Well, this morning, since we are coming to the table of the Lord, I thought a sermon from Psalm 32 would be appropriate. So I invite you to turn to Psalm 32, Psalm 32. as we consider this wonderful Psalm: of David. Psalm 32, we'll read the entirety of the Psalm, a mass skull of David, this is the word of the Lord. 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 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 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, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart."
And there ends the reading of God's Word.
Today we have the privilege of coming to the table of our Lord, and what is set before us in this wonderful Psalm 32 is a description of the challenge that David faced in this life so that we would have a good understanding of our struggle against sin and the ongoing presence of sin, and how real it is, and how deceptive a sin can be. And this Psalm provides us a wonderful answer and help for us in that great struggle. That's what I'm aiming to address today: that sin is, well, it's discouraging. It's deceptive. And it's important that the scriptures always are calling us back to take very seriously the problem of sin in our lives.
That is not something we do. And, you know, in the life of the church and just in life in general, we see people wander away in sin. We see people harden their hearts in sin. We see people make choices that are very ruinous and destructive to their lives. And none of us are above that. That's why the author of Hebrews reminds us to be very careful because of the deceitfulness of sin in people's lives. And that is such the case with David. That's what this Psalm is capturing for us.
The beauty of the Psalm is, of course, that we can come to the Lord. We can come to Him and know the freedom and happiness of His forgiveness, or we can run from Him. We can stay silent before Him, and then experience all the emptiness and pain and sorrow that sin brings in life.
The Psalm is telling us that really one of the great blessings of this life one of the great blessings of the Christian life is that to enjoy that God forgives our sins. And that you can be sure of that. This Psalm is making that case. This Psalm is showing us God's intention to do that. I mean, how wonderful it is to come and celebrate the supper with that in mind, isn't it?
This is the sort of Psalm that captures what I believe pleases the Lord for those who come to the table. It's not those who thought that, "Hey, I i prepared perfectly. My life, my life was pretty good this week. I didn't do a particular sin this week. Therefore, I should come." That's sort of built into us, isn't it? This is a table for sinners. So what is the disposition that the sinner must have? What is the disposition we must have? And what does the Lord love? He's told us all over: He loves a broken and a contrite heart. These He will not despise.
Well, Psalm 32 outlines this beautifully. Today, in fact, it was Saint Augustine's favorite Psalm. He would read it i think every day. You know his story, right? That he lived in gross sexual immorality for a long time in his life. His mother prayed for him on her knees daily, weeping for her son, meditating on Psalm 32. He said: "The beginning of knowledge is to know oneself to be a sinner." That's counterintuitive to us. That's the very thing we fight against. That's the very thing by and large the church today has wanted to avoid talking about. But the very beginning of knowledge is to know oneself this way.
You notice in verse 1, how beautiful the Psalm begins: "A mask of David. 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."
What a wonderful way to begin the Psalm! David is the author, and he really is speaking of a kind of beatitude of God here a blessedness that comes upon the life of His people, His children. There's a contrast in the Psalm, as the Psalms always do. You'll notice this: The contrast is really given at the end of the Psalm in verse 10, when it says, "But many are the sorrows of the wicked. Many are the sorrows of the wicked. Sorrows are multiplied to the wicked."
So there's, there's really, the two paths that are set out in this Psalm, paralleling back to Psalm 1: the path of sorrows and the path of the the wicked And the path of the blessed and there's no doubt the the psalm is sort of provoking us to ask: Which one am I? Am I one of the blessed of the Lord, or am I one of the wicked who's living a life of sorrow? How would I know? And that's why this Psalm is is so helpful to us.
In verses three through five he tells us how he came to understand this blessedness by giving his story. And and key to this story key to this is that little phrase at the end of verse two You'll notice: "Blessed is the one, the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit." We might put this in very colloquial terms. We might say something like: "Blessed is the man who's not living a double life, a double life, who's honest about his life." who's telling the truth about his life who's not hiding his life
Well, you know David's story. David tried this. David tried to run from the Lord, and that word in verse 3, as it begins for when I kept silent ties together with the end of verse 2: that there was deceit in his life. That is the most common problem that we face in this life when it comes to sin. We just stay silent. We hide in it. And we say nothing about it. not to anyone else and not to God.
Well, David is showing us the way here. That's that's why this Psalm is wonderful. The way here. And he is brutally honest in this Psalm about his life. He is open to the Lord about his life.
You'll notice in verse five he uses three words to describe his path that he chose at one point in life. it was a it's a comprehensive picture here that's given in the Psalm. As he chooses all the words to describe sin, he says: I sinned. I departed from God in the worst sort of way. There was iniquity in my life. I missed the mark in every way that God demanded of me. And I transgressed. Everything I did was crooked and twisted and corrupt. I sinned. There was iniquity. And there was transgression. So he's he's giving us the whole picture here, isn't he, in those verses?
