Dealing With Sin As God’s People

Transcript

GRM 1123
6/15/2014
Dealing with Sin as God's People
Psalm 51, 32
Gil Rugh

A couple of weeks ago we looked into the Psalms and we are going to be back in the Psalms today, but let me tell you a little bit about two weeks ago. We looked at Psalm 3 and talked about David's sin, the seriousness of that sin but how God's grace brought forgiveness and David moved on. And I had been thinking about the Psalms and some of the Psalms that we looked at before, so I turned to Psalm 3 and started just looking it over. And the more I looked into the Psalm and over the material I had worked on earlier on that, “this is really exciting.” And that's what I like my thought to be as I'm getting ready to preach something. So I pulled that together and said well, Lord, I take it this is where we are to be. So I appreciate your prayers regularly for the ministry that the Lord guides and directs each step of the way and He knows what we need.

And we're going to Psalm 51. And I thought good time for us to follow with David and his experience with sin. We experience sin in our own lives personally and in the lives we're close to and minister with. And to see David's experience, the Lord records it for us. We talked about with Psalm 3, these things were written for our benefit, those upon whom the ends of the ages have come. And a good time for us to be reminded of God's grace.

We're going to look at two psalms today. I referred to them in our study of Psalm 3 a couple of weeks ago, about David's situation, following his sin of adultery and murder. As I noted in Psalm 3 you'll note in this psalm, there is no specific reference in the psalm to the specific sin or sins of David. We have a title in this psalm but we've noted that titles aren't part of the psalm. But they are very old and give probably the setting of the psalm. If not, it's a situation like that. And written here so we can see how David had to deal with his sin and how the Lord worked through him to enable us to see how we ought to be dealing with sin.

Psalm 51 written shortly after David's confrontation with Nathan. It sometimes comes up, when people are caught in sin. Did they stop the sin before they were confronted or was it the confrontation that brought the sin to an end? It is irrelevant. As we'll see as we move through this psalm, we need to be careful about trying to delve in and trying to analyze things beyond what the Bible does. The point will be the sin had to be stopped and dealt with biblically, whether it stopped before definite confrontation. David's sin did not. He did not acknowledge the sin. He did not deal with the sin until he was openly confronted by Nathan with a message directly from God. But then he deals with it as he should.

And you'll note how the psalm begins in the first two verses. “Be gracious to me, oh God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the greatness of your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.” Right away you see where David's heart is, what he is looking for. You may have these words marked, three key words here in verse 1—gracious, lovingkindness, compassion. Be gracious to me, Lord, I need your grace. Grace is something undeserved, unmerited. Lord, show grace to me according to your lovingkindness, your covenant love, the love you have for me as one who belongs to you. David is a child of God. He has experienced the power of God's salvation, he was a man after God's own heart. But sin had marred his heart, impacted his life and the life of others. But here is where he is—God, I need lovingkindness; your grace showing your love, the covenant relationship I have with you; your compassion, the greatness of your compassion. David is not looking for justice, he's not bringing forth excuses under a lot of pressure. I have a lot of things to deal with or this happened or that happened. Lord, I'm casting myself on your mercy, I'm looking for grace. Anytime we're really going to deal with our sin, that's where we start. We get through maybe the excuses time, the time of just ignoring it.

We need to be careful here, when we work through this psalm we're talking about sin. And we look at David's sin and say it is so terrible, and it is, but we need to see sin as God sees it and deal with it immediately. And David has come under the conviction of God through the ministry of Nathan the prophet. There is no attempt to minimize his guilt. All I need is grace, your covenant love, your compassion. And he doesn't minimize his sin, he uses several words to describe his sin, note three of them—the end of verse 1, “blot out my transgressions, they are my transgressions; wash me thoroughly from my iniquity; cleanse me from my sin.” Transgressions, iniquity, sin, and they are mine. God, I'm casting myself on your mercy, my transgressions. David sees his sin for what it is, it was an act of rebellion against God, defiance against God. That's what sin always is, the littlest sins as we would look at it, to the biggest sins. They all partake of the same character. It's an act of rebellion against God. Iniquity, the perverseness of sin. It is something depraved, again from the littlest sin to the greatest sin. We see the seriousness of sin. It is depravity. It is a turning from the right way. That word sin, missing the mark, going astray, turning off the way. That's what our sin is. We plant our feet in rebellion against God, the depravity and vileness of sin takes hold and we turn away from the way that God has set down.

