gonna make a push you're gonna try to do what may have even been impossible but in fact they succeeded but there is a point in the documentary and I just want to say this even if you're not a rock climber the Don wall is not only a good rock climbing film it's just a great film I I just highly highly recommend it I'm hoping maybe perhaps even to screen it at our local climbing wall here get a bunch of people in there and watch it it's just so so good but there's a point in the film that just absolutely jumped out at me and and Caldwell has just finished talking about his divorce and he was actually kidnapped in Kazakhstan and and had to push his captor off of a cliff and take the life of somebody so that he and his three climbing partners could be preserved it's just a really amazing story but after he gets back and he has this wedding to his climbing partner and girlfriend Beth Rawdon I've actually met both of them climbed a little bit with Tommy on occasion way back in the day he tells the story and there's this like pregnant moment about a third of the way through the the documentary where there's just this close-up on Tommy's face and he's just thinking about the nature of this project the impossibility of this project and he he asks this question was like but was I good enough was I good enough and and in its sort of purposefully ambiguous in the documentary that the marriage has fallen apart you know the charmed life two professional rock climbers falling in love and and and now the marriage has fallen apart and now he's taken on this task that's you know seven years in the making and and all of it could have just been wasted time just palling around on a rock that's actually not possible to be climbed and so there's this sort of pregnant moment about a third of the way through where where Caldwell just says but but am I good enough what was like good enough to complete the task and as I was watching it's just a brilliant piece of filmmaking it dawned on me that what what Caldwell is is doing in that moment is something we all do probably for most of us it's not facing a sheer granite cliff and wandering off into the unknown wondering if the if we have the physical and the the mental capacity to to scale this that's probably not what most of us are thinking about but all of us in some way shape or form have wrestled with this question all of us have wrestled with the question of being good enough am i good enough for whatever you're Don wall is whatever you're maybe it's maybe your marriage has fallen apart maybe your financial picture has fallen apart maybe you have taken on an academic task or a professional task or a career task that is a little bigger and a little bright it's maybe it's scary maybe you're getting ready to welcome a third child and you're thinking man we've done alright with the first two but am i good enough for a third or maybe it's a first child I mean that's an absolutely terrifying prospect as any parent will tell you that first child is scary am I good enough to be a good dad or to be a good mom am I good enough turn with me to Psalm 32 and as per our custom in this series we're gonna read it through in its entirety as we commence our study through psalm 32 with this question reverberating in our minds am I good enough psalm 32 beginning in verse 1 blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit there is no deceit when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer then I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them you are my hiding place you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go I will counsel you with my loving eye on you do not be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you many are the woes of the wicked but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds those who trust in him rejoice in the Lord and be glad you righteous sing all you who are upright in heart what a beautiful sermon and similar to Psalm 103 last week where where it was just unquestionably and undeniably there's beautiful psalm of praise and of joy and of adoration and of worship and my prayer was that my exposition wouldn't get in the way of the beauty and the sublimity of the of the song I'm praying the same today the psalm like so many of the Psalms this Psalm in particular Psalm 32 just stands on its own it doesn't require interpretation but it invites interpretation in my prayer today is that we will come through psalm 32 with a better understanding of exactly the experience that the psalmist in this case David is having if you look at just before verse 1 in the psalm you'll notice there's a little a little what's called a superscript there just before you actually get into the saw improper it says of David a mask ile now that word a mask eel is a Hebrew word of unknown origin nobody's quite sure what it means it might be a literary term it could be a musical term but it was probably a specific kind of song or a specific kind of musical or perhaps even a literary device that that was designed to communicate something specific and so when David sat down to write this Psalm of Thanksgiving and the theologians the scholars when they look at the Psalms they divide the Psalms in two different kinds they'll say this is a psalm of thanksgiving and this is a penitential psalm and this is an imprecatory song and psalm 32 is kind of a tricky one because it's at once Thanksgiving and yet there's also this penitence this confessional nature of psalm 32 and i'm looking forward to going through with you and plumbing the depths of this amazing song we're gonna start right at the beginning just read through again the first few verses blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit there is no deceit when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my strength love was sapped as in the heat of summer and everybody here being in Australia know exactly this kind of strength sapping soul sapping Heat right when you've woken up and you feel great you're going to accomplish a bunch of things and you step out the door and you suddenly just want to take a shower and then a nap right says my