Psalm 32 - The Blessedness of Forgiveness

[Music] our sermon text this morning is psalm 32. we continue a brief study in selected psalms and this morning once again we turn our attention to psalm 32. please listen now as i read for this is the very word of god blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered blessed is the man against whom the lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit for 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 dried up as by the heat of summer i acknowledge 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 iniquity of my sin therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him you are a hiding place for me you preserve me from trouble you surround me with shouts of deliverance i will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go i will counsel you with my eye upon you be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curbed with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you many are the sorrows of the wicked but the steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the lord be glad in the lord and rejoice o righteous and shout for joy all you upright in heart may the lord bless to our hearts and minds the reading of his word and you may be seated would you join me in prayer heavenly father we pray in this moment you would pour out your spirit upon us that in the reading and the preaching and the hearing of the word you would grant us illumination deeper understanding of your word but even more by the power of your spirit we pray that in that illumination you would grant us transformation renewed repentance faith and new obedience oh we pray this in jesus name amen well as the great theologian pastor and church father augustine of hippo lay dying one of his final requests was that someone would come into his room and inscribe the words of his favorite psalm psalm 32 on his wall augustine desired this so that he could spend his final hours looking upon the words of the song and meditating on the blessedness that comes from forgiveness augustine loved this psalm so because as many of you will know if you've read his classic autobiography entitled confessions augustine knew what it was to be a sinner before coming to christ he had tormented his devout christian mother's soul by living a decadent and immoral life in which he rebelled against the christian gospel and after his conversion augustine would later write that that the beginning of knowledge is to know oneself as a sinner and augustine's remarkable life as perhaps the most influential church father was and is an awesome testimony to the life-changing power of divine forgiveness so this morning we consider the same psalm that was inscribed on augustine's wall the psalm that radically invigorated strengthened and supported his life right up to the end and it is my prayer this morning that god would be pleased to to write this psalm inscribe this psalm on the walls of our hearts and that this psalm would have a similar effect on all of us for all of our days well as we turn our attention to psalm 32 we we see that there are three distinct aspects of the psalm in verses 1 and 2 we see a statement a declaration of a powerful principle in verses three through five we see the support of personal testimony and in verses 6 through 11 we see a series of pointed admonitions a powerful principle personal testimony and pointed admonitions if you're new then i i should tell you i don't always have three points and they're actually rarely alliterated but it just seemed to work out this week let's consider each in term first we encounter the powerful principle verses one and two is really the heart the foundation of the entire psalm blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered blessed is the man against whom the lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit now before we proceed to the nature of forgiveness i first want us to consider for a moment the the reality of blessedness i think this is a concept that we tend to think too little of in our day we see we say things like bless you when a person sneezes or we say bless your heart in any number of contexts and what we tend to mean by bless is we're offering some kind of nice polite word of encouragement something that is added on to your regularly scheduled life but the notion of blessing is much larger and more significant in the scriptures in fact i would argue it's one of the central themes in all of the bible we see this theme emerge right from the beginning of the biblical story where god creates the man and the woman in his own image and the first thing he does after creating them is pronounce a blessing upon them genesis 1 28 says it very simply and straightforwardly and god bless them and to be blessed by god then is to receive god's favor it is to receive it's god's gift of life and and right relationship with him and as we see throughout the scripture in many contexts it is synonymous with divine salvation a great example of that is in genesis chapter 12 right genesis 12 is one of the great foundational promises of salvation in the old testament there in genesis 12 god says to abraham i will make of you a great nation and i will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing i will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you i will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed now lest we say well that's just kind of god giving abraham temporary blessings but material blessings this world blessings in the land and the author of hebrews makes it very clear in hebrews 11 that abraham understood these blessings not just as temporal earthly blessings but as blessings that were eternal in nature they had to do with that great heavenly city whose designer