Then what does David want. Three more words for you—“blot out my transgression,” the end of verse 1; verse 2, “wash me thoroughly from my iniquity; cleanse me from my sin.” The amazing thing is here David starts out saying, God, I want to claim your grace, covenant love, compassion. I am a great sinner, I have been in rebellion against you, I have defiled myself, I have turned aside from the way you set before me. But he doesn't think, wait! God can clean it all up, blot out my transgressions, wipe the ledger clean, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Iniquity, the perverseness, the depravity, the defilement that comes. Wash me thoroughly, cleanse me from my sin. David realizes as we talked about when we talked about Psalm 3, something of the greatness of God's grace. There are consequences for sin, discipline that comes. David realizes that, but he realizes he can be clean again in the sight of God, he can have the ledger of God blotted out, cleaned up.

Verse 3, for I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. David in no way is minimizing his sin and its seriousness. It's not like well, I sinned, I know, I've come and I know God forgives and I thank Him for His forgiveness and I go on as though sin is nothing. Be careful, we get trapped sometimes thinking this sin is not as serious as some others, and I'm not saying some sins aren't more serious than others, as Scripture would indicate they are. But all sin is of the same character. And it has a way of growing.

We use the analogy like a little bit of cancer. Well, it's not so bad. My dad made a mistake. He knew something was wrong in his body but he didn't want to go to the doctor and be told what it was. Thought he could ignore it, it will go away, it will get better on its own, I won't do anything about it. And he died of cancer because by the time he did go sometime later, it had spread through his body. A little bit of sin is like that. It takes hold but we say it's not that big an issue, nobody is perfect. But I am to be perfect as He is perfect. I am to be holy as He is holy. If I don't deal with that little bit, it grows. The problem is, it grows somewhat imperceptibly. I know it's there and it shouldn't be, I know it's not right. We don't realize its impact is getting a bigger hold on our lives. So David says, I know my transgression, my sin is ever before me. I realize the seriousness and the awfulness and the wretchedness of my sin. And David has a proper perspective here. David sinned against Bathsheba. David sinned against Uriah. David sinned against the nation over which he was king. And the impact of this would have broad consequences.

But you note what David says, “against You and You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” And you stop and think, the sin against God is the greatest of all offenses. I mean, the magnitude of offending the holy God, of rebelling against Him, of rejecting His way for me. My sin against others pales in comparison to the greatness of that. Easy for us to forget that. The awfulness of sin is the offense it is to a holy God. We're talking about believers here. The sin of the unbeliever is offensive and will be dealt with. We're talking about the sin of God's people. Against you, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. David realizes he doesn't deserve mercy, he doesn't deserve grace, he doesn't deserve God is a just and holy God and my sin just reveals how just you are, how righteous you are, how blameless you are when you deal with sin.

“Behold,” verse 5, “I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me.” Only a self-righteous person thinks they are righteous except maybe for this one thing. I'm not a perfect man. I remember one day a couple years ago when I lost my temper with Marilyn, other than that I can't think of anything. You say, that would be nice. That's ridiculous. Bring Marilyn up here, see what she can think of. No. And that's David’s realizing here. I realize how unworthy I am, even to be the recipient of God's mercy. I was conceived a sinner, I had been defiled from birth, this act of sin is simply a reflection of the wretched depravity that is mine as a fallen descendant of Adam. I was conceived in sin, that doesn't mean the act of conception is sin, it means the very sin nature is passed along. We are sinners from conception with that bent to sin, to rebellion against God.

Turn over to Psalm 58:3, the wicked are estranged from the womb, those who speak lies go astray from birth. I mean, it's just our nature, we are fallen beings. We are sinners by birth, we are sinners by choice. When we sin it is coming from our very nature. Paul wrote to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2:3, “we are by nature children of wrath, in our very being.” That's what David is saying here. I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived. The God who judges sin is righteous to judge me and I just reflect what a sinful creature I am in the actions I do. There are no excuses here, he is not papering things over. Now there is no justification for his sin, but there is no self-righteousness in coming before God.

And then note the contrast. Verse 5, “I was brought forth in iniquity, in sin my mother conceived me;” verse 6, “behold you desire truth in the innermost being, in the hidden part.” The problem is I was conceived in my very nature, innermost being, I'm corrupted and now I must deal with a God who requires truth in the innermost being. It's what a person must come to grips with before they can even come to the salvation that only God can provide—that our heart, our innermost being is deceitful and desperately wicked. No one but the all-knowing God knows how wicked and depraved we are at heart!