my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer and then this verse 5 all the way till we get to verse 5 and we're gonna find about this Psalm is that this is David reflecting back on his experience and so we can't just go chronologically through the psalm we have to sort of deal with it in its parts because David is reflecting back on the experience and so he says here in verse five and this is really where we're going to begin in earnest then I acknowledged my sin to you I did not cover up my iniquity I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord you forgave the guilt of my sin and marty was exactly correct there when David says when when I kept silent my strength was sapped when I kept silent your hand was heavy upon me when I kept silent my bones were weak this isn't just a general silence it's not just an ambient silence it's the silence of not confessing my sin when I internalized my sin when I kept my guilt inside of me I felt a woe and a heaviness upon me he says but then notice this three times here I acknowledge I did not cover I confessed I acknowledged I did not cover I confess which I suppose for every one of us in our various quests to be good enough and in our various failures of falling short and realizing that at various levels where we're not good enough to measure up to the high and holy expectation of an infinitely holy God we we are faced with the reality of our sin with the reality of our frailty with the reality of our shortcomings with the mistakes the bad things that we've done and the bad things that we've said and the bad things that we thought and at that point whenever we are cognizant when we become aware of our failures we we are faced with a choice and the choice is to confess or to cover we can either confess our sin as as the psalmist here is saying in three ways I confessed I acknowledge I no longer covered or we can try with of course a lack of success with futility to cover our sins now of course we can cover our sins and mask them to those around us even to those that are very close to us but but God is aware we cannot cover our sins in the ultimate sense in his excellent book deliverance in the Psalms which I've quoted from at length in this series and will continue to do so such a great book and I'm just a huge fan of dr. Lauren Delavan a fan of his for years he writes there is hardly any other song which stresses so much the necessity of confessing our guilt before God as psalm 32 in all of the Psalter the collection of psalms 150 of them psalm 32 is adamant you have to confess to cover is futile to cover is a grave mistake confess your sin voice your sin acknowledge your sin to God which kind of raises a series of questions that I've wrestled with and I'm I'm hazarding a guest here and I think it's probably a successful guess I imagine many of you will resonate with me on this why exactly does confession precede forgiveness right many of us would we would assent to that theologically we would say yeah yeah I know I'm aware of passages like first John chapter 1 verse 9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness but if if you're not careful you can actually read that in kind of a scary way look look at how that can be read if we confess he is faithful right if we confess his faithful period it almost seems to tie God's faithfulness up with my confession which raises the question of course well what if I don't confess is he then unfaithful why is God's faithfulness to me in forgiveness why is it contingent upon why does it hinge on my confession confession precedes forgiveness the psalmist makes it clear first John makes it clear many passages in both the old and the new testament make it clear that unless there is confession unless there is acknowledgment there is no forgiveness but why on what grounds is there is there some necessity is there some inherent requirement that you must first the answer is yes this is not God being peculiar this is not God being weird and and unnecessarily persnickety about the order of events or the sequence of events no confession creates the conditions for forgiveness to be meaningful and real without the acknowledgment of the sin without the acknowledgement of the wrongdoing what are we talking about God could say what is the thing that we're discussing now let's unpack this in a little greater detail here without the admission of wrongdoing and identification with it forgiveness has nothing to work with and nowhere to go ok this is a key idea here we're asking the question why must confession precede forgiveness and the answer is there has to be two elements in confession not just the confession of the specific sin but the identification with the sin now let me show you how this works we we fast-forward of New Testament and we've mentioned this before I think maybe even in this series but but just bear with me on this because this is a really good example of the confession and the identification and how it works itself out in really practical ways Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 18 verses 10 to 14 he says two men went up to the temple to pray okay one was a Pharisee a religious leader a a man that was regarded as spiritual and religious a Pharisee and the other a tax collector a man that is regarded on the opposite end of the spectrum right tax collectors were the lowest of the low in 1st century Judaism because they worked for the man they worked for Rome right and so you have you know opposite ends here seemingly of the spiritual and certainly social spectrum and so Jesus like let me tell you a story let me tell you a story about a very holy man that went to pray let me tell you a story about a very bad man that went to pray and everybody would have immediately had a picture in their mind a portrait in their mind a a visceral sense in their mind of how this prayer is going to go and Jesus says this this is what happened the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself god I thank you watch this that I am NOT like the other men I'm not like them and then he enumerates he itemizes extortioners unjust adulterers I'm not like that I fast twice a week I give tithes of all