and builder is god so know this when david says in this psalm blessed is the one he isn't just saying mazeltov my best wishes go with you may you may you experience a little more success in life and a little less strife than you might have otherwise now what he is saying here in no uncertain terms is real and true life comes to the one gracious divine favor rests on the one god's salvation and communion with god comes to the one whose transgression is forgiven and this then turns our attention to forgiveness itself for forgiveness is what ushers us into this blessing now as we unpack david's claim of forgiveness here and the blessedness that comes from forgiveness we need to know that david is assuming some things here he's assuming things that are explicit elsewhere in the scriptures but are only implicit here in this psalm but what we want to do this morning in order to really understand david's understanding of forgiveness is we need to unpack reveal and declare some of david's implicit assumptions because they shed important and necessary light on our understanding of forgiveness the first such assumption has to do with sin that sin is in fact disobedience or the violation of god's law and the bible teaches and david believed that sin has had and has dreadful consequences the scripture says that god's curse god's judgment god's wrath rests upon the sinner and that the consequences of sin are death and separation from god david knows from the scripture that sin cuts one off from the blessing of god and that this has always been the case going back to the beginning of genesis it was declared for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die david is aware of the right just and true wages of sin and david is also aware without he make no mistake david is aware that all people are sinners the author of psalm 32 david is also the author of psalm 51 where david wrote i was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me david's also the author of psalm 14 where he writes all have turned aside there is none who does good no not one you say david was convinced by scripture and then david testifies in scripture that by nature and by choice all people are sinners all people have then sinned and all people are by nature cut off from the blessing of god and rightfully stand under his wrath and curse and yet what david also knew which is at the heart of this psalm is that god had established a way for sinners to be cleansed forgiven covered from the wrath of god and that way involved blood and death see the bible's very clear sin has consequences sin has a just penalty and at the heart of those consequences is that sin requires the death of the sinner but in the old testament god made a way for the penalty of sin to be paid by someone other than the sinner and that way was contained in the sacrificial system where a lamb a pure and spotless lamb could be offered to god as a substitute for the sinner the sin of the individual would be confessed over the lamb literally it would then be transferred onto the lamb and the lamb would be slaughtered for the sinner in the sinner's place this is known as theologians we call this substitutionary atonement and now as believers we know in christ we know and believe that the sacrificial system was ultimately pointing ahead to the ultimate sacrifice of jesus christ for jesus is the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world jesus is the sinless and holy one who became sin and took our sin upon himself he he suffered and died he paid the full penalty for all the sin of all of god's people so that now all who call on the lord all who ask for god's mercy and forgiveness in christ god most certainly does forgive for jesus sake uh an interesting verse that declares this in ways that might actually surprise us despite our familiarity with it is first john 1 9 this famous verse of john the apostle that says if we confess our sin he is faithful and just to forgive our sin right i memorized that verse when i was a kid it wasn't until college that i actually asked the question why is forgiveness an act of justice well it is so because the sin has already been paid for atonement has been made and so for god to not honor the sacrifice of christ which he himself called for and he himself provided for us it would be to dishonor his own word to dishonor his own promise to dishonor his own provision and his own character it would be unjust and this is crucial here because i think many in our world and today even in the church think of forgiveness as mere benign sentiment on god's part as if in forgiveness god just declares hey you know what i'm big enough and magnanimous enough not to care about your sin as if in forgiveness god says it's no big deal don't worry about it but you need to know this morning that is not how forgiveness works it's not how forgiveness has ever worked divine forgiveness has has never been rooted in god's ambivalence towards sin the bible declares from beginning to end god has a holy hatred of sin he hates it so much that in his perfect justice it must be punishment punished and so know this god's grace to us is not demonstrated shown manifested by god deciding to just overlook and dismiss our sin but rather god's grace is shown to us in that he offers a sinless sacrifice to atone for our sin in order to satisfy his divine justice god's grace is shown in his faithful earnest commitment to punish the lamb for our sin in our place so that all who then ask for mercy can be justly forgiven because the penalty of sin has been paid and all of this i would argue is is embedded in david's straightforward claim blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven i think david would agree if i said to paraphrase him blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven through faith in god's atoning work on their behalf a work that is ultimately fulfilled in christ blessed is the one whose sin is covered i think david would agree if i paraphrased him to say blessed is the one whose sin is covered by the blood of the lamb by the blood of the passover lamb by the blood of the lamb that was offered on the day of atonement by the blood of the lamb that is ultimately fulfilled in christ who is our passover lamb blessed is the one with whom the lord counts no iniquity i believe david would agree with my paraphrase to say who the lord counts no iniquity because he has already counted and transferred that iniquity on to the righteous and pure substitute who has suffered and died in your place and when david says blessed is the one in whose spirit there is no deceit he is not making some general statement about people who are deceptive in general or who tend to lie no he's making a very specific claim in context in how we think about our sin he's saying blessed is the one who has a right and proper understanding of his own sin nature who is aware of his own sinful deeds who understands his deserved guilt and just sentence and need for atonement and forgiveness and cleansing and covering and the counting of the righteous of another to their account augustine as i've already mentioned famously declared the beginning of knowledge is to know oneself to be a sinner blessed is the one who does not deceive himself with respect to his sin i think david is making that same claim and it's the same kind of deception that john the apostle john writes about in first john 1 8 where he says if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we say this morning ah i don't think i've sinned at all we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us if we say to ourselves okay so i've sinned but it's not really a big deal we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we say yeah yeah i i've done it but look what they've done to me it's not my problem it's their problem we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us and it is this kind of self-deception that keeps us from experiencing the blessing that comes to those whose sin is forgiven and covered by the blood of christ so the big principle of this psalm is this that our sin and self-deception about sin it leads to death and divine curse but the divine forgiveness that comes on the basis of righteous atonement it brings blessing and salvation and life it's a powerful principle that serves as the anchor the foundation of this psalm and this powerful principle is then backed up by personal testimony in verses three through five david says i want you to know that my own life experience is in complete agreement with this principle so if you struggle perhaps to accept the principle on its own face then consider my own testimony in support of this claim now david doesn't refer he doesn't give us details about specific sins here but it's it's hard to read this and not think about his experience with uriah and bathsheba and nathan as we find it recorded in second samuel 11 and 12 most scholars would say that seems to be what is in view here many of you will know something about that story and the nature of david's sin he was guilty of engaging in adultery with another man's wife who was one of his generals who happened to be out fighting at the time on david's behalf when david got bathsheba pregnant he then engaged in this elaborate scheme to bring uriah home so that he could be with his own wife and try to then cover up david's sin when you uriah refused to engage in such behavior in order to honor david and his men out in the field david then conspired to have him murdered and then he took bathsheba as his own wife and he thought he had gotten away with it all oh the gross nature of sin i mean you consider the fact that david not only did this in a personal way but he did it before many who were living and working in the palace and the way david then sucked in his commanders and various assistants who not only had to watch all of this take place but had to become complicit participants in it all and the thing that's amazing is that even in all of this when nathan comes to him we see a man who is utterly self-deceived he continues to publicly walk in confident self-righteousness until that deception is broken by the word of the lord through the prophet nathan which then drove nathan to con david to confess his sin as we find it in psalm 51. and now i think here in this psalm david is able to look back on it all and say oh the sinfulness of my sin oh i tell you when i kept all that to myself it was killing me killing me and until my confession came which then led me into freedom and life and joy because i knew that the lord forgave me i knew that there was atonement for me i tell you it was it was only in confession and in forgiveness that i was able to experience the blessing of god because it was then and only then that i really knew and received the lord's forgiveness and was able to taste of that blessedness and i can add my own testimony and experience to david's there have been many times where i have sinned against someone else and in those times very often my initial response is to convince myself i've done nothing wrong or perhaps i'm the offended party i can develop a bit of a callous to what i've done instead nursing my perceived hurt in my self-deception i've told myself i'm the afflicted party i can't believe what they did to me and this at first seems to be empowering but it ends up being a poison that kills the soul and no i have never killed anyone or committed adultery but make no mistake my my sin and my self-deceptions just as wicked just as corrupt just as