Come over to Mark 7, Mark 7 is a reminder, Jesus speaking to the people Verse 20, “that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.” You see the issue is not outside things defile us, sin comes from within. “For from within,” verse 21, “out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things.” And you see there is a mixture here which sometimes we view as littler sins and bigger sins. But they all come from the same place, from the heart, an inner being and nature that is defiled and corrupt. And that's what defiles a man. Sin doesn't start out here, sin starts in here. That's what Christ makes clear here. That's what David understood—I was conceived in sin, what a wretched man that I am. He knew he hadn't only sinned on one or two occasions, but the seriousness of these sins that he is dealing with now are before him.

Come back to Psalm 51. God desires truth in the innermost being, verse 6, “you will make me know wisdom in the hidden part, the inner person. Purify me with hyssop, I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Reminds you of what the prophet Isaiah will later write, “wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,” Isaiah 1:18. So here the psalmist, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. It is supernatural. Who else but the almighty, all-powerful God could cleanse the innermost being of a totally corrupted person? My sin has been great, I'm overwhelmed with the reality of how corrupt I am and I've expressed my corruption so evidently. I have been a sinner from birth, from conception. But God can wash me, He can make me whiter than snow.

“Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones you have broken rejoice.” Let me say something here. Sin not dealt with has a terrible toll. We need to be careful, Christians deal with depression, unhappiness, inner misery. Sin not dealt with does that to you. In the world they run to psychologists and psychiatrists and take pills and do all this because . . . You know what David says? “I lost my inner joy, my inner happiness.” When he says, “my bones are broken,” he is picturing that inner loss of life, I just can't go on. How do I express that inner despair? The inner misery? No joy, no happiness. It's gone, that's what sin does to you. Be careful because it can start out with sin not dealt with in what we would call small ways, but it spreads and we haven't dealt with it, we cover it over, we ignore it, it is spreading. Pretty soon we become insensitive because we close our hearts to dealing with it. Then we are in confusion. Now I don't know what? Why am I in such misery? Why am I unhappy? What is wrong? Something is wrong, that's why I always start talking with someone—are you sure you have trusted Christ because “there is no peace, says my God to the wicked.” Yes, I'm sure. Well, then, is your life lived in submission to the Spirit of God, conformed to His Word? Because the fruit of the Spirit is joy. If that's not there, the Spirit is not working. Back to the first two questions, are you sure you are a believer? Why would you say you are a believer when you are miserable, when you are unhappy, when you are depressed? You know what the Spirit produces, well, it is what so-and-so did to me. It's what happened to me at work. I don't buy it because that's not what God says. We begin to cover up things. David says, I've lost my joy, my gladness. I don't have any life in me to go on, so to speak. It's like my bones are all broken, just can't deal with it. But God can. That's what he is asking.

Hide your face from my sins, blot out all my iniquities. Lord, you can make me what I have to be. He acknowledged his sin, he has dealt with his sin. He stopped his sin. Lord, restore me. This is obviously written not long after he is confronted by Nathan. But he is overwhelmed with the situation at this point. He believes, though, you see, that God can do only what God can do. The problem is no one else can. Lord, this is something you and I have to resolve together, you and I have to settle this, only you can do for me what I need done, only you can cleanse me within, in my innermost being. Only you can restore my joy, my gladness, the vitality of life that enables me to go forward. You can blot out all my iniquities so they are not even part of what you take into consideration. We go on.

Then he says in verse 10, “create in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me.” You can do it, that's the encouragement. What hope will we have? I have settled my relationship with God and Lord, I've cast myself on Your mercy, placed my faith in Your Son as my Savior. I'm trusting Him alone. Then I can go on. When I've sinned, all I can say is Lord, you know the seriousness of my offense and I know it and I make no excuse. But I know your grace is a forgiving grace. I'm your child. As we talked about with Psalm 3, God doesn't throw us out of the family because we all sin. We all stumble in many ways, as James says. No more than when our kids sin, we disown them. We may discipline them, but we love them, they still belong to us. That's the way God is. God, create in me a clean heart, renew a steadfast spirit. God, I know you wash me clean. You give me a steadfast spirit. It contrasts with the broken bones, doesn't it? What can you do? Your bones are broken. I have no life. People get depressed, they just want to pull the covers over their head and not get out of bed in the morning. Give me my glass of water and pill and then I'll get up. No. Can't face the day, can't go on, I don't want to face life. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. It can be the way it was. Doesn't mean there aren't consequences of sin, we talked about that in Psalm 3. My relationship with God is just as good as it has ever been, maybe better, as I grow and mature.

