[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to audio from Citizens Church located in Plano, Texas. [SPEAKER_00]: For more information about this ministry or to give to this ministry, please visit citizenschurch.com. [SPEAKER_00]: My name is Cory, I'm one of the pastors on staff. [SPEAKER_00]: I love this place, I love this church. [SPEAKER_00]: If you are a guest here and the summer's kind of your shot, it's finding a new church home or just a church in general, we're really glad that you're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if you're here today, kind of looking into this Jesus thing, man, I'm really glad that you chosen to be with us this morning. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really cool having you here. [SPEAKER_00]: Last week, we started a brief summer series in the book of Psalms. [SPEAKER_00]: It's right in the middle of your Bible. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you weren't here, Mike M. Masterfully led us through Psalm chapter one.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find that on our website or on Spotify if you want to listen back. [SPEAKER_00]: If you haven't heard that, I highly encourage that. [SPEAKER_00]: Mike challenged us to read and see Jesus in the Psalm. [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas he said it, the Psalms are far less about the how and more about the who. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the Psalms are like the rest of Scripture pointing us to life in Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: Today we'll be in Psalm thirty two that Jenny just read for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're not there you can go and turn there now. [SPEAKER_00]: About six years ago, I discovered on my Gmail account that Google task thing where you can create your tasks and kind of have them lined out for you. [SPEAKER_00]: This thing is amazing for me. [SPEAKER_00]: I put at the top of my Google task list something that has remained there for six years. [SPEAKER_00]: It is this statement. [SPEAKER_00]: The fake you is doing just fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the rest of humanity, I have the uncanny ability to fake it. [SPEAKER_00]: To act like everything is fine to pretend to polish, to cover. [SPEAKER_00]: Now what's true about every human being is that we have the massive problem of sin, regardless of our ability, to hide it or pretend like it's not real. [SPEAKER_00]: The world around you will tell you that there are two ways to deal with your sin. [SPEAKER_00]: You can ignore it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hide it, pretend it's not there, fake it, or you can just accept it, saying that it's not sin at all, make light of it, excuse it, same things like I'm only human. [SPEAKER_00]: But in considering these things, Pastor Ray Orton said it very well, he said, you can be impressive, or you can be known, but not both. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't be both. [SPEAKER_00]: All the fake you is probably quite impressive in doing fine, which is the current culture that we live in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where we find ourselves living here, the culture says to maintain an exterior that looks like everything is fine. [SPEAKER_00]: But the truth of the matter is the real you, the real me, is crushed by sin. [SPEAKER_00]: And we are dying to be fully known and fully loved. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what David has talking about in Psalm thirty two. [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to walk us through some very beautiful things that are going to do just like we did last week with Mike.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to point us to Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me pray for us as we read this passage together. [SPEAKER_00]: Look out, we pray now in Jesus name asking that you would use the reading, the preaching God, the listening, the sitting under your scriptures or God that you would read us. [SPEAKER_00]: You would have your way in us, God. [SPEAKER_00]: I do would see who you are God. [SPEAKER_00]: To understand what it is you've done for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who would see ourselves properly? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, I thank you for this passage of Scripture. [SPEAKER_00]: I thank you for King David and his words. [SPEAKER_00]: Would you anoint this time now, God, to use it, to make us more like Jesus? [SPEAKER_00]: We love you, Lord. [SPEAKER_00]: Pray this in Jesus' name. [SPEAKER_00]: Amen. [SPEAKER_00]: Psalm thirty-two is a really beautiful Psalm of David. [SPEAKER_00]: He was the King of God's people at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's writing at the top of the passage you might see in your Bible there. [SPEAKER_00]: It says that it's a masculine David. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a very unique Psalm. [SPEAKER_00]: It's something that started as very personal intimate moment between God and David and then moved to a very public instruction. [SPEAKER_00]: It would have been red or sung in both the tabernacle and the temple.
[SPEAKER_00]: While it was sung publicly, the hope was that it would challenge the corporate gathering, but then move into individual lives as they made their way away from that place. [SPEAKER_00]: The purpose was contemplative and instructional. [SPEAKER_00]: It was meant for thinking deeply and differently about life and about sin and then acting on it. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let me take a look back with you guys, then it was happening at the time that it was written.