What David rehearsed in Psalm 51 which is a close brother to this Psalm, if you will was written immediately after his sin was exposed with Bathsheba. And there's a tie here to Psalm 32. That's why Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 are so helpful for the Christian life. They are Psalms to constantly go back to when we're in the valleys and struggling against sin and discouragement. It is these Psalms that are meant to shine in this altar to help us.
But you'll remember the particular sin? It's it's one of the things about preaching is it's so good to be reminded of things. One of the things that we go on and we forget things, and some of the most basic of things. But David's story is not unknown.
Psalm 51 was a Psalm that was later written when he was able to consider the big picture of the story. You remember the account?
"One day, one evening, David got up from his bed and walked on the roof of his palace. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite Then David sent messengers to get her. He just took her. She came to him, and he slept with her. Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness. Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, I am pregnant
Can you imagine this mess? In the church, of course, then it gets worse. He finds out that she was married to Uriah the Hittite, and he orders to put him on the front of the battle line, so he gets taken out and taken out. He does the shocking thing about it: is that for months, there's no remorse. A gasping period of time at least nine months he didn't even see it.
Now you might say, you know, "You might not see sin in your life." You notice he couldn't even see this sin, which tells us that all of us could be doing something big or small that we don't see. You could go months. You could go for years. And what Hebrew says is the deceitfulness of sin. It's that powerful. Sin is that powerful. Sin is that deceitful That's why the book says, "Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." It it it has this calcifying effect in the heart. Sin is that powerful.
Why is David doing this? Well, his goal of this Psalm is to help you, isn't that wonderful? isn't that wonderful He wants us to consider for a minute what his life was like in his time of rebellion when he didn't see. And he describes it in verse three doesn't he?
"When I kept silent when I didn't come clean when i lived in this thing notice this: Your hand was heavy on me. your hand was heavy upon me all my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer
You'll notice that the Lord put His hand on me and held, pushed on me. It was a heavy hand. In other words, God didn't let him rest in it. God didn't let him find peace in it. God didn't let him find any happiness in it. He was miserable in it. This is what he's telling us: I didn't see any of that at the time, but after I was delivered, I could look back, and I could see my whole hardening time of sin was absolutely miserable for me.
Isn't that something? You know, why do we send Well, it feels good. It promises so much. It promises pleasure. It promises momentary enjoyment. And that's why we go after it, usually, because we're full of anxiety and stress, and we have some idol that we're clinging to to find relief of all the burdens of this present life.
And here's the problem: it brings says the psalm absolute sorrow in your life. That momentary pleasure? There's a trade-off. You get sorrow. Now, this is this is what's beautiful about the Psalm: is there's crucial difference for God's children when they do this. The unbeliever, you know, he lives with a searing of the conscience. He could never even hear hear a sermon like this. Um, he sears the conscience. It's like putting an iron on the conscience, and he lives in the sin, and though his sorrows abound, he never sees it. He never knows it.
But but notice here: when God says the heavy hand was on him, God wouldn't let David find any satisfaction in that. And God won't do that for you. This is why Hebrews says, "Don't despise the chastening of the Lord. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens." And it's not easy. It says, "I experienced this heavy hand." And you'll notice here, how when we think about sin people as David is describing it here, who are believers he even describes that time in life as totally miserable. That God inflicts the conscience, He works with the conscience, and you have this sense in the time of sin, especially looking back on it, that it was a time of divine displeasure.
Calvin describes all the inward torments that people go through. In fact, he describes mental agony that people go through. That what happens is that people inwardly devour sorrow so much so that grief can turn into bursting outrage in people's life.
What's interesting is David says this happened to my body. It's proven. We don't think about this: it is absolutely proven that sin wastes away the body. It destroys the body. Sin actually has a degenerating effect on one's physical life. We don't think about it this way, but that's what it does. That's what David describes here. He says it it penetrated to my bones. I had no strength when I live like that.
Did you notice that he lost his strength? "For all my groaning, groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up by the heat of summer."
Anyone stuck in a pattern of sin, if you're honest, it can make you sick. Depression comes for various reasons, and this could be one. Day and night there was no relief. There was no relief from this burden.
Well, how did it all change? Isn't that the sort of question of the Psalm? How did how did David find an answer in this? Well, God did that for him. You know what God did? God sent Nathan, didn't he?
By the way, that's what preaching is. God would rather deal with your sin right here, right now, than heavily afflict you. Isn't that beautiful? That's what the preaching of the gospel is intended to do. But people, when they're running in sin, where's the last place they want to come? To listen to Nathan. God sends prophets. God sends pastors. God would love to deal with it right here, right now. That's the beauty of what we're doing.