that I possess so in the story and the parable that Jesus is here telling not so much a parable but a story if we were to ask the Pharisee real or imagined are you good enough the answer would have been an unqualified yes I am good enough I am unlike other men they are extortioners and they are adulterers and they are idolaters but I fast twice a week and I pay tithes of all that I possess that's the holy man prank Jesus says now let me paint the picture here of the unholy man praying the tax collector you can just almost feel the the distaste and the the the the visceral response a first-century visceral response of the audience to a tax collector a tax collector having the audacity the temerity to pray standing afar off that's the appropriate posture for a tax collector would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven that's the appropriate action of a tax collector beat his breast as well he should and saying God be merciful to me a sinner now what's fascinating about this is that you could basically let me just say several things here first of all you can see the twin elements here of a confession and identification the Pharisee has no confession of sin and no identification with sin where the tax collector has both God be merciful on me a sinner there's full identification with his sin not just oh I made a mistake or I I stepped on my shoelace I wish I had no identification with his sin I notice how Jesus closes this story I tell you this man the sinner went down to his house justified rather than the other now hold on to that word I've purposely taken that word justified and just underline it there I want you to take that word and put it on a shelf in your mind okay what's the word everyone justified hold on to that word what Jesus does here is something that Jesus often did he he pulls a switcheroo a total reversal of the expectation right when you tell a story about a Pharisee praying and a tax collector praying there would have been a first-century expectation as to how that would play out and Jesus tells the story and everybody would have said yeah that's true what the Pharisee prayed he's not like those others he's a holy man and yes he does fast eh yes he does return tithe and yes the the tax collector should stand far off and he should beat his breast and he shouldn't be unwilling to lift his eyes up to heaven everything is going to script until says it's the man who identifies with and who confesses his sin that goes to his house justified and that's the total reversal plot-twist unforeseen and unanticipated it's a case of I am good enough verses I am NOT good enough without confession of identity without confession of an identification with sin forgiveness to use another metaphor here it can't get any traction so when we say that confession precedes forgiveness God is not being sequential he's not being pedantic he's he's not being small here he's he's simply saying without confession I don't got anything to work with without your identification with sin without your acknowledgement of your fault what are we talking about do you or do you not need forgiveness and another place in the Gospels Jesus would say look I've not come to bring healing to those that are well I've come to bring healing to those that are sick and those that imagine themselves to be well will not seek the services of a physician now let's continue to unpack this we stay there in Psalm we stay there in psalm 32 blessed is the one I've inserted the word here for you the Hebrew word has the connotation the same connotation is the English word happy happy is that just let that settle in there happy is the one joyful is the one elated is the one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered elated happy joyful is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit there is no deceit then this phrase when I kept silent I was not happy I was not exalting and I was not joyful when I kept silent and then you have this sort of this this I was sapped like the summer heat and my bones were weak now there is in fact a tremendous structure to psalm 32 that were just about on the verge of we're gonna be there in just a moment but I want you to feel a little bit more the the the purposeful contrast between the joy of confession and the heaviness of internalizing guilt and shame I want you to just feel that for a moment guilt has to go somewhere guilt will either flee from God as an enemy or it will fall before God as a savior but guilt can't stay put the one thing guilt can't do is nothing it will either work itself out in the heaviness that the psalmist describes is the wasting away of his bones and the strength-sapping summer heat everybody in this room knows this experientially what it's like to have done something wrong long to friend wrong to spouse wrong to neighbor wronged God wronged your own soul and then to internalize it to be in almost continual fear that someone would find out what you've done that that that brooding sense of what if someone knew that I had done this and when we internalize that guilt when we don't give voice to it and when we don't confess it it begins to have such a weight such a soul-crushing strength-sapping weight upon us even perhaps unbeknownst to us it is sapping us of joy and of happiness now let's continue to unpack that psalm 32 verse 5 then I acknowledged my sin I did not cover my iniquity I will confess confess to who this is key to the Lord not to an intermediary not to a priest not to a saint I confessed my sin to the Lord and this is how notice the change in verb tenses here this is how we know that the psalmist is not walking us through this in real time he's reflecting back on it because he says in the past tense you forgave now I just want you to embrace the glory of that and the beauty of that he says you forgave I think many of us in this room would be far more comfortable saying something like this God can forgive or even maybe God will forgive where we're very comfortable with with God sort of eschatological forgiveness or God's future forgive his God God will but the psalmist does something really radical here he he looks back on his own