[SPEAKER_00]: King David was likely in his older age. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, he was taking a moment to look back on life in specific, looking back on all that it occurred that led him to write Psalm fifty one. [SPEAKER_00]: Psalm fifty-one as David's well-known Psalm of sorrow or as a grievous and well-known and really public sin. [SPEAKER_00]: You can find the story that leads to that in second Samuel, chapter eleven and twelve.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know it, it is a really dark and sad narrative of David's sin. [SPEAKER_00]: His failure to lead is king. [SPEAKER_00]: His immorality, his abuse of power, his lies, his murder, his self-righteousness, his secrecy. [SPEAKER_00]: It's literally like an unbelievable show on Netflix, but it's real. [SPEAKER_00]: It led to this moment of brokenness and David's life, the trail of sorrow, and chaos from his sin was wildly destructive.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I wonder if you've ever had to look back like this. [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever had a look back like David did in moments like this, where you considered your past, looking back on the sins, perhaps of your youth, to see how it wreaks havoc on you and maybe others around you?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you follow David's example where you've done this, you felt all kinds of things like I'm sure he did, perhaps battling the shame and embarrassment as you consider your, yes, your years, your younger years and the things you found yourself involved in? [SPEAKER_00]: Or even a moment from last week? [SPEAKER_00]: that when you consider it, what comes to mind is panic, or frustration, or fear. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what David was doing as he looked back.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a middle-aged guy, I look back a lot more now. [SPEAKER_00]: I look back on middle school and high school with a little bit of cringe at first. [SPEAKER_00]: And I look back and I see a young man that was consumed with and destroyed by the approval of others. [SPEAKER_00]: When I look back on my days and graduate school, [SPEAKER_00]: was when there was two versions of Cory running around. [SPEAKER_00]: I was a duplicitous man.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I look back on eighteen years of marriage, or fourteen years of being the dad, my heart grows sorrowful over my sin, and I see how it affected my family. [SPEAKER_00]: Friends, as we engage in deep moments like this, okay, where we take a look at our worst moments like David did, or where we consider the less public sins of our hearts and minds just from yesterday. [SPEAKER_00]: We can be like David when we realize that something is broken and something needs to be fixed.
[SPEAKER_00]: While it's never been a really popular thing to publicly challenge people to think about their sin, regardless of age or culture, it's what King David did here and he had great hopes and intentions. [SPEAKER_00]: So what did David do is he encountered these moments with God? [SPEAKER_00]: What did he instruct God's people to think on and act on as they dealt with the sins of their past and their present?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the place that he started that we read a moment ago might not be what you'd expect. [SPEAKER_00]: David starts with the end in mind. [SPEAKER_00]: He starts with an incredible conclusion. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and this conclusion is captivating and beautiful. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's look at it. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at verses one and two, how we started off this mask. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, blessed is the one who's transgression is forgiven, who's sent us cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts, no iniquity, and who's our spirit is, and there's no deceit. [SPEAKER_00]: David starts off with this word that might talk to about last week, blessed, or happy. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it seems a bit odd when talking about the brokenness that sin brings, but David knows the blessing and the joy of confessing sin to God in receiving his forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows a strong title wave of sin, how when unconfessed would sweep in and steal away all of it as good. [SPEAKER_00]: He knows he knows. [SPEAKER_00]: And he wants them to know the steadfast love of God that makes the sad heart glad. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what he wants. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you look back at verses one and two, David talks about sin in several different ways, several different words. [SPEAKER_00]: And it shows why he feels so blessed when he takes a look back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first word he uses in verses one and two is his transgression. [SPEAKER_00]: The Hebrew word there is Pasha. [SPEAKER_00]: It means that rebellious self assertion. [SPEAKER_00]: This is our insistence on being our own ruler, our own king, our own God. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the statement, I rule my life. [SPEAKER_00]: No one tells me how to do it. [SPEAKER_00]: In prepping for this, I read a story about St. [SPEAKER_00]: Augustine.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a moment like David where he was looking back on his younger years. [SPEAKER_00]: He and his friends broke into a pair orchard. [SPEAKER_00]: That would have been interesting. [SPEAKER_00]: And stole fruit. [SPEAKER_00]: And when caught stealing the fruit and eating the fruit, they were asked, why did you do this? [SPEAKER_00]: His simple statement was because it was forbidden. [SPEAKER_00]: This is sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin is our active inclination to break stuff, to break rules, to break promises, to break relationships. [SPEAKER_00]: David's transgressions, his fascia, destroyed so much, but now because of the mercy and forgiveness of God, he's happy and blessed. [SPEAKER_00]: Second way talks about his sin. [SPEAKER_00]: This is the word Hata. [SPEAKER_00]: It means to go off the path or to miss the mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: So specifically the way that God has established as good and right and best. [SPEAKER_00]: Going off the path then would mean this one would get hurt or get lost. [SPEAKER_00]: We lead to all kinds of problems. [SPEAKER_00]: Over the past five or six years, our family has decided to explore the national parks in our country. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a really fun thing to do, especially when you have little kids. [SPEAKER_00]: It's fun and nerve-wracking if you're a parent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you go to places like we've been, if you've ever been to Archis National Park or Canyon Lands National Park or you go to the Grand Canyon, you know how important it is to stay on the path. [SPEAKER_00]: And you know what would happen if your child straight off the path for just a moment. [SPEAKER_00]: It would lead to destruction so quickly. [SPEAKER_00]: They've had saw how he left the path and all the destruction it led to in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because of God's mercy, because of God's grace, he was blessed. [SPEAKER_00]: He was blessed because of the forgiveness of God. [SPEAKER_00]: But thirdly, the way he talks about sin, he says there was no record of guilt. [SPEAKER_00]: There was no iniquity, countered against him. [SPEAKER_00]: This word is avone meant that all of his twisting of what was right, all of his moral corruption, all of his perversion and evil, all of that was not countered against him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when David considered all three of these things, transgressions, sins, iniquity, he was forgiven. [SPEAKER_00]: It was covered. [SPEAKER_00]: There was no debt. [SPEAKER_00]: The forgiveness of God, the cancelling of all debt, brought happiness. [SPEAKER_00]: When I was in college, I went to hardened Simmons. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't do any like pooping or anything, but we were cowboys. [SPEAKER_00]: We said, yihah, but not allowed to people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took a mandatory class from my major. [SPEAKER_00]: It was called psychological statistics. [SPEAKER_00]: It was as awful as it sounds. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those classes that combined numbers and words into paragraphs and made you solve a problem. [SPEAKER_00]: Still bad. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're good at this, praise God. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad. [SPEAKER_00]: I went to tutoring once a week. [SPEAKER_00]: I stayed after the teacher once a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I failed every test, but one. [SPEAKER_00]: at the end of the semester in certainty that I would be taking this class again. [SPEAKER_00]: I got to see. [SPEAKER_00]: This teacher did not count my failure against me. [SPEAKER_00]: I've never forgotten that. [SPEAKER_00]: Only see in college. [SPEAKER_00]: I've never forgotten this mercy. [SPEAKER_00]: I was so happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: happiness that overwhelmed me because you did not count my failures against me, and I've never forgotten. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is David's glorious conclusion. [SPEAKER_00]: But how did he get to this place? [SPEAKER_00]: How did he come to this? [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, this is a mascal where meant to look back to think and then to act. [SPEAKER_00]: It was an instruction with an example to follow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we read the rest of the song, verses three through ten and eleven, okay? [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to take a look at these things. [SPEAKER_00]: This is how David got there. [SPEAKER_00]: It was in the humble confession of sin, [SPEAKER_00]: The God's divest love met Him meets us with forgiveness, instruction, and gladness. [SPEAKER_00]: and the humble confession of sin, God's steadfast love would meet Him, meets us with forgiveness, instruction, and gladness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a look at the first thing that David did. [SPEAKER_00]: He recognized his sin. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at verses three and four. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. [SPEAKER_00]: For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. [SPEAKER_00]: My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. [SPEAKER_00]: David was honest and humble as you remembered how unconfessed sin was affecting his whole person.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stress of a double life and uncomvests sin made him feel old, oppressed, dry. [SPEAKER_00]: His attempts to compartmentalize his life and make his sin secret lead to sin and other parts of his life. [SPEAKER_00]: He was trying to live two lives and it was exhausting. [SPEAKER_00]: It was giving birth to all manners of trouble. [SPEAKER_00]: You know this. [SPEAKER_00]: When we hide our sins, it leads to our anxiety. [SPEAKER_00]: It leads to our worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It leads to our stress and then more. [SPEAKER_00]: Staying quiet about sin was a seed bed for doubt and disbelief. [SPEAKER_00]: It's where the whispers and the lies pinball around and the head and the heart and it starts to sound like this. [SPEAKER_00]: I am my sin. [SPEAKER_00]: God doesn't love me or couldn't love me. [SPEAKER_00]: Or my sin's not really hurting anyone. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really need to tell anybody. [SPEAKER_00]: I can beat it on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: because David experienced these moments again and again and his look back. [SPEAKER_00]: He referred to the way he felt in this moment of conviction as the heavy hand of the Lord. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, what this does not mean was that God was shaming or condemning him. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's not how God responds to us when we come to him with our sin. [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the way he presents of God here is meant to rescue and deliver, not to punish.