Nathan comes to David. And I've got to tell you a parable: "There was a man who had everything in life. Oh, God had done so much for this man. God gave him everything. A man who had nothing came one day. All he had in his life was one little lamb. I care about that lamb. I care about that man. Then that rich man took that poor man's lamb."
Yeah, David still doesn't see. "2 Samuel, as the Lord lives, he's King. The man who has done this shall surely die. And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb because he did this thing and had no pity."
"Amen, David."
"Next words? You're the man. You are the man."
That was the moment that God turned him.
I wonder if I pointed at you today and said, "You're the man, you're the woman."
Next words? "I've sinned against the Lord. It's a bad sin."
Well, it's the practical question of the Psalm. He had been silent. And the Psalm captures that he opens his mouth. And he opens his heart. He says, "I went to the Lord."
Did you notice this? Verse 5: "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away. I acknowledged, verse 5, my, There's the turning point of the Psalm!
"I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity."
Now, that's what we do. That's what we do. Why is that so hard? I went to the Lord. Why is that so hard? Why don't you do that? Why don't I do that? Apathy? Indifference? A sense that God won't hear? Or because you know the hypocrisy is so great?
Here's the beauty of this: the intention of the song this is what I get to preach today I mean what a wonderful message i get to give right now. The whole intention of the Psalm is that the Lord is inviting us to come to Him in prayer, who desires to help us and desires to forgive us.
The Spirit inspired this: "I acknowledge my sin to you. I stopped covering my life. I said, I'll confess my transgressions to the Lord. I'm going to verbally tell him, as shameful as it was, everything I've done. I'm going to repent of this.
Are you ready for the great news of the Psalm?
"And you forgave the iniquity of my sin."
Boom. Done. Selah.
Did you notice that? I mean, Selah means "stop, ponder, don't move on too quick. Hold the thought." You forgave the iniquity of my sin. I was in total misery. I was ruining my life. I confessed, and you forgave. Selah.
"I will confess my sins to the Lord." I said that? That's your definition here so beautifully of confession and repentance and turning turning away from it, confessing it. Two important aspects of this: the Lord inspired this to tell you. Wherever you are, in whatever circumstance you're in, at whatever moment of life, you can come right then and there. He will hear you.
How miserable to think you might have to go to a priest to get it, right? You can go right to the Lord.
My mechanic is a Roman Catholic man. I really love him. He says to me the other day, "You're a priest, right?" He said, "No, I'm a Protestant pastor." Complained about the pope. And I got this from Dr. Godfrey. I said, "You know what? Somebody who is who complains about the pope? He's a Protestant because you can go right to the Lord."
You can go right to the Lord. Confession is acknowledging, beloved observing your path what you've been doing and saying to God, "I agree with you with what your law says. I've chosen a path in my life that's been wrong. I come to you, I confess it. I'm not hiding it anymore."
You see, that's a place of real blessing, is what the Psalm is saying to us. When you agree with God of what your sin deserves, Psalm 51 says you're blameless when you judge and just when you enter into judgment. What David is saying there is: "Here's how you know true repentance. If you were to judge me, and you were to send me to hell, you would be righteous."
That is the last thing anyone hardened in sin would say. It's hard for us to come to this place. You need the Holy Spirit. You need preaching. You need a Nathan.
We live always trying to make excuse for sin that we're victims of circumstance that we've been exposed to what just say a rough upbringing, a sudden tragedy in life. That's why I do this thing, and I'm justified. Doesn't work.
The greatest rarity in our day would be somebody in court. Imagine it, somebody who's caught in a crime and somebody in court to say imagine how our court systems would go, how different it would be, if somebody said, "I'm as guilty as one could possibly be. Show the evidence. Give me what I deserve."
Universally, everyone says, "I'm not guilty."
It's like the Geico commercial. I still can't get it out of my head. I've used it before. Some guy comes slamming into the back of the car, and he jumps out. Both jump out, and you think a fight's going to happen, and they're both saying, "It was my fault. No, it was my fault. No, it was my. I did it. I'm sorry."
It's a very effective commercial. We are fantastic at hiding life. We can sit in church for years without ever having done this. You know that? Because you still don't see It's the most difficult thing to be persuaded: "I have a problem." Oh, they have a problem over there, and that person has a problem over there, and I can see it in the guy next to me. No, you have the problem. You are the man.
"I acknowledge my sin to you. I didn't cover my iniquity. I said, I'll confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave."
Right then and there. There's no break. You'll notice there. There's no pause for reflection. The Selah comes after verse five, doesn't it? And then it says, "Reflect right there." God forgave. Swift answer.
There's nothing that moves him sooner to act, nothing that moves him sooner to declare a sinner not guilty, is when that broken and contrite heart in truth, not hiding, comes to him and says, "Please, oh Lord, show me mercy." And he will.