“Do not cast me away from your presence, do not take your Holy Spirit from me,” that enabling power of the Spirit. David is acknowledging here his unworthiness like it began, asking for the grace that God gives to us as His children. Don't cast me away, I know you won't be done with me. He knows that. God is not done with him being king, the enablement of the Holy Spirit. Saul, the king before him, the Holy Spirit departed from him. The Holy Spirit doesn't depart from us as New Testament believers in the sense that we lose our salvation, but the Holy Spirit came upon men in Israel to empower them to function as king. When Saul sinned the Lord rejected him as king and the Holy Spirit left him, we are told. David realizes that could be a consequence of his sin. He is asking for added mercy.

Then verse 12 picks up, “restore to me the joy of your salvation. Sustain me with a willing spirit.” We keep coming back to this. What is lost? Why do we have the church filled with counseling anymore, counselors who go to learn from the world how to help Christians deal with life? What good is the salvation our God brings if it doesn't enable us to deal with life? We need to search ourselves that we don't become overly introspective, but we need to be very sensitive to sin. A little bit of cancer can do a lot of damage in the body, a little bit of sin can do a lot of damage to your spirit. We paper it over and act like it is not serious. We come to the Word to find out what is serious and sin is serious. Sometimes we look at someone else and say, I don't know how they could do that. I would never do that. And we want to have that kind of attitude to a certain degree. I want to look at myself and say, God, only your grace keeps me on track and only my willing, careful submission and obedience to your Word and to the guidance of the Spirit keeps me from turning off the track, off the path which is the start of rebellion. David knows, I have lost what should be mine, I don't have what should belong to me as God's child—joy in my salvation. God's salvation brings joy.

I want to say something to everyone here. If you don't have that joy in your inner person, there are only two possibilities—one, you have never experienced the gift of God's salvation through faith in Christ; or two, what we're dealing with, there is sin that ought to be dealt with. I'm not saying there are not hard times that come to our lives, even as we are being faithful, but that doesn't take away the joy. Paul was in prison when he said, “I have learned to be content in whatever situation I am in.” Why? My heart is right with God. When I am in prison, my God provides peace and contentment, stands guard at my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus. We have some kind of veneer of Christianity that people can be miserable on the inside and think they are believers, think they are living their life the way the Lord wants them to, and the Lord wants them just to be miserable. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. I mean, we just pass over this like well, I know, but. No buts!

Something is wrong, David says, and I know what it is. I've sinned and I don't have joy in my relationship with my God. Sustain me with a willing spirit. Same thing as renew a steadfast spirit within me. When I have dealt with my sin before God, I stopped it, I haven't made light of it, I haven't ignored it, I realize the serious thing that I have offended my God, I've grieved the Spirit. Now sustain me with a willing spirit. All this contrast I say with the broken bones in the picture where it's just like all my bones are broken, just the life is sapped out of me. Well, you can renew it, Lord.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you. Lord, when I get myself right with you and you have brought back the blessings and joy of a right relationship with you, I'm going to be teaching others about this blessing. And he has because here we are three thousand years now after David and he is teaching us. God is not done with him. We studied Psalm 3 where God was using him to teach us. Here he is, I will teach transgressors your ways, sinners will be converted. How often, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians, God comforts us in our sorrows so that we might comfort others. Sometimes we sit down with people and say, I know what you are dealing with. I've been where you are. I've faced similar things. I know what it is to have that. Until I dealt with the sin in my life, my rebellion against God, I couldn't go on. Like David says, I'm going to do. This is evidently soon after. We'll move on in a moment to look at further down the road, but he anticipates this. He is not saying here it can never be the same, I can never have the same relationship with you, God. I know I can still be saved but . . . I will teach transgressors your ways. You used me to have sinners converted to you, the lost can hear. This is what we need to tell the unbeliever. There is salvation from the power, corruption and misery that sin brings, I can testify to that; the power of God's saving grace, I can testify to that to God's people who are struggling.

“Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, oh God, the God of my salvation.” We're back to this hurt. He is overwhelmed with the reality of how awful his sin is, but it's not unforgivable. He's the God of my salvation. And then my tongue will joyfully sing of your righteousness. “Oh Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.” It's not bad when we face the reality and terribleness of our sin. There is a time of grief, not despair that God won't forgive me but how terrible it was that I did this. How often we think, what was I thinking? Why would I do that? Just whether it is with the tongue which James says we all do. Afterwards we say, why would I say that? From one degree to another. But what does he look forward to? I know I have dealt with it and the Lord has forgiven me, I'll be singing joyfully of the righteousness of God. His righteousness, He is going to judge me, it will be hard for Him to forgive me. I'll probably have to work this off for the rest of my life. Nope. Open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.

You do not delight in sacrifice otherwise I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise. This is what God wants. Well, I'm going to be more religious, I'm going to come to church more, I'm going to do whatever you do. No. God is looking at my heart. Until it has been dealt with in my heart, it hasn't been dealt with. We don't just go on and say, I'll get back, I'll be in church Sunday and that will be fine. No, certain things maybe you should do. He'll be back at the temple, he'll be offering sacrifices. There is a place for that. That will not take the place of a heart that is made right with God. The other things are a follow through.

Come over to Isaiah 57 and then we have to move one to one other passage. You know, Jesus spoke of this, as you come to Isaiah 57, in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted.” He's not talking about there is blessing on unhappy people. There is blessing on those who mourn over sin, who come to see the awfulness of sin, their own sin and dealt with it before God. Isaiah 57:15, “thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is holy, I dwell on high on a high and holy place.” Now note this, how beautiful. And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart of the contrite. This is what keeps many people from the salvation of God and all His blessings—they will not humble their proud heart, they will not bow their heart and mind before the living God. God, I am wretched, I am undeserving. I may look good, I may be self-satisfied, but God I am a wretched, vile person. That's your evaluation of me. Until I see myself as God sees me, remember what Jesus said? “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Were there some people so righteous they didn't need the salvation He would provide? No, but the self-righteous would not respond. But those who recognize their sin and guilt, the difference between the Pharisee and the sinner who came to pray. The Pharisee said, “I thank you, Lord, that I am not a sinner like other men.” And then the one who comes and says, “Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner.” We have to be careful, even as God's children we can develop a hardness, sin has that way. David had that, he went on for a good part of a year without recognizing or acknowledging his sin until Nathan comes in and slams the door and says, you are the man. Guilty. And David says, I am guilty. What was he thinking month after month? Sin does that to us, even as God's people. A man used to write so many precious psalms, a man after God's own heart. Be careful of sin in your life, it's eating away on the inside.

Come back to Psalm 32. This is another psalm written later by David, it seems. Some time has passed since he wrote Psalm 51. You see the initial impact on David when he was confronted by Nathan and his eyes were opened and he saw the wretchedness of his sin against the holy God. Some time has passed, evidently, as Psalm 32 is written and again you have no specific references here because God uses David's experiences here to be recorded as a pattern so we can benefit from it as well.

Verse 1, “how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. In his spirit there is no deceit.” You see some of the same words for sin that we saw back in Psalm 51—the transgression, the sin, the iniquity—in these opening verses. But now he is talking about the happiness and joy, blessedness. Our word happiness is probably too light a word, but it's the spiritual joy and happiness that comes. David has come now, some time has passed since that initial impact of the sin and the seriousness and the guilt and the recognition of the need for God to cleanse him and for things to be right between him and his God. But now he can talk about how happy I am, the joy that he didn't have before. I can't tell you what joy He has brought to my life, knowing that it is forgiven, it is covered, it's not on the record books anymore, not imputed. It's been blotted out, it's done. We say, David, you should still be in mourning, you know what you did. He knows what he did, he knows something of the greatness of sin but he knows something of the greatness of forgiveness. How happy I am. God has answered his desire of his heart—restore to me the joy of my salvation. How blessed, how joyful, how happy is the one who has never sinned. That's not what it says. Whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. It's not held up there, it's done as far as God is concerned. We say, it's been recorded, we know it's not an issue anymore. It's not an issue, it's covered. It's done as far as God is concerned, taken care of. It's not on the record books, He's not imputing iniquity anymore. David says, I'm free, I have life again, the broken bones have been healed. I have a steadfast spirit, the joy of my salvation, blessedness.

Then he reflects back, “when I kept silent,” now we know what was going on in those months before Nathan confronted him. I kept silent about my sin, “my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.” What a graphic description of sin and its effect. David's severe depression was caused by the fact that he hadn't dealt with his