[SPEAKER_00]: The heaviness of sin leads to destruction, but the heaviness of God's hand leads to life. [SPEAKER_00]: As David humbly and honestly recognizes sin, he then started to do something with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Seekers where guilt and shame says you messed up, go hide. [SPEAKER_00]: Conviction from the Lord says you messed up, come home. [SPEAKER_00]: Come home. [SPEAKER_00]: David didn't just want stuff off his chest. [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted transformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted intimacy. [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted closeness to God. [SPEAKER_00]: Look what it did next after this confession. [SPEAKER_00]: After he received the forgiveness of God. [SPEAKER_00]: Look at verses five through seven. [SPEAKER_00]: So good. [SPEAKER_00]: I acknowledge my sin to you. [SPEAKER_00]: And I did not cover my iniquity. [SPEAKER_00]: I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll confess them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you forgave me the iniquity of my sin, amen. [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you in the time, would it maybe found? [SPEAKER_00]: Surely in the Resher Great Waters, they shall not reach him. [SPEAKER_00]: You are a hiding place for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Can we say that again? [SPEAKER_00]: You are a hiding place for me. [SPEAKER_00]: You preserved me from trouble. [SPEAKER_00]: You surround me with shouts of deliverance.
[SPEAKER_00]: When David's trail of sin was really caught before it was confessed in Psalm [SPEAKER_00]: Psalm thirty two it suggests he was in ruins over those things. [SPEAKER_00]: He was receiving in this moment what he returned to and found in the Lord when he confessed all of it he confessed it says in there those same three words for sin again. [SPEAKER_00]: He confessed all of it. [SPEAKER_00]: He said I confess my sin where I left the path where I was lost.
[SPEAKER_00]: I confessed my iniquity where I twisted what was right. [SPEAKER_00]: I confess those things. [SPEAKER_00]: He confesses, transgressions, his rebellious self-assertion. [SPEAKER_00]: He hid nothing, held nothing back, no excuses, no justification. [SPEAKER_00]: This type of confession isn't just therapeutic, it's transformative. [SPEAKER_00]: It does more than make you feel good about yourself. [SPEAKER_00]: David wasn't just bringing a failure to God to feel better.
[SPEAKER_00]: That had been self-centered. [SPEAKER_00]: David wanted freedom and nearness to God, more than he wanted to clear conscience. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that David knew that his sin was bringing distance from God and he became less and less of the man that God made him to be. [SPEAKER_00]: He felt less like himself. [SPEAKER_00]: In Psalm seventy-three, it's a Psalm of ASAP. [SPEAKER_00]: ASAP says this, those who are far from you God, perish.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for me, it's good to be near God. [SPEAKER_00]: So he confessed and God forgave. [SPEAKER_00]: And right after that, there's a word says, Salah, do you know what a Salah is? [SPEAKER_00]: It's a musical pause. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an interlude meant for reflection. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a time to slow down. [SPEAKER_00]: So he makes the statement about receiving the forgiveness of God and then he slows down.
