Our text this morning comes from Psalm 32. If you're looking in your pew Bibles, that is page 587. 587. Psalm 32, we'll be reading all the verses. A mascal 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. 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 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 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 the 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 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. Would you pray with me? Lord, we are weak and needy people in need of your wisdom and your word and your spirit. And so we pray that your spirit would come and be effective and active here. That the hearts of your saints would be built up through this message, Lord. And it is in your name that we pray. Amen. One of the things that really amazes me about the Psalms is David's understanding of his own sin. David, of course, was known as the man after God's own heart. And yet when we look at his life and we examine his life, we see all types of sins and all kinds of faults. And of course, the first sin of his that pops into our mind is his sin with Bathsheba. Committing adultery with another man's wife and then killing her husband to cover up his own sin. And although we aren't exactly sure what sin David is keeping from God in our passage this morning, we can be sure that another one of David's sins was his refusal to repent, his refusal to lay everything bare before God, because David is treasuring some secret sin that he will not reveal to his father. And we aren't so different from David, of course. I mean, what is the first thing that we want to do when we sin and displease God? Well, like our first parents, Adam and Eve, we want to run and we want to hide and we want to cover our shame and our sin in fig leaves. But the fact of the matter is that God sees right through the feeble attempts that we make at covering our own sin. And in fact, sowing our own fig leaves and trying to hide our own sin only makes God's hand fall down heavier upon us, as David says in verse 4. Look at verse 4. He says, For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Now the non-Christian man does not feel the heavy hand of God. in this way. The non-Christian man will sometimes feel the tinge of guilt. He'll sometimes feel guilt of conscience, but that's not what David is going through here. Reserved for the Lord is the discipline of the saints. It's as if God is pressing against us and he's saying, I see everything you're doing. I see it. Why don't you come to me and confess? Why are you hiding? David says that his strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Now in California, we get an awfully good taste of that, don't we? If we try walking along the sidewalk in the hot sun for six hours with no water and with no food, we will quickly begin to feel our strength sap. And we'll begin to struggle for each next step. And that's what David is going through here this morning. Oftentimes, the Christian treasures secret sins. And when he refuses to repent, God will relentlessly pursue on him guilt of conscience and a storm in the soul. And guilt really is one of the worst feelings that we feel as human beings, isn't it? I mean, guilt is awful. But God uses guilt as his tool to weed out in us sinful ways that we cherish. There was no moment of time that David could get away from this feeling of dread and guilt. And he says that it was day and night. And due to God's heavy hand, due to God's pressing on David to bring him to repentance, David is weary. And he falls under the weight and he confesses everything to God. Look at verse 5. It's a very quick resolution to David's guilt. David says, 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 iniquity of my sin. Now, we don't know how long David had gone feeling like his bones were wasting away. But we can surmise from the nature of David's anguish that this was a long time that David had not let go of this sin. And what God was doing the entire time was pressing on David, waiting until the appropriate moment to pry David's fingers off of this idol, off of this cherished, secret transgression, and to turn his heart back to him, back to God. We're going to jump back to verse number two really quickly. In verse two, David says this, Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Now ask yourself the question, how can David say that? What does he mean by no deceit? Because if we think about it, David has been extremely deceitful in keeping his sin from God for such a prolonged amount of time. So what does David mean? In whose spirit there is no deceit? Well, what David is saying is that to keep our sins from God is the most deceitful thing that we can do. Because God sees the intentions and the thoughts of our hearts. He sees the evil that resides in all of our hearts and everyone sitting here this morning. And 1 John says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That means that keeping our sins from God is as deceitful as saying that we have no sin or that there's no longer a sin problem for the Christian. And so the most honest thing we can do is lay ourselves bare before God. The most honest thing we can do is pull open our chests and confess everything. There's no need to protect our dignities before an all-seeing God. Our dignity comes from Jesus Christ. And David feels the weight of his sin. It's as if a large bag of bricks has been placed on his back and it's weighing him down. Have you felt the kind of guilt that David feels in this passage? The kind of guilt that unsettles you in your soul? The kind that makes you groan at what you have done? Have you felt the heavy hand of God upon you? It's not a matter of how much guilt you have felt. Have you felt guilt over your sin? And if you have, what does our passage tell us to do with the guilt that we continue to struggle with as Christians? What do we do with the sin that continues to cling so closely to us still? Well, it tells us to confess. Look at verse 5 one more time, right there in the middle. David says, I will confess my transgression to the Lord. And so David is settled in his mind. He's done with the overwhelming feelings of dread and guilt. He's done with the torment of his conscience both day and night. And so he confesses everything. And what happens when he confesses? Verse 5 again says, And you forgave the iniquity of my sins. My sin was bad. My sin was heinous before you. But when I confessed my sin, And so with days of anguish, days of torrents of guilt washing over David, he finally confesses his sin. Two whole