The Blessing of Forgiveness - Psalm 32 — Psalms 32

0:00 Good morning, Turn with me in your bibles to Psalm chapter 32. Psalm chapter 32. And then if you also want to put a bookmark, put a bookmark in Hebrews chapter 10 and in Leviticus chapter 16. Because we're gonna be there today and so you might find it easy that you can just kinda flip there when we go there. So this morning, we're gonna be talking about forgiveness.

0:36 And really if I had a title for this message, it's the blessing of forgiveness. So we're gonna use this Psalm written by King David to either explore, to recall, to remember, to remind ourselves, maybe even to fortify what forgiveness is and how we can experience that. And I hope that it's an encouragement to us this morning. Just a few remarks before we get into the passage. Remember that this is written by David.

1:10 He was the king of Israel and it's long time before Christ walked on the earth. And so I think that it's important that we know that so that when we look at the passage we can kinda see David's perspective before Christ comes. And then we can get a fuller understanding of how he understood forgiveness and how we can understand forgiveness in light of the fact that that Christ came. This is King David the shepherd. Okay, he wrote a lot of different Psalms.

1:45 Maybe he started writing them while he was out keeping his father's sheep and maybe he, you know, finished a few later in his life or maybe he started different Psalms later in his life after different life experiences. It's the same David that went and fought Goliath. He trusted the Lord in such a crucial time. And finally, as we are going to talk about forgiveness, it's the same David who had the instance with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. And certainly with that sentiment, I can see how he wrote this Psalm after he experienced the forgiveness of the Lord.

2:28 So let's go to Psalm chapter 32. Really appreciate the Psalms in reading them in the... Just straight through in their entirety. I think they're so beautiful in the way that they read and sometimes I like to even go over to the old King James and read them because the way that the old King James was written, it was it was written as a way to be read audibly. So, maybe go and do that in your spare time with some of the Psalms but I'm going be in the New King James today in Psalm 32.

3:03 A Psalm of David, a contemplation. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.

3:36 My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity, I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah. For this cause, everyone who is godly shall pray to you in a time when you may be found.

4:06 Surely, in a flood of great waters, they shall not come near him. You are my hiding place. You shall preserve me from trouble. You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

4:27 I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bitten bridle, else they will not come near you. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he who trusts in the lord, mercy shall surround him. Be glad in the lord and rejoice you righteous and shout for joy all you upright in heart. Let's pray.

5:00 Dear Lord, we're so grateful to be here this morning to consider this concept and just this wonderful word of forgiveness about how we can experience forgiveness with you. We pray that you bless this time, Help it to be fruitful and encouraging to our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So if you take a look at the beginning of that Psalm, right at the top, many of these different Psalms, they have the author written right there.

5:33 So you see that it's a Psalm of David. There's also different types of Psalms. Why they were written and how they were written and for the purpose for which they were written. Some of them are hymns or songs of worship. This one you might find in your bible it says a masculine says a contemplation.

5:55 And so I kind of like to think that maybe David was at a time in his life and maybe went out on his porch, got a nice cup of coffee or a tea or maybe some milk and honey. And He was just contemplating things about life. Contemplating his relationship with the Lord. And so with the contemplation, with this Psalm, we can learn a lot of things and I think that these kinds of Psalms are used as a way of instructing us about different things and so, that's what we're going to look at this morning. What is forgiveness?

7:08 Some of the other synonyms are to suffer or to bear or to lift or take away, to accept. And so if you think about that concept of forgiveness between God and us, it's as if God was... Were to say to us, even though there's punishment because of the sin that we have done, I am willing to forgive you and I'm willing to accept you. But if you take a look at that word forgiveness, there's this idea to really understand it fully. There's this idea of the penalty for sin.

7:49 So when we forgive someone or when God forgives someone, someone has to pay that penalty. And in other places in the scriptures, it talks about how God would not let the guilty go unpunished. And so, when somebody is offered forgiveness, someone has to take the penalty for that sin. And so, we see in the old testament how God set forth in his law. He set forth in Numbers and Leviticus this concept of forgiveness and for sacrifice.