[SPEAKER_00]: He receives the goodness of being forgiven of all those things that he confessed. [SPEAKER_00]: In that moment of pausing and stopping and slowing down, he confessed it all and God forgave it all. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't fly past it. [SPEAKER_00]: He shifts gears in verse six and seven though. [SPEAKER_00]: Take a look at it. [SPEAKER_00]: As you return through confession, God becomes a place of refuge, not of destruction.
[SPEAKER_00]: David challenges a reader and singer with a strong warning to combat the lies that sin can simply remain unconvest. [SPEAKER_00]: Because the fact of the matter is sin is no safe place. [SPEAKER_00]: Unconfessed sin is no safe place. [SPEAKER_00]: It is no refuge. [SPEAKER_00]: It takes on its own life. [SPEAKER_00]: It makes us its slave. [SPEAKER_00]: David Longster is people who learn from his sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew what happened because sin would get birthed more sin and get birthed more sin and take on more of its own life, bringing destruction. [SPEAKER_00]: I feel this longing for the people in my life, and all my million years of student ministry, I felt this. [SPEAKER_00]: I felt this desire for my students, longing them to learn from my sins as an older guy, wanting them to see how I had failed in my sin, wanting to rescue them from it. [SPEAKER_00]: I feel this is a dad.
[SPEAKER_00]: wanting to rescue my kids from my sins. [SPEAKER_00]: Because I know firsthand how sin over promises and under delivers every time did it lies and it does not lead to water. [SPEAKER_00]: It never leads to real life. [SPEAKER_00]: David compares us to a flood that washes and sweeps everything away. [SPEAKER_00]: Commoner see this forgiveness before it's too late. [SPEAKER_00]: come and find this hiding place with God or refuge of safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will always have more mercy than we have sin. [SPEAKER_00]: Limitation three says the steadfast love of God never ceases. [SPEAKER_00]: His mercy's never come to an end. [SPEAKER_00]: There are new every morning. [SPEAKER_00]: Great is his faithfulness. [SPEAKER_00]: God has a refuge. [SPEAKER_00]: He will not destroy in the humble confession of sin. [SPEAKER_00]: He will not. [SPEAKER_00]: but this brings David to a place in of instruction.
[SPEAKER_00]: The givers is eight and nine. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. [SPEAKER_00]: David speaking as of speaking the words of God to his people. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, I will counsel you with my eye upon you. [SPEAKER_00]: Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding which must be curbed with bed and bridle or will not stay with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's response to the humble acknowledgment and confessing of sin is not only forgiveness, it's instruction. [SPEAKER_00]: He gives us his instruction to teach, to guide, to be attentive, to be present, to be near with eyes upon you, because David had learned through his sins that it's better to live in God's world God's way, because it always leads to flourishing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He compared this life of unconfessed Son, the other hand, that to a stubborn animal that had to be guided through pain or severity being corrected over and over again. [SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, in my trips with students to places like Colorado and the Mexico, we would go on these horseback or meal rides if you don't this. [SPEAKER_00]: Why do we do that? [SPEAKER_00]: Did you ever get the horse of the mule that insisted upon going to the edge every time? [SPEAKER_00]: I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you pull and you tug on the reins over and over and over until the guide comes over and is a bit more extreme with the animal than you would be so that the animal would return to the proper path and keep you out of danger. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what David said it was like with unconfessed sin. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like being a stubborn animal that has to fall into the severity of sin over and over to be corrected.
[SPEAKER_00]: David longed for them to return to the kind mercy of God and receive forgiveness. [SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, verse ten, David remembered the steadfast love of God. [SPEAKER_00]: The givers ten. [SPEAKER_00]: Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts [SPEAKER_00]: in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: David has a bit of another summary statement at the end of this Psalm, this masculine, gave where he returns with some instructions with a stronger minder and incredible encouragement that holds up the action of confession and repentance. [SPEAKER_00]: He says in a warning to the manor woman who's guilty of sin and remains in an unconfessed without repentance, he reminds them that will only lead to sorrow. [SPEAKER_00]: That leads to sadness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows this from his own life as he looks back on his life. [SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, when you come to God and trust in Him, He forgives and provides refuge and instruction. [SPEAKER_00]: That person, then, David says, is surrounded by this steadfast love of God. [SPEAKER_00]: That word is, has said, they are surrounded by these things. [SPEAKER_00]: They are surrounded by God's love that is unwavering and promised and keep and kept. [SPEAKER_00]: Never left.