I'd have nothing to offer today if I couldn't say that. That's what the Gospel's all about. That's why Jesus died.
And you see, now you can understand what he's describing is a joy-filled life.
"Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man whom the Lord does not impute iniquity."
What is that worth? That is the most exhilarating, joyful truth that could be announce today the blessedness of God on your life. the beatitude of god on your life his amazing grace in life is that He is committed to, even when you run, put a heavy hand on you to draw you back. And you'll know the man of Psalm 1, the act of mercy and chastising you to bring you to a knowledge of this is with the goal and purpose that you would enjoy a life of blessedness.
If sin is departing from God, if sin is missing the mark, if sin is corruption, God does what to those who cover? He does notice this He answers in three ways He forgives he covers and he does not impute so he answers every single time. And that's all because, beloved, for our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
This is why Paul so marveled at at David and Abraham in Romans 4 when he quotes this as the blessing of the justification of God: that He imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to our accounts as our Heidelberg says as if we had never sinned or been a sinner, as if we had been perfectly obedient. That's a blessed life.
And that means the whole of the Christian life then is this: it is that when we sin and it will go on in your life. You will continue to struggle against sin. You will stumble. You will fall. You get up, and you come back to the throne of grace constantly and immediately. When you come, He will forgive the iniquity of your sin. Confess your sins. He's faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
You don't have to hide. You see, the Lord gave us the example of David. Put down. I I don't know if any of us would want for all generations to read your own sin, plague-hearted in Scripture before the hearts and lives of everyone, but He did this for you.
Maybe you feel condemned about or shamed about your past. If you're forgiven, you're forgiven. Don't look bad. Don't doubt the Lord's intention to forgive. And you should realize, until you are in glory and you will struggle this way you will not be perfected in this life. We are honest about this. We are open about this. He has made a provision for you.
So with these things in mind, I want to leave you with a few thoughts before we come to the table.
When you sin, come today. Come today. Sin has a hardening effect. David is essentially saying in verse 6, "Don't do what I did. Learn from my departure." Wouldn't the prodigal son tell us, "Why would you even want to go try out the pigsty?" Wouldn't the rich man in hell say, "I should have listened?" Millions of believers have gone for us and telling us that the departure into sin is miserable. It'll wreck you. Don't go there.
Instead, come to the Lord.
"Therefore, let everyone who is godly, notice this in verse 6, offer prayer. Pray to Him. He's telling you. At that time when He may be found, guess what? He can still be found. That's why we're here.
"Surely in a rush of great waters, they shall not reach Him. I think that's amazing. Come, talk with me. I will help you in the day that I may be found. There's a day I won't be able to be found."
And then David says the floodwaters he's experiencing that I experienced when I chose this path You will not taste you will not go through the sorrows that fill the life of the wicked. I will keep you from what a wonderful thing, when that disposition of confessing to the Lord.
But don't be like the horse or the mule. That's what we're good at. I love what Augustine said: "Those who refuse to confess their sins to God and want to be their own rulers find plenty to scourge them. Those who trust in the Lord submit themselves to his rule and find that mercy will surround them."
Beautiful. It's misery without the Lord. It's sadness without him. This is a blessing he gives to you, his people.
In verse 7: "You are a hiding place for me," he said. "You could run to him. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah."
Think about that.
"I will notice how the shifts here of the psalm i will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye on you."
You get the blessedness of the Lord as your shepherd, leading you, counseling you, guiding you, watching over you. The other path? You don't want the heavy hand. The sorrows of the wicked abound. But here's a life for all who are justified: My steadfast love surrounds all who look to the Lord.
Aren't you overwhelmed that God is telling you at the close of this Psalm that His delight is for you to be happy and blessed, to live a life of rejoicing, to know His love, to know His Son who died for you? This is your God. This is the life He has for His people.
So I ask the question: Is there any deep-rooted sin that you need to come and tell Him about today? Is there anything that has gripped you for a long time that you're living in? Are there any addictions you need to confess? Are there any forgiveness issues? Is there any idol you're bowing to?
"Come to me," says Jesus, "and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. and you will find rest for your souls."
With that, all who look to the Lord are invited to come to His table.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, forgive us for our sins. Be merciful to us and bless us. We all confess, O Lord, that sin is very blinding and hardening in our lives. We've all tried it. We have all attempted to run, and we've never found happiness in it. Would you wash us and cleanse us? We acknowledge our sin to you. We do not cover it. We are prone and have the propensities to the worst of things in our lives. But today, as your church, as your people in this place, we confess our transgressions to the Lord. We confess, oh Lord, that we've not loved you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors, ourselves. We repent. And we ask that you would forgive the iniquity of our sin. And that as we come to the table now, you would give us great joy and blessedness in the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.