sin and in the case of David there's every reason to believe that this was the very specifics in the very unfortunate and terrible sin of not only the rape of Bathsheba but the murder of Bathsheba's husband Uriah because of an unwanted pregnancy so this is a big thing and yet with those two sins looming over him and we know that there was a period of time there a period of nearly a year after that Uriah had been killed before Nathan the Prophet comes in and says you were the man there's a period in there where David would have warned and felt the sense of it would he be found out would he be discovered and there's no joy there's no joy in unresolved and an undischarged guilt there is no joy in that and and and so David here fascinatingly is not looking forward to a hoped for forgiveness he's looking back and he can say with absolute positivity you forgave how does he know this on what grounds does he know this did God take him to heaven and some sort of a spiritual vision and show him the record of the sin and how it was removed before his eyes unlikely how can David say a murderer and an adulterer and even a rapist how can David say with such positivity you forgave he was relying on the Word of God himself that this is just exactly the kind of God that that was served exactly the kind of thing that he longed to do let's unpack that God's highest will for his creations prosperity God's highest will is for his creations prosperity and lasting happiness be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth God's desire for your life is tremendous prosperity tremendous joy and I'm not just talking economic this is none of that don't confuse my use of prosperity with the you know many of these sort of prosperity preachers and evangelicalism know God's will is for you to flourish God's will is for you to have a great life and to eat great food and to have a beautiful marriage and to have many children and then grandchildren God God desires for you to prosper he wants you to be happy and he he he longs for you to be able to as David said retrospectively blessed is the one in reference to himself living the experience of of himself knowing somehow that he was forgiven unresolved guilt undischarged guilt makes true happiness impossible the weight will bear down on you and it will be it will SAP your strength and it will it will weaken your bones and it will make it impossible for you to really enjoy the taste of a mango and the smell of a flower and the holding of a baby and the beauty of a symphony it will it will suck the nectar out of life for you you can still have little episodic moments of joy and happiness and fun but only until you fully discharge you fully release and you fully give over your sin and your guilt until you have full identification and confession you will have a weight upon you that will actually work at cross-purposes with your happiness it's counterintuitive because we think if we admitted that we were sinners if we went through the experience of the tax collector and identified and confessed we think everybody would know I'm a sinner everybody would suddenly be aware that and we think that would actually work against our happiness and yet what the psalmist is saying is I became happy when I just finally I just put it out there I confess to you Lord and you forgave confession and forgiveness swing wide open the heavy door to freedom and joy there are people for whom freedom and joy feel a million miles away and the reason they feel a million miles away is not because they actually are a million miles away but because you have undischarged and unregistered and unresolved guilt and shame and sin that you have not brought to Jesus you have not had the experience of the psalmist to confess and this is where we get to the structure a man there's a brilliance in this you guys have been you know I've been here long enough and you guys have been listening to my sermons long enough to know that I can nerd out a little bit about literary structure and and I get excited about this stuff and I think I get excited about it because when you find something in the text it's just like wow look at that that's just so powerful not just the words itself but the structure of the words and and the poetic artistry and no where do we find greater poetic artistry and in Scripture than in the Psalms so there are in fact a structure of three s and let's just walk through them that is fascinating first of all you will have noticed in verses 1 & 2 we've read them several times already you will notice the tripartite that's just a fancy word that means three parts tripartite you'll notice that there's a three part structure here he says in verse 1 blessed is the one whose transgressions 1 are forgiven whose sins 2 are covered blessed is the one whose iniquity the Lord does not count against it now I should say here and I might even have a slide to that effect in a little bit that these different words these different Hebrew words transgression sin and iniquity cover the gamut of available sin choices okay they are they have subtle differences of meaning nuances of meaning for everything from from a seemingly innocuous missing of the ideal a missing of the mark to outright rebellion against God iniquity so David here has a full identification he says yes I've made mistakes and yes I've also said but I've also been in rebellion the the forceful intercourse with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah that's rebellion he was the king he should have known better and sometimes we try to sort of soften our sins we sort of try to placate err we serve we sort of play kick I was at what God is it you know I if I had known no no full identification just like the tax collector smiting his breast and saying God have mercy on me a sinner so this this three-part here transgression sin and iniquity we'll come back to the others in a little bit let's walk through this Exodus chapter 34 verses 6 and 7 this is God revealing himself to Moses atop Sinai summit and Moses says now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him that's Moses there and proclaim the name of the Lord