verses are dedicated to the anguish of David's guilt. But one sentence, one sentence is dedicated to the resolution of David's problem, of David's guilt problem. And so here's a question for all of us this morning. What are we waiting for? The resolution to our guilt, to our sin that we still commit and that we still feel is ready. It's at hand. The reconciliation between child and father can take place so quickly. I'm reminded from this passage of the prodigal son. Remember that the prodigal son, he takes his inheritance early and he goes to a far country and he squanders that inheritance with parties and with prostitutes. But when the river of money runs dry, he finds himself in the pig pen. And the Bible says that he longs to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating. And then what does it say? It says that he came to himself. And he says, I'm going to go back to my father. Well, that is what David is going through in our passage. He's saying, I tried to run from God. I tried to hide my sin from God. And it didn't work. I felt no peace. And so I will return to God. I will confess my sin. And when David confesses and God forgives him, what does it say next in verse 6? It says, Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. And so David puts himself as an example for all Christians. And he says to all Christians, look at me. No, look, look what happened when I hid my sin from God. When I kept my transgressions from God. But then look what happened when I confessed my sin. Look at how God forgave me. And you too, fellow believers in the Lord, do the same. David says that everyone who is godly should offer prayer to God while he may be found. But what's a main reason why we don't often pray to God? It's precisely because we don't feel godly. We haven't reached that standard where we feel good enough about ourselves to come to God. Now, David has not been what we would call a godly man. He's sinned and he's kept his sin from God. But the point that David is making is that godliness is found in something that we don't often think it's found. He didn't say that godliness is found in feats of my own strength. He didn't say that godliness is found in my own righteousness. He said that godliness is found in exposing myself before the living God as the sinner that I am. And that means that sheer honesty about ourselves before God is actually a mark of godliness. Now continuing in verse 6, David writes, Surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him. So in humbling myself as a sinner before God, in confessing my sins, the waters of judgment will not reach me. That's what he says here. These are waters of judgment. Water was a symbol in the Old Testament, among other things, as a symbol of judgment, as God's punishment, a symbol of God's wrath. And so when we think about Noah, when the world was deluged with water, all people on earth perished, save for Noah and his family and to the one who repents. God says, my judgment shall not reach this one. You see, we really have it all wrong, don't we? We have it all wrong because we think that in keeping our sins from God, we'll be safer. We'll be more happy. When in reality, confessing our sins and laying ourselves bare before God is when we find what David says in verse 7. Look at verse 7. You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. So just as Noah and his family were brought into the ark while the world that would not confess was drowned by water, that ark was a hiding place for God's people. So God brings us into the cleft of the rock and he protects us. He tells us, you have exposed yourself to me. You've thrown yourself on my mercy, and in this I take delight. Now look at verse 8. God says in verse 8, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. God's instruction is for the Christian. And as our Heavenly Father, He watches us and desires to counsel us through our pilgrim journey. But when we sin and we do not repent and when our hearts become hardened and callous to God's grace, God disciplines us and we feel His displeasure. Precisely because we are sons and daughters. We ought to take joy in the discipline of the Lord and we should learn from that discipline because if we don't learn from the discipline of God, look at verse 9 where it says, Be not like the horse or the mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you. You see, we can make things very hard on ourselves. If we are God's children, he won't let us run forever. He will teach us, ultimately, understanding. And we can be miserable, like David was, until we come and we confess to God. So don't think that God would not use a bit and a bridle on anyone sitting here in this room who has become hardened to God's grace and refuses to expose their sins. Now look at verse 10. David says, many are the sorrows of the wicked. Now why is that? Why are there many sorrows for the wicked? It's because God lets them go. God lets the wicked go. He turns them over to themselves. Romans 1 says, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. So you see, God will discipline a true son of his. But the wicked are like chaff. They blow away in the wind. There's no security. There's no discipline for the unbelieving who run away into the destruction that awaits them. And that is an incredibly severe warning. Now for the Christian, discipline never feels pleasant when it's happening. It feels wrong. And so like Jonah, we get into the bottom of a boat and we go in the exact opposite direction of where we should be going. But what we have to see is that God's gracious discipline is what keeps us from running to our destruction. And so learn from it. Gain understanding in being formed by God's gracious discipline. Now it says, many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. So the wicked have no covering for themselves against God's judgment. But the one who trusts in the Lord believes and has certain confidence that his sin has been taken away. And so what we have to see is that an aspect of God's steadfast love surrounding the one who trusts in the Lord is his unwillingness to let his child run toward hellfire. But another aspect of God's steadfast love is his willingness to hear our penitent cries. To hear us cry out to him. To confess to him, Lord, I sinned. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. But then not just to stop there, but also to feel the blessedness and the comfort and the joy and the happiness of being forgiven. And that's what David goes on to say. He says in verse 11, God has delivered David, surrounded David with shouts of deliverance and so David will shout back in joy. But there's a problem with this verse. I don't know if you saw it there, but David said that those who rejoice, he said, rejoice in the Lord, O righteous. And he said, shout for joy, all you upright in heart. But David has shown himself to be neither righteous. And he's shown himself not to be upright in heart. So how can David say that? David is not righteous or upright in himself. David is not upright or righteous in himself. And you'll notice that I mostly passed up the first two verses of this psalm this morning. And I had a reason for doing so. And my purpose for skipping these first two verses was that because these verses are the summary statement of the entire psalm. This is what Psalm 32 is all about. It's about getting this right. And so please read with me these first two verses. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity. These verses are brought up again in Romans 4, where Paul writes, To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David speaks of the blessings of the one to whom God counts righteousness, Apart from works. And then he goes on to quote these first two verses of our psalm. And so Paul takes these verses and he uses them as the grounding for our doctrine of justification by faith alone. That we get Christ's righteousness and Christ took our sin on the cross. And so do you see how we receive the righteousness by faith? We receive the righteousness of God in the exact same way that David did. In throwing ourselves on the mercy of God. It's the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ for all who believe. And even after becoming Christians, we will sometimes run from God and we will feel His fatherly displeasure. And reconciliation has to be made. And where do we go for reconciliation? We go to that same fountain of grace. One pastor said, the eternal punishment for sin has been paid, but we can still ruin our lives with sin. And so my question is, where do we go when we ruin our lives with sin? And the answer is to the same fountain of grace. And so I implore you, believe in Christ. Throw yourself on the mercy of God in Christ for the sin that you still commit. David understood that he couldn't come to God on the basis of law. That's Paul's point in Romans 4. He couldn't come to God on the basis of law. He had to come to God on the basis of mercy because he had broken God's law. And God, in his mercy, forgives him. The relationship is restored. And David is restored with the joy of his salvation. Then why are we slow in confessing? Why are we slow in believing in the grace found in Christ when we sin? John Calvin said this, We are slow and reluctant to appropriate the grace of God. We are slow and reluctant to appropriate the grace of God. But why? Why are we slow and reluctant to appropriate the grace of God when in Christ we find our forgiveness? In Christ we find plentiful redemption. The Bible says that He was the propitiation for our sins, which turned away the wrath of God from us. So confess your sin this morning, beloved. Don't run from God. Don't hide from God. And certainly, please do not try to make it up to God by your works. Instead, come to Christ, the sinner's hiding place. Remember how David said, you are a hiding place for me? Ultimately, for the Christian, that is Jesus Christ. And so do you see that what happened for David can happen for you? David lay all before God, and God didn't lash out in anger. Certainly there are consequences for sins. But God, as David's father, in his steadfast love and his kindness forgave him. And God promises that to any sinner who throws himself on the mercy of God in Christ, God will not turn him away. And it was Jesus who said, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Do we think that after coming to Christ once, we never come again? Certainly we're justified once for all, but we constantly need the refreshing that comes from hearing the good news of Christ. precisely because we continue to be sinners after we are saved. And so don't be deceitful this morning. You know, we've all sinned, and our sin deserves judgment, but Jesus went through the rush of great waters for us on our behalf. And the Bible says that there is righteousness to be found in Jesus Christ, and it assures us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and he is just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so believe in Christ. Believe these promises. Believe that although you are a great sinner, you can come to Christ again and again and again and again. God knew what you would commit when he saved you. And when he saved you, he committed himself to you. The very fact that you're a sinner makes you commendable to Christ who said, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And that means that if you're a sinner, no matter how bad, no matter how awful, remember that David was a thief, an adulterer, and a murderer, but he understood his need for a Savior. And if you understand your need for a Savior, then you're a prime candidate for the grace that is to be found in Christ. That's the very definition of grace. It's merited by Christ, and it's dispensed to us, the entirely undeserving. Every one of us in this room is undeserving of that grace. So come to Christ this morning and lay your burdens down, because all of us have something to confess every day. And God's river of mercy never runs dry, and he bids us come, he bids us confess, and he bids us go forth in the peace of the cross of Jesus Christ every day of our lives. We are justified once for all, but the Bible presents us with a picture of a saint constantly coming to God again and again for the mercy and the grace that is to be found in that grace that first justified Him. And so the saying is proved true that blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. And blessed is the one, is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Amen. Our Father, please help us to see that reconciliation is easily made by coming with a heart full of humbleness and sadness over our sins and that we can come to you again and again and ask for forgiveness in Christ and you will give us that forgiveness. You will give us that relief from the guilt that we feel, Lord. Would you impress that upon our consciences? And if any be running this morning, if any be living a life of heinous sin, Lord, Secret sin. Would they come to the throne of grace? Would they not think that they were too bad for grace, Lord? Because you came to save sinners. And it's in Christ's name that we pray, our Savior, amen.