[SPEAKER_00]: over and over again, that they're surrounded by love that's unconditional. [SPEAKER_00]: God's love not based on merit or worth. [SPEAKER_00]: They're surrounded by steadfast love that's enduring and unchanging and strong and not weak. [SPEAKER_00]: This is what surrounds those who trust in Him. [SPEAKER_00]: So for David, the steadfast love of God brought Him back to confession again and again and again and again. [SPEAKER_00]: It's what held up his return.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time you receive mercy and forgiveness. [SPEAKER_00]: For in Psalm thirty two gives us a beautiful picture of God's mercy, but it's ultimately, it's ultimately a preview of the gospel of Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is the one who makes this kind of forgiveness a David experienced, eternally and fully possible. [SPEAKER_00]: David knew the joy of forgiveness by trusting in God's mercy. [SPEAKER_00]: How much more can we [SPEAKER_00]: We who now see the full picture in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: What David looked forward to in faith, we look back on in fullness. [SPEAKER_00]: David's hope has become our reality in Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: Psalm thirty two begins with a blessing and forgiveness, but that happiness doesn't come from ignoring sin. [SPEAKER_00]: It comes from confessing sin. [SPEAKER_00]: David tried to bury his guilt and you can look and see that it only buried him.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he brought his sin into the light, he found that condemnation from God but mercy. [SPEAKER_00]: That same mercy is offered to us in full through the finish work of Jesus Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: This is such good news. [SPEAKER_00]: David looks forward in faith to a coming Savior. [SPEAKER_00]: We look back and faith to a cross where Jesus bore the full weight of your sin and mine. [SPEAKER_00]: He wore all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every iniquity, every sin, every transgression, Jesus paid for, all that we might be clothed in His righteousness, that He might become our refuge, that we might be hidden in Him as Paul says in Colossians three. [SPEAKER_00]: The joy that David long for is ours and full. [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus was forsaken so that we could be forgiven. [SPEAKER_00]: His body wasted away so that ours could be restored. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the steadfast love of God that surrounds the one who trusts in Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: So, friend, if you are hiding today in your sin, if your bones are aching and wasting away. [SPEAKER_00]: Come to Him. [SPEAKER_00]: Run to Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: There's more mercy in Him than sin in you. [SPEAKER_00]: Far more. [SPEAKER_00]: So acknowledge your sin, confess freely and be forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because blessed, truly blessed, truly happy is the one who's transgression is forgiven, who sin is covered. [SPEAKER_00]: All this is made possible to the blood of Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: But friends, Psalm thirty two doesn't only show the beauty of being forgiven, it calls us to a new way of living because we're forgiven. [SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus, we're not just saved from something, we're saved into something, a life of freedom and honesty and intimacy with God and with His people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question that becomes, how do we live like this is true day in and day out, practicing these things? [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give us three ways to live out the gospel according to Psalm thirty two. [SPEAKER_00]: Three daily practices that help our hearts anchor in the forgiveness that we have in Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: The first one is this, make confession, a practice in your life. [SPEAKER_00]: Make confession a practice in your life in three places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make it a practice in your devotional life in your time alone with God. [SPEAKER_00]: Please remember this, this song came from a place of David alone with God. [SPEAKER_00]: where he spoke to the Lord and the Lord spoke to Him. [SPEAKER_00]: We can follow David's rhythm simply using this song. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you'll notice, there are multiple times where David uses this word, Salah. [SPEAKER_00]: He slows down. [SPEAKER_00]: He stops. [SPEAKER_00]: He pauses for reflection.