and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed here it comes the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abounding in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin you find this tripartite division of iniquity transgression and sin throughout Scripture and it covers the full palette the full gamut of available sin options again everything from a seemingly innocuous missing of the mark to outright rebellion and everything in between God reveals himself to Moses and says I'm the God that forgives iniquity I'm the God that forgives sin I'm the God that forgives transgression a misplaced foot and so here's the first of these sort of threes but we have a second three right right there in verses 1 & 2 but we're going to go through these not chronologically but but thematically okay not not chronologically in the Soliman chronologically theologically and so the next thing the next group of three that we have there is in verses 3 and 4 where he gives the three parts he says my bones wasted away your hand was heavy on me and my strength was sapped these are all poetic metaphorical ways of saying that the weight of guilt and of shame collapsed me physically and we now know by the way which David probably could have intuited that that guilt and what are called psychosomatic illnesses I think I said that right psychosomatic illness is a kind of illness my getting that right David is an illness that actually works its way out into the physical frame but it begins in the mind people become sick or people become invalids because they think themselves to be sick we now know that that undischarged guilt and serious traumatic events can actually make you sick it can give you disease there's some studies increasingly that are that are fingering stress and traumatic events as being one of the things that can actually activate that the cancer responds so so so David is being very honest the very open airy saying man when I kept for that year-long period between the the actual events of Bathsheba and Uriah and Nathaniel saying to me you are the man when I tried to internalize that I tried to just go on with life as usual I just tried to be the king and you know I had duties to do and things to accomplish and I might even to sanctuary and worshiped and but there was a heaviness upon me there was a there was a woe up I mean it was crushing out my soul and he uses these metaphors my bones wasted away my skeletal system felt weak your hand was heavy on me and even my very strength was sapped friends I want to say it this way sin and guilt are burdens to bear the full weight of which are not known until they are taken away like waking from a dream if you're like me and you have very realistic and very you know cinematic and colorful dreams I often I'm unaware I'm dreaming until I've woken up I have had dreams that were so real that I wake up and then I wake up from my waking up friends you might not know the undischarged an unresolved guilt and shame and sin that is upon you and you you can't know how heavy that backpack is until you take it off and lay it down and then you start to feel light and you begin to have the experience that David describes here in psalm 32 verses 1 - I'm happy happy is the man who confessed this soul sapping strength-sapping weight crushes us out in fact what better place to go to demonstrate that sin is a burden sin is a weight then Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 that great messianic prophecy that great messianic anticipation of the suffering Messiah and what I want you to notice coz many of you have heard this before or read this before what I want you to notice specifically here today it's not a thorough treatment of Isaiah 53 what I want you to notice really simply is how many times Isaiah uses the metaphor or the language of weight or of burden or of load notice Isaiah 53 verses 3 to 11 he is despised and rejected by man by men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we did not esteem him surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted but he was wounded our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities surely the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by His stripes we are healed all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all yet he was oppressed and even there in English the root word of oppressed of course would be to press he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth he was led as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before it's Shearer's is silent he did not open his mouth he was taken from prison and from judgment and who will declare his generation for he was cut off from the land of the living and that for the transgressions of my people he was stricken and they made his grave with the wicked but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence nor it was any deceit found in his mouth yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him he has put him to grief when you will make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant shall what's that word that's the word that's on a shelf in your mind put it doubly on a shelf in your mind we're gonna come back to that word by by my by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many before here it is a fifth time he will bear their iniquities I I don't know exactly what it is that God showed Isaiah in cinematic vision it's possible that he actually fast-forwarded and showed him the cross event I don't know if he showed him a metaphor of the the death of Jesus and the sufferings of Jesus or if he literally showed him as it were like the video tape in advance but whatever the thing that Isaiah saw was the thing that impressed Isaiah was that it looked as though the suffering servant was being weighted down with something sin is a weight guilt is a weight shame is a weight upon us this is the point the psalmist makes when I shut up before I confess I felt my soul being crushed I thought I could internalize it I thought I could keep it from others but it was actually killing me when sin was placed on Jesus who is God incarnate it killed him what do you think it will do to you