8:25 How they would do this sacrificial process of slaughtering these animals to take the penalty for our sin, for the sin at that time. And so we see this concept there, it says, whose sin is covered. There in the middle or at the end of verse one. And I was thinking about David's perspective and how, you know, he had the law but he didn't have the whole New Testament yet. Christ had not come.

8:57 And so when you see in the in the in the law, they had to continually do these sacrifices over and over and over. And and there was always this reminder of sin. You had holidays throughout the year. Things like the day of atonement. And so it had to be done over and over again and so you can see how even through those sacrifices, it's like there was a covering of sin but then sin would happen again and they would have to keep on doing these sacrifices over and over.

9:29 And there was still a reminder of sin. And so I can imagine David considering that in his mind. But when we come to the New Testament, how can we consider it? Is our sin just covered or is it paid for in full? Take a look at Hebrews chapter 10.

9:50 Go to Hebrews chapter 10. It uses this phrase, once for all. In verse three, it says, but in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. The different sacrifices, they were just a covering for sin.

10:16 That's why they had to be repeated because there was more sin. And the sin had to be paid for. And so they continued to do these sacrifices and offerings to the Lord. Verse five, in in Hebrews 10, therefore, when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure.

10:47 Then I said, behold, I have come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do your will, oh god. Verse 10, by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. But this man, after he offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.

11:45 The perspective that David had but a more fuller perspective that we can have in the light of Christ coming for us. Verse two, again, blessed is the man to whom the lord does not impute iniquity. So, the lord is saying that we can be happy and that we can be blessed. The fact that even though we have punishment, there is punishment for iniquity. There's punishment for lawlessness.

12:16 He does not account it. He does not take it into consideration Certainly now for us because of the lord Jesus Christ and in whose spirit, there is no deceit. Now why do we need to be forgiven? The big question, why do we need to be forgiven? If you take a look there, there's three different descriptions or three different sin words.

12:46 You have transgression, you have sin, and you have iniquity. And I think these three words kind of give a full understanding of all the different ways that we fall short of God's standard. And that we fall short even as we are discussing in the breaking of bread this morning. What is transgression mean? Well, it's when we look and we see god's law and we break that law.

13:16 So, a simple example is if we go down the street and we know the different laws that we have to obey, that we should obey the traffic laws whether it's stopping at stop signs, obeying the different lights, the different speed limits, and we break it. We pass that speed limit. We fall short and we break that law. That's that's a transgression. We break God's standard.

13:44 That word sin, it's not quite as difficult I think. It's mainly just... It's a general word. Any kind of way that we can fall short. It's all encompassing.

13:56 And then the third word, iniquity. These are sins in which it's absolute lawlessness. It's as if we are not even obeying any kind of law period. It's as if you have this driver on the road and they're just going crazy. They're ignoring every traffic light, every stop sign, every speed limit.

14:22 That's what an iniquity is like. It's totally outside of of any order. It's disorderly. And then you have that you actually so you have those three words and then it ends in those first two verses where it says, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. I think when I when I look at that in whose spirit there is no deceit, certainly I do see that we can have at times almost this quality or character about us that if we were to walk in a way in deception of others, certainly that is displeasing to the Lord.

15:07 But I think also, it it also encompasses this idea of self deception that you could look back reflectively to those other three different kinds of sin and even think in your heart that you haven't committed any of those, that you have not transgressed god's laws, that you've not sinned, that you have not gone your own way at times, and you've deceived even yourself. And what what god is saying through this passage is, blessed is he in whose spirit that there is no deceit, that we would say in our hearts that we would admit to to God himself that we have transgressed his law. That we have sinned and that we have done iniquity. But we can experience the forgiveness of God as a result of Jesus Christ of the the fact that we can have that payment for sin paid for. So, how does how does David not for not experience forgiveness?

16:54 It may maybe had some sort of ailment in himself. Verse four, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me. And so you can just see this maybe this great weight that David was carrying around. Maybe even in that time when he sinned against the lord in this in this time with Bathsheba where he where he sinned with her and then he he went even far beyond and went ended up killing Bathsheba's husband and so he had just this great weight of unconfessed sin and it says, my vitality was turned in to the drought of summer And so you can just see the weight that he had and the guilt that he had of unconfessed sin to the Lord. And that's what it can be like for each and every one of us.