damaging and yet i can tell you again and again god has not allowed me to remain in that place but i've experienced the conviction of his word which has enabled me to see my sin for what it is to stop playing games to stop rationalizing to confess my sin to the lord and where necessary to confess my sin to others and i too can testify to the sweet release the blessedness that comes from forgiveness it was true for david true for augustine i have experienced it in my own life and i tell you it can and will be true for you this morning i have no doubts that there are many of us here today who who sit here in church and yet we have unconfessed sin in our lives things we are aware of perhaps relational sins that we've committed against someone else in the church or our home or at work maybe even now we're harboring resentment bitterness self-righteousness in that sin maybe there's secret sexual sin in your life maybe you're engaged in pornography or you're in an actual illicit relationship with someone else maybe you're involved in some kind of unethical behavior in the use of your money or some engagement at work we could go on and on but i want to tell you this if you have that kind of unconfessed sin in your life then then almost certainly you are engaged in some kind of self-deception about that sin you've figured out a way to rationalize it convince yourself it's not that big a deal or it's not really hurting anybody or or maybe the person involved actually deserves what they're getting from me so we harbor the sin we continue in it but i want to tell you this morning in accordance with god's word that if if we continue to do this we will experience exactly what david experienced in verses three and four a kind of inner spiritual death a spiritual wasting away with the lord's hand heavy upon us and that will be true until we confess it until we confess it to the lord until and perhaps in some circumstance we confess it to the offended party it is only then that before the lord that we can experience the power the freedom and the grace of sin forgiven it is only in such forgiveness that we can truly treasure the gospel and experience the ultimate blessing of god for we are experiencing and living and walking in right relationship with him well this is the second aspect of the psalm david's personal experience confirming the powerful principle this then brings us to the third aspect of the psalm in which david makes some pointed admonitions as a result of this powerful principle which is supported by david's personal experience david calls us now to engage in some specific behaviors we see this big therefore in verse six and now he's going to turn and call us to something in response the first thing he's going to call us to not surprisingly is a call to confess our sin to the lord he says whoever is godly offer prayer at a time when the lord may be found now i don't think david is changing gears here and now making a general call for general prayer but in context i think what he's doing is making a very specific call whoever is godly in this context is whoever is not deceived with respect to their sin and may they then offer a prayer i think david's emphasizing a prayer of confession to you at a time when you will be found this is a call to know oneself as a sinner and to confess our sins to the lord and this admonition then comes with an encouragement right the encouragement is that god will protect you i think this is important because the confession of sin on the surface can seem very dangerous it can seem very risky right part of our self-deception is often we say to ourselves i can't confess my sin because think of all the trouble i would get in i mean that will be worse than the sin itself i mean if my sin was known i could lose a relationship think of what would happen to my reputation or my position or even my livelihood now i have to say sin certainly can have profound consequences in this life david experienced painful consequences even after his confession and forgiveness because you see often the lord brings discipline into our lives and hebrews 12 makes it very clear that such discipline can be painful but but what psalm 32 makes it very clear is that we can trust god will protect us in all of that and he will preserve our life with him through it all god is not promising to rescue you from any form of consequence or discipline he is not promising the absence of trouble but he is promising to protect and ultimately preserve you through whatever comes your way the rushing waters may come but god will not allow the rushing waters to ultimately sweep you away god is not promising to prevent all trouble but he is promising to preserve us in trouble and ultimately surround us with shouts of deliverance that was david's experience and i tell you it will be your experience as well if you confess your sin to the lord i know this let me just say this a little differently as you confess your sin to the lord we can know with great confidence there is ultimately no divine condemnation for those who are in christ romans 8 1 right we have atonement forgiveness cleansing and so if god chastens know this it's not the chastening of condemnation but the chastening of loving discipline and god will enable his people to endure such chastening and know this divine chastening that comes in the context of forgiveness is always better than worldly blessing that comes in self-deception and the hiding and harboring of sin let me say that one more time any kind of divine chastening that comes in the context of forgiveness it is always better than worldly blessing that results from self-deception and the hiding and harboring of sin that's true because one brings blessedness and true communion with god the other may