if sin has the capacity to buckle the knees of God what will sin do to you here's our second through our third three here this is in verse five which I don't even think we've gotten to yet perhaps we have look at verse five of psalm 32 yes we have then I acknowledged my sin to you number one I did not cover up my iniquity number two and I said I will confess so you have this really subtle but important structure of a series of threes transgression sin and iniquity bones wasting hand heavy strength shaft and so if I have a tripartite problem I need a tripartite solution I acknowledged I did not cover and I confessed I confessed my sin we asked the question earlier why why confession why is confession necessary for forgiveness because without confession God has nothing to work with there's no traction without an identification with sin God what are we talking about here God might be heard to say back to Lauren Dell and his deliverance in the Psalms he unpacks each of these words the Hebrew word for forgive literally means that sin is removed or lifted up as a burden I've underlined that for you so you can hear that even the word itself is too relieved of a burden from the conscience covered indicates that confessed guilt and I love this oh I love this I hope you love it covered indicates that confess guilt is no longer seen even by the eyes of the Lord the judge himself so it's not like God is saying wink wink nod nod when your sin is covered even God does not see it evidently sin is covered only when it is concealed by God himself through the blood of the atonement Jesus no wonder when Adam and Eve sinned there that primordial sin of our earliest parents the the knee-jerk reaction the instinctive reaction was to cover themselves to cover themselves finally without any figure of speech David states most directly what forgiveness means the Lord does not count sin against him we actually heard that last week this is from last week Psalm 103 verses 9 and 10 he will not always accuse normal he his anger forever he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay US according to our iniquities that's that's another way of saying he doesn't count your sins against you we noted this last week in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 this all sounds very Pauline the word Pauline is just like Paul it all sounds very Paul like in fact commentators sometimes refer to many of the psalms as the pauline psalms and guess what psalm 32 is the Pauline song it sounds like Paul now what was the word that was on a shelf in our mind who remembers what was that word was the word justified we saw the word justifying Jesus treatment of the Pharisee and the tax collector and then even Isaiah said justified we know those of us that are students of Scripture this is one of Paul's favorite terms justify to to justifying you might be wondering well what it would justify mean and here's probably the simplest definition it's a bit of a cutesy definition but it works to to be justified is to be treated just if I'd never sinned just if I hadn't sinned is how I would be treated in other words if your sin is not counted against you if even God and all of his omniscience doesn't see your sin because it's so wrapped in the atonement of Jesus we quoted this verse last Sabbath if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things have become new he has given to us the Ministry of reconciliation that is God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself how did he do that he did not impute I've put some synonyms for you here he didn't count he didn't reckon their trespasses to them this is very psalm ik this is Paul saying hey I did sin I did commit iniquity I did transgress but but when I confessed God treated me as if I hadn't and it didn't happen a year later it happens instantaneously the liberation from the Soul sapping skeleton destroying weight of guilt is gone in a moment I'll get back to that in a second this psalm the very psalm that we're in today psalm 32 is quoted at one of the most crucial parts of the argument in Romans the book of Romans of course is the most thorough treatment of the great truth of salvation by faith in all of the Bible the book of Romans is that the queen of the epistles of Paul it is it is the royalty of the epistles of Paul and at a crucial place in the argument that Paul is making about how we are not saved by works we are not saved by the keeping of Torah were saved by the faithfulness of Jesus at a crucial place in that argument he quotes psalm 32 let me read it for you here's Paul Romans chapter 4 verses 4 to 8 now to the one who works wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation hey you owe me I work for you you owe me money however to the one who does not work but trusts God who what's the word there justifies the word is inescapable this is Jesus word this is Isaiah's word and perhaps more than anyone else in the New Testament this is Paul's word justifies this is Jesus word this is Isaiah's word I put it right there for you in brackets justifies the ungodly their faith is credited as righteousness it's accounted to them as righteousness and then notice what Paul says I love this he says David says the same thing this is what's meant by a Pauline Psalm they did Paul is say Paulo saying David said the same thing that I'm saying when he spoke of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works and then he quotes our psalm he quotes the psalm we're in today blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the one whose sin our iniquity the Lord will never count against them do you long to be free from the burden of shame and sin and guilt do you long to be justified do you long to have that light airy freedom that can come only from a knowledge not that you might someday possibly perhaps be in a right standing with God but that you are in a right standing with God do you long to be able to say with David you forgave past tense the only way to get from A to C is through B and B is to confess is to acknowledge is to not cover now notice the confession was to the Lord you don't have to confess your sins to me I'm not a