17:53 To experience the fact that we we we didn't have our sins forgiven. Maybe you can think about the time that you were without Christ and the darkness that you that you could experience and the guilt that you would experience because of unconfessed sin and because of sin that was that we have not been forgiven for, that we didn't go to the lord. And here it takes a pivot in verse five. David says in verse five, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity, I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin, Selah.

18:46 So what is the role of confession in a believer's life? So, David is saying when he confesses his sin to the lord, the lord hears his prayer to him and he comes to him and forgives his sin. It doesn't say that I confess my sin to the Lord and afterward I did this and that and then the Lord forgave him. He didn't have to do anything to experience the forgiveness of the Lord. Just like you and I.

19:19 All we have to do is go to him to experience the forgiveness of the lord and confess to him and it says that his iniquity, he's not hidden and so you can just imagine in his heart or maybe even, you know, out loud in a time David got alone between him and the lord and he just poured his heart heart out to the lord and confessed all the different kinds of sins. The the way that he broke god's law, the way that he went his own way. Just like the Bible says that all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. Even even in the way when we turn our own way, we turn others to their own way.

20:06 But David is saying, I went and I confess my sin to the lord and the lord heard him. Verse six, for this cause, everyone who is godly shall pray to you in a time when you may be found. So, I take a look at that and it says, who is godly shall pray to you? I think that confession certainly when I was pondering this myself that in my prayer life, it was lacking confession. That in my prayer life, that would be a daily thing, that would be a weekly thing where when I'm praying to the Lord that I would confess to him my sin and that I would keep in a short account with the Lord God and confess my sin to the lord.

21:43 21, Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat. Confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat and he shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. And so, there you see another another instance of an all, it's all encompassing. It describes all the ways that we sin both personally and in this case, Aaron is confessing the sins of all the people of Israel collectively. All the sins, all the iniquities, all the way, the ways that the children of Israel had transgressed against the lord and he he's confessing them on this goat.

22:37 Earlier in that passages, it talks about and it refers to this goat as the scapegoat. There was one selected as an offering and then there was this goat, that's the scapegoat. And what did they do? It says, they should putting them on the head of the goat and he shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. In verse 22, the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities.

23:06 And so we can see here just a picture of what Christ ended up doing for us. The fact that he would take on the sin of our of us collectively that he would take on the sin of the whole world for all time. You see that picture and they would send this goat out into the wilderness and where there's nobody, nobody lives there and you would forget about it and certainly that's what Christ does with our sin. That he would remember our sins no more. That when we come to him, we can confess our sins to the Lord and he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

23:50 So you just see the the glimpse of that that the fact that God would send the goat into the wilderness and our sins are to be remembered no more. I think there's another passage in Psalms that says that he would separate our sins as far as the East is from this West. This idea of infinity that we can't that that our sins are totally separated from us. And so you just have this this great description of how the the Israelites practice the confession of sins and you see this all encompassing way of of saying any kind of sin, a sin, a transgression, and iniquity. Now, another note is for us today.

24:41 So you see that passage in Leviticus and you see that the priest went and offered the different sacrifices and confessed the sins for the people. Well, us today, I do wanna remind us that we don't have to do that with a priest today. You and I, each and every one of us can come together or come individually to the Lord and confess our sins to him personally. Christ already went to the cross and paid for our sin. And so we don't need a priest to go before and offer sins for us.

25:20 Jesus Christ is our great high priest. He already went and he satisfied the penalty for sinning. He took that penalty for us. So you and I can go to God alone between it's it's between god and you. It's between me and the lord and we can confess our sins to him personally.

25:44 We don't have to go to a priest. Now, you might say, okay, there are other passages in the New Testament. You take a look at James. It says, confess your sins one to another and be healed. I think there's two different things, two different practices of that.