preserve your worldly position for a time but it brings destruction on your soul so david says confess your sin and entrust yourself to the protection and the preservation of the lord the second major admonition that david gives is don't sin but rather live with a kind of joyful delight in god as you walk in uprightness of heart right that's what he says in verse eight okay he says i'm gonna instruct you and teach you in the way you should go i will counsel you with my eye upon you be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curved with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you many are the sorrows of the wicked but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the lord be glad in the lord and rejoice so righteous and shout for joy all you upright in heart what david is saying here is my children don't rely on the pain of personal consequences to drive you to right behavior don't be like that stubborn mule that won't go the right way unless the bit and bridle is pressing in upon it rather listen to god's word listen to my own experience and trust in this reality on the front end that sin leads to death sin leads to sorrow sin leads to the painful experience of god's displeasure and discipline now this discipline if you're a believer will ultimately be for your spiritual good but david said you'll be so much better off if you don't have to go there you'll be so much better off if in faith in god's word you obey the first time around because you understand what is at stake right and understand this david is saying the god who calls you to obey in the first place is a god of steadfast love a god who loves you so much that he's made atonement for your sin and in fact now in fulfillment of the old testament promises he sent his son to suffer and die in order to set you free from your sin and to set you free from your self-deception and to set you free from all the damaging consequences that sin brings and that kindness should should lead you to repentance so as he says confess your sin rest in his atoning work but then he says having done that now re let's go and sin no more let's worship this great and awesome god as we see in verse 11. let's let's be glad in the lord let's rejoice for all that he has done for us let's rejoice in the way he's made a way for sinners like us to be saved and blessed and in that joy let's obey him let's walk with uprightness of heart and this is the great gospel logic of psalm 32 and it's a gospel logic that's just present throughout the scriptures right we see it in jesus time and time again jesus forgives he cleanses he lavishes grace on the sinner and then he commands now go and sin no more paul does the same thing in romans right the gospel logic of romans is we have to acknowledge that we're sinners we have to confess our sin we then have to receive the grace of christ as found in the gospel knowing that the more we've sinned the more grace we received and then paul says having received the grace of forgiveness knowing that you're cleansed and justified in christ now don't submit yourself to sin but rather walk in the newness of life that is yours in the spirit again it's the same thing john argues uh his gospel logic in first john 1 2 right if you say you have no sin you deceive yourself so confess your sin and he'll cleanse you of all unrighteousness and then he goes on to say now i'm writing you all of this so that you won't sin but if you do sin we have an advocate with the father the atoning sacrifice the propitiation for our sin the lord jesus christ so let's receive and rest upon him and then as he argues throughout the letter in his grace let's seek to love him let's see to obey him you see this psalm and the really the entirety of scripture teaches the recognition of our sin should drive us to the atoning work of god it should drive us to the cross of christ where is the only place we can find forgiveness and cleansing power in the blood of jesus and then we know jesus atoning work is the basis for our forgiveness this liberates us from the condemnation and the guilt and the penalty for our sin but then it compels us to new obedience which is rooted and grounded in gladness and joy brothers and sisters this was david's experience this was paul and john's experience this was augustine's experience and may it be the experience of each and every one of us this day and to the very end of our days let's pray heavenly father we come before you we praise you for your marvelous steadfast love and grace which has made a way for sinners like us to be saved forgiven cleansed and brought into perfect fellowship with the holy god so lord help us not to play games with our sin help us to confess it and to live in the freedom and life that comes from forgiveness and then help us to learn and to walk in new obedience we pray lord for this blessedness in our lives today and all of our days until that day when we stand before you having been perfectly conformed to the image of your son and sin will be no more and oh what blessedness we will partake of that day for all eternity until that day comes give us the grace to repent and to believe and to walk in new obedience we pray this in jesus name amen you

Channel: Westminster PCA, Atlanta

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Keywords: Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, God, Christian, Christianity, Christian teaching, Westminster Presbyterian Church, wmpca, church, reverent, joyful, worship, sermon, preaching, Bible, biblical, reformed, PCA, Presbyterian, expositional preaching, Psalms, Psalm, Sermons from the Psalms, book of Psalms, Psalm 32, repentance, forgiveness

Id: Keoo7DGf1Xc

Length: 38min 47sec (2327 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020