priest I'm no conduit for the grace of God any more than you're a conduit for the grace of God I'm not a vehicle that that dispenses you know the the sacraments to you and in some sort of ecclesiastical way now you don't have to come to me you go straight to Jesus you go straight to God can somebody say Amen that's how now listen if you've wronged your brother if you've wronged your spouse if you've wronged your sister if you've wronged your neighbor yeah you can confess that specific sin to them but you don't confess sins generally to people you confess your sin to God you acknowledge it you own it you take you take ownership of it you identify with it our fourth three notice this it's so great back to verses 1 & 2 did you notice the languages David is looking back retrospectively on his experience of joy and happiness notice that he uses three words a tripartite solution to a tripartite problem again the word tripartite just means just means three parts look at this blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the one to whom the Lord does not count sin against them let's talk about that a little bit forgiveness is the cornerstone of the whole New Covenant you can't even get the New Covenant off the ground without this idea of forgiveness let's just remind ourselves of the New Covenant from strangely enough to some an Old Testament book Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 31 that's always easy to remember if you ever confused about the New Covenant you remember 31 31 31 31 you just have to remember it's the Book of Jeremiah Jeremiah 31:31 behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a what kind of covenant a new covenant with the house of Israel in with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I brought them out of the took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt my covenant which they broke though I was a husband to them says the Lord this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my law in their minds I will write it on their hearts I will be their God and they will be my people no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying know the Lord for they will all know me you won't need intermediaries and and educators everyone can have direct access to me Moses won't have to go to the top of the mountain in the New Covenant you can just go straight straight to the source from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord and then here's the final clause in the great New Covenant promise this is the the the door on this is the hinge on which the whole door of the New Covenant swings I will forgive their wickedness and their sins I will what's the word remember no more friends the great promise of the New Covenant the great promise of the not just Psalms and not just the Gospels and not just Paul the great promise of scripture and of the New Covenant is that God will forget your sins but not unless and until you confess them because if you don't confess there's nothing to forgive if there's no identification an itemization of sin what are we talking about and it doesn't have to be a particularly fancy or or you know well-versed elaborate prayer I mean you might just find that all you can do is cry your eyes out smite your breast and say God have mercy on me a sinner with an unwillingness even to lift your eyes to heaven and Jesus says that's enough you go down to your house justify you don't have to pray with the eloquence of a Shakespeare or any such thing just speak to God I was speaking to somebody just yesterday Jeffrey flew right in he was saying to me that when he goes on his commute from place to place he prays and he says he he'd made this little switch that was very problematic but also very enlightening for him he stopped thinking that he was talking to Jesus somewhere in the sky somewhere out in the atmosphere and he started talking to Jesus as he would if he was sitting in the passenger seat and he said it totally changed his prayer if you just like if you're talking to somebody that's sitting next to you it's a very it's more casual it's more authentic it's not a well-rehearsed you know theatrical Oh God in heaven we look to the upon thee we cast ourselves on your breasts now it's just forgotten man I really blew that last Agyei just opening honest acknowledging no wonder the prophets Micah Jeremiah and others would say things like this Micah's chapter 7 verses 18 to 19 who is a God like you who pardons notice that here we go you ready see forgives transgression of the remnant of his inheritance you do not stay angry forever you Dilla you love to show mercy you will again have compassion on us you will tread our sins underfoot and you will hurl hurl here it is three parts our iniquities into the depths of the sea Mika's like who's like you you're not a God that keeps count is okay up there's number that's number three thousand seven hundred and forty four this week I got you I know you're gonna get to three thousand seven hundred and forty five and break your previous record no this is a God who's just waiting for the confession waiting for the identification so that he can quickly forgive and forget so beautiful who was a God like you we saw this last week in Psalm 103 he will not harbor his anger forever we talked about how God has a big nose and for those of us that struggle with you know the sort of theology of it all Psalm 103 gives us a series of illustrations as high as the heavens are above the earth as far as the east is from the west as the father has compassion on his children I mean what do you need here we talked about this God gives us a spatial metaphor a philosophical metaphor a paternal metaphor he's he's trying to help you to see hey look I want I can't wait to take your sin in your shame and your guilt away from you I I'm waiting I'm waiting here with bated breath let's do this let's start a new life right Mike as metaphor as different still he hurls our iniquities to the depths of the sea God longs to forgive but sometimes he doesn't got anything to work with because he's not dealing with sinners there's nothing to forgive of course there is but until there is the