26:03 It's not that we would have to go to a priest or go to another person to confess our sins. But one it's saying that we would go and we would confess our sins one to another when we sin against other people. We would go to them and we can fess to them and and you know, you get with your brother and sister in Christ and and you confess to them and and you make it right. And you can pray to the Lord together and and you can make up as it were. But also I think we can see in other places that sometimes the the weight of sin on a on a human heart, it's just so great and a great help for that person is just to go to someone, someone close, maybe a confidant or maybe your parents and confess like you have to get this weight of the sin off of you and so you go to them individually and you just confess and you say, I've been I've been struggling with this and I just need to confess to you and I need help and you go and you just you pray to the lord together and that person's able to help you and and comfort you and and be with you in that in that time of need.

27:21 It says in God's word, love covers a multitude of sin. So you can just see about how it's not a requirement that you would have to go to someone but sometimes I think that the weight of sin in our hearts is just so great that it's a help for us that we would go to another person, a trusted confidant, and confess to them of what we're struggling with. And you can pray with that person and experience God's forgiveness and the healing as a result. How do we forget or how do we experience this blessedness of forgiveness? So we already have these passages where it talks about David confessing his sins to the lord and the lord hearing him and he he experiences the forgiveness because god came to him and he how he we can experience that same forgiveness by coming to the lord and confessing our sins.

29:07 You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. The fact that even after our forgiveness, the lord would train us and he would teach us in the way that we should go, not to sin, that Eve might, that he would cause us not to sin against him, and that he would preserve us from different troubles. I was thinking about in David's life, what is one instance that he might have experienced this? And I was thinking about that time when he's running from Saul. He's running all over the place and certainly he's not sleeping in the best places and he's experiences experiencing this different trouble.

29:54 And I was thinking, he went into that cave that one time at when Saul was pursuing him. And he had that opportunity where even the guys that were with him, all of his his close friends, they came around him and they said, you could seize this opportunity and you could go and kill Saul. But I think it was the Lord that guided him and that preserved him from that great sin or that that great trouble that that he would go and kill Saul. And I think you can see the Lord's hand that he guide guided David that even though he had the power, he refrained from going and killing Saul and sinning against the Lord. So just one one great instance of the where David was experiencing that connection with the Lord and how the Lord was guiding him.

30:48 And you see here in verses eight and nine, even more about the guidance of the Lord after you experience the forgiveness of sin. You can experience the blessed life and the happy life of what it's like to follow the lord. Verse eight, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with every bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.

31:26 Verse 10, many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him. So what's it like to live that blessed life? That blessed life of forgiveness? Well, it's to receive the instruction of the lord in the way that we would go. It's to experience the guidance of the lord in the way that we should go.

31:55 And experience those those benefits of forgiveness. I like where it says in verse 10. It says, he who trusts in the lord, mercy shall surround him. And so even in that, I I I see that the Lord is trying to communicate to me that he sees my feebleness. He sees how weak I am.

32:22 Even after for the forgiveness I can experience with him, even after coming and confessing my sin to him. He sees how weak I can be, but he says, if you trust in me, I'm gonna show you my mercy. And I think that one of the blessings and one of the ways that God shows us his mercy is in the instruction that he gives us in his word. That when we would follow his way in all of the scriptures that we would follow him and in in the way and in the instruction that he teaches us, it's a way that we can experience no punishment. We can go in that way and experience that close communion with the Lord.

33:12 He's giving us this this instruction for us so that we would not suffer the penalty for doing the different sins against the Lord. And so we can just see God's mercy offered to us in the fact that he's provided us the way to go, the way to follow him. That we can experience this mercy by trusting in him. And that we wouldn't trust in our own selves. What's it...

33:43 What does it mean to not be like a horse or like a mule? I don't think that the Lord puts this here unless at times you and I actually act like that. That we would be like a horse or a mule. What what do they need? Well, I think missus Bries is wherever she is right there.

34:05 You know you know more of like what it's like to train a horse. They need something to bite on and they need that that care where someone's right next to them. They might even need that whip at times to train them. And and David saying, don't be like the horse that needs that extra, that extra tap, that extra love tap. I think you and I can be like that sometimes.