[SPEAKER_00]: He considers he seeks the Lord. [SPEAKER_00]: Friends, I'm afraid that sometimes our pace prevents our confession. [SPEAKER_00]: I know it does for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes our pace prevents our true confession. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a slow down. [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's hard to know if we have these sins to confess if we never slow down to see it. [SPEAKER_00]: And then friends, in that time, use the scriptures to guide your words. [SPEAKER_00]: You Psalm one, thirty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, search me and know me. [SPEAKER_00]: Seek any of that mess that's in there and leave me in a better way. [SPEAKER_00]: And then pray something like first, Psalm one, nine. [SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I confess my sins to you. [SPEAKER_00]: I believe that you are faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse. [SPEAKER_00]: Make it a practice in your personal life, in your individual life. [SPEAKER_00]: Make it a practice with your spouse or close friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe in a weekly check-in, off of the Chancellor of Pint by simply asking. [SPEAKER_00]: If you've never done this, I know it's a big step, but friends, it's worth it to be fully known and fully loved. [SPEAKER_00]: It's so worth it. [SPEAKER_00]: I had a lady tell me after the first service. [SPEAKER_00]: She says, you know it's so great about it. [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't the people around you get to know you the same way that Jesus does?
[SPEAKER_00]: what a beautiful opportunity it is. [SPEAKER_00]: So when you receive that spouse, when you receive that close friend, speak truth, offer grace, speak forgiveness. [SPEAKER_00]: Lastly, make it a practice in your home group or your community. [SPEAKER_00]: In our home group, this has become a bit of a liturgy when we got it together when I get together with the guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, I was talking to the guys from my home group and confessing my battle against the sins of anger and my pride. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is what the response was to me from both of these guys. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, thank you for your confession. [SPEAKER_00]: You're forgiven in Christ Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: That is not your identity. [SPEAKER_00]: prayed for me, and then later returned to me in true Galatians six fashion to carry that burden with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Practice this in your private life. [SPEAKER_00]: Practice this with someone close to you, practice this in your community. [SPEAKER_00]: And friends, in this practice, I can guarantee you this, you willful of push back in your heart, maybe even now. [SPEAKER_00]: You willful of push back in your heart with pride saying, no, no, no, you can handle this, or if you confess it, it'll destroy everything. [SPEAKER_00]: Truth be told, sin breaks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sin breaks rules and promises in relationships, but even unconfessed sin is stealing from God right now and stealing from you. [SPEAKER_00]: It continues to rob. [SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, here's what I hope for us to have more confidence in. [SPEAKER_00]: Let us have more confidence in God's ability to build and rebuild than sensibility to tear down. [SPEAKER_00]: Confessed and received the mercy of God. [SPEAKER_00]: Friends consider the alternative.
[SPEAKER_00]: the fully known Grantsibility be fully loved. [SPEAKER_00]: No secrets, no hiding, no pretending, no fake life, heed David's warning, sorrow and devastation, calm, if sin remains in the dark. [SPEAKER_00]: But here are the good news of this. [SPEAKER_00]: When we participate in this, there's a bigger picture of this. [SPEAKER_00]: I was talking one of our lead pastors, Adam Hawkins. [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for this conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: It was helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Adam said this for us. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, don't forget this. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, when I confess and receive forgiveness, that from God and from others, or when I forgive others, I am actively partaking in the battle against the kingdom of darkness. [SPEAKER_00]: Confession, repentance, forgiveness, defeats evil in and around me. [SPEAKER_00]: Beloved, we live in a very beautiful love story under the mercy and grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're living under a very beautiful love story. [SPEAKER_00]: I want to step past love and forgiveness and freedom, but the setting that you and I are in is a very dangerous war. [SPEAKER_00]: since seeks to rob and destroy and to kill and to take from you and to take from God. [SPEAKER_00]: But what God offers for us to do in Jesus and it battles against darkness. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's make a practice of seeking forgiveness. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's make a practice of confession.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, this song did a bit of a number on me, as I'm sure you would imagine studying this for like two weeks. [SPEAKER_00]: The look back was a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: Going back on seasons of faking it on duplicity of numbness to my own sin. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to fake it. [SPEAKER_00]: I just say that to you as a pastor in front of all of you. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to pretend like sin is not stealing from me. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to pretend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to live a divided life. [SPEAKER_00]: I was talking about this with Logan Home, our wonderful lead student's minister. [SPEAKER_00]: She provided some diagnostic questions to maybe kind of search your heart and to pray through later. [SPEAKER_00]: wondering if there's sin that's hiding and lurking, wondering if there's a life of duplicity. [SPEAKER_00]: These are the things she presented. [SPEAKER_00]: She said, ask these questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, are there things you're hiding that you hope never get found out? [SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like you have to manage how people see you? [SPEAKER_00]: Or thirdly, are you tired in a way that sleep just doesn't seem to fit? [SPEAKER_00]: For in Psalm thirty two says that God sees all these things and offers mercy, offers grace, offers forgiveness and freedom as we confess and receive from Him. [SPEAKER_00]: Thirdly and lastly, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael Sunetsor says this. [SPEAKER_00]: In friends if we're honest, since deals, it literally drains from your mortal body. [SPEAKER_00]: robbing you of the flourishing that God has for you in Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: So as a church, you've probably been here enough, or you've heard us say, if you're new here, there's a slide that runs before services start, and it says, okay, it's not okay because God meets you there, and friends, we want to meet you there too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would ask you to consider if you place yourself, okay, that maybe you would consider coming to recovery this Wednesday night. [SPEAKER_00]: Come and gather with a bunch of other people who are really honest about their sin and their need for Jesus. [SPEAKER_00]: Come to recovery or check out steps and see what it looks like to get some traction and these things that have light hidden in unconfessed for many years. [SPEAKER_00]: We'll come back next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Michael Snester will be teaching on confession and repentance and our training series. [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll be there for that. [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps you're even here now. [SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the service, we love to stand up here and we love to pray with people. [SPEAKER_00]: And perhaps you would love to come in to say, man, I just want to confess some sin and have you speak the truth of Jesus over me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love for you to come and do that here in this place now. [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps even receiving Christ and forgiveness is since for the first time. [SPEAKER_00]: We'd love to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: So in closing, though, there's one last response. [SPEAKER_00]: Would you look back at verse eleven? [SPEAKER_00]: There's one last response, rejoice. [SPEAKER_00]: Verse eleven says, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Friends, it's right. [SPEAKER_00]: It is right to mourn over our sin. [SPEAKER_00]: It's right to confess and repent of it. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also good to celebrate their forgiveness of it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really good. [SPEAKER_00]: For those who've trusted in Christ Jesus, there is a lot to rejoice about. [SPEAKER_00]: Because of Jesus, there will be no record of wrong held against you. [SPEAKER_00]: Ever. [SPEAKER_00]: We can recover the strength that sin is stolen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have to hide. [SPEAKER_00]: Fact of matters, we can't truly ever really hide. [SPEAKER_00]: And the good news is we don't have to. [SPEAKER_00]: We can confess and receive. [SPEAKER_00]: We are now hidden in Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: Our sin is not our identity. [SPEAKER_00]: We will never, ever be our worst public or private unknown moment. [SPEAKER_00]: just won't be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of Jesus, we now have an advocate helper in the Holy Spirit instructing, teaching, guiding, leading, walking, being present and near, being with us and for us always. [SPEAKER_00]: Because of Jesus, steadfast love will always surround you. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what surrounds you. [SPEAKER_00]: Because of Jesus, friends, the fake you can go away. [SPEAKER_00]: They can go away, you can be fully known and fully loved, all because of Jesus' friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is gladness and rejoicing to be had. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray. [SPEAKER_00]: We're glad I pray now in Jesus' name. [SPEAKER_00]: There's another moment to slow down to have a bit of a say-law. [SPEAKER_00]: I ask God that you continue to meet us in this still moment before music even begins to be played.
[SPEAKER_00]: that if we are met even in this moment with thoughts of sins from this morning, her yesterday, her years ago, that shame and guilt would not overwhelm and cause us to run, but that your mercy and kindness in Jesus will lead us to confess and receive. [SPEAKER_00]: Receive the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. [SPEAKER_00]: God, I thank you for your covenant, love, your head said, your steadfast love that surrounds those who trust you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So God, would you meet us now in this moment? [SPEAKER_00]: Would you meet us now in this moment? [SPEAKER_00]: We love you, Lord, praise and Jesus name. [SPEAKER_00]: Amen.