acknowledgment until there is the identification until there is the confession what are we talking about God could be heard to say and then finally how else could it be how else could it be but verse 11 rejoice in the Lord and be glad you righteous sing all you who are upright in heart rejoice be glad and sing if we've got a three-part problem in a three-part solution we better have a three-part rejoicing can Leon say Amen you rejoice the root word of course is joy be glad and seeing how many know the old song burdens are lifted at Calvary raise your hand if you know that old song I got the lyrics here I just wanna days are filled with sorrow and care that sounds like psalm 32 hearts are lonely and rear burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very near cast your care on Jesus today leave your worry and fear burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very near troubled soul the Savior can feel every heartache and tear burdens are lifted at Calvary Jesus is very near friends I want to tell you something the reason that burdens are lifted at Calvary is because burdens were levied at Calvary they were levied on Jesus at Calvary so they could be lifted from you you realize that that's sin that you're carrying around has already been borne by Jesus that guilt that you're carrying around has already been borne by Jesus you're carrying the full weight of something that's already been carried for you the reason that burdens can be lifted there is that burdens were carried there the great staggering burden of sin that Jesus stumbled into Gethsemane and said my soul is exceedingly sorrowful to the point of death what if sin can crumple the knees of God what do you think it's gonna do to you get rid of it it's toxic it's nuclear it's soul destroying it's cancer giving give it up confess it get rid of it give it to Jesus I tweeted this just this week those that God forgives that's that's me that's you if we confess we're the ones that God forgives but notice what notice what I've said here I want you to follow this carefully had tweeted this just this week I spent a while sort of articulating this just exactly as I wanted it to sound those that God forgives are called to contemplate to think to meditate to ruminate those that God forgives are called to contemplate the cost and the conditions of that forgiveness you don't happen in a vacuum it it happens at Calvary you you're going to receive the forgiveness spend a little time dwell at the place where forgiveness is made available and and then this is the punchline of what I tweeted there for those that are forgiven should not repent with a purpose to sin again and then sin with the purpose to repent again this is how you can test your own sincerity by the way you can test your own sincerity by gauging how you view repentance and how you view sin if you've just committed that sin if you've just done that thing you said you wouldn't do again if the attitude is oh well I can still be forgiven that's a that's a litmus test of your own sincerity or if you if you find God how could I have so traversed and transgressed the country you and I've had this conversation before and yet I failed again the the emotional psychological reaction to sin is itself the evidence whether or not you've really wrestled with the cost of forgiveness we don't sin with intent to repent again and we don't repent with an intent to sin again sin is something that we want to be free of that we want to be away from and today Jesus is inviting you into the joy of the New Covenant the joy of forgiveness you will remember that part of the new covenant is that is that no one will have to teach you God will teach you God Himself will teach you well we're gonna wrap this Psalm up and I'm going to invite the musicians to come up and sing a closing song and we're gonna make an appeal notice how new covenant psalm 32 is were in verse 6 therefore all the faithful pray to you while you may be found just a thought on that I received a note just this morning that a dear friend of mine has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor didn't know until this morning we don't know yet the kind of tumor or if it's inoperable but but when it says that seek the Lord while he may be found it doesn't mean that God's gonna disappear it means that your lives are all mortal you're you don't know you have no guarantee so don't wait until tomorrow don't know no today is the day of salvation scripture says therefore all the faithful let all the faithful pray to you while he may be found while you still have breath to breathin and ears to hear and a mouth to speak surely the rising of the mighty waters they're not gonna reach these you are a hiding place you will protect me from trouble surround me with songs of deliverance oh I love that language that metaphoric picturesque language there that we are surrounded by the fortress of God's own songs of deliverance and then notice this notice how New Covenant this is in verse 8 I will instruct you God says I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go I will counsel you with my loving eye on you don't be like a horse or a mule that needs a bitter a bridle in its mouth to be let around without understanding now many are the woes of the wicked but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds those that trust in him friends God will instruct you God will teach you teach you the fulfillment of the New Covenant promise is number one forgiveness and number two instruction God will forgive he invites you to enter into the joy that can only be found when you release and relinquish and discharge that burden and then God will teach you how to live better God will teach you how to live the best version of your life why wait when Jesus is there and he's holding out happiness and he's holding out pleasure and he's holding out joy and he's holding out freedom and he's holding out rejoicing and he's holding out worship what do you what are you holding out for let's pray together [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Length: 58min 10sec (3490 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 28 2018