34:31 We we need that, you know, that care of the Lord and and certain certainly sometimes it it can be it can be painful. We can hear the rebuke of the lord and and in our in our quiet times, in our daily life. I remember when I was in high school one time, I was on a retreat and I remember reading, I believe it was in Proverbs, it was either four or five and we were on a retreat, just a great time to go away and experience the Lord together and do different activities. And I remember reading in the morning about the instruction that the Lord gives us in his word and how that we should follow it. And I remember later in that day, just the different things I was experiencing and the different ways that I was offending other people and I was not following God's instruction.

35:30 But I remember the fact when I read that this morning, it was the Lord rebuking me and telling me, follow in my ways, go ask for forgiveness and and experience that. And and I just remember that that great way that even though it hurt, it even hurt to go and ask for forgiveness from those people that I was with. I was able to, you know, I was called back to the way of that the Lord wanted me to go in his word. And so just just maybe experiencing at times the the Lord's hand. But but David is saying, we don't have to be like the horse or like the mule.

36:15 Certainly, we act like a horse or or a mule at times where we need that that extra love, but he's saying don't be like them. Trust in the Lord and mercy shall surround us. I like now to just provide a few of my favorite verses on how the Lord guides us. How the Lord instructs us. There's a few of them in Psalms.

36:42 Psalm one hundred nineteen one zero five, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm one hundred nineteen eleven, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Verse nine, how can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. Some in the New Testament, John fourteen six, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

37:18 No one comes to the father except through me. And finally, in Hebrews chapter four and verse 12, the word of god is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. How great god's word is. It says that it's a it it divides soul and spirit and it discerns our thoughts so that when we would see god's instruction to us, it gets down deep in into our soul and can can speak to us and the Lord can can transform us from within. So just some great great verses that talk to us about the instruction that we can receive from the lord and finally, to wrap up this Psalm, you you have in verse 11.

38:50 You can have righteousness. Shout for joy all you upright in heart. All you upright in heart, it has an exclamation point that we would exclaim, we would shout for joy that we can have and experience forgiveness with the Lord. This great blessing and this happiness that we can experience with a relationship with God. What's some application for us today about discussing this blessedness of forgiveness?

39:49 I can certainly think about, even the songs that we sang this morning of of people writing and just so appreciating the lord and the forgiveness that he offers to us. Maybe you haven't made that step today. Maybe you need to be forgiven. Maybe you need to go before the Lord and confess your sin. There's something weighing on your heart.

40:17 We can go to the Lord. First John one nine, we can confess our sins to him and he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Maybe you need to go to someone one on one. Maybe you had a something go on with them and you need to go with them. And you just need to go with them and confess your sins to them and and you can confess your sins one to another and and to the Lord and pray with them and make it right and experience that forgiveness.

40:48 Or maybe you have something in your life that's just weighing so heavily. Maybe it's a repeating pattern of sin. And maybe you can go to someone, a trusted person, and go to them and say, I've just been dealing with this and I need to confess it and will you help me out and will you pray for me? I wanna experience the forgiveness of the Lord. One note on forgiving others because we do see in the New Testament that it does it does command that we would forgive someone else.

41:24 But when we forgive others, I want to say it's not easy. It's really hard because even in the forgiveness that we would try and experience with other people, the hard part is, is that when we forgive someone else, we have some pain to take. We have some hurt that we still experience. But when we forgiveness, when we offer forgiveness and forgive someone else. I think the thing that helps me is to picture the Lord Jesus.

42:04 The fact that he's the one that took the ultimate payment for that sin. And so even though we can experience the pain, we still can offer that forgiveness and we can see Christ's example. Let's just close our time in prayer. Dear Lord, we're just so grateful to be here this morning. The fact that we can for...

42:28 We can experience forgiveness, that we we can be right with God, all because of the work of Jesus Christ. We were just celebrating that this morning. The fact that he paid for our sins, that he went to the cross. He was just so focused on paying for sins on that cross. We thank you that he's alive today, that he didn't have to pay for his own sins.

42:55 He was perfect in every way. And so we come here this morning and we can live a blessed life of confession to you, of experiencing the forgiveness as a result of coming to you and confessing our sin. We thank you for this, and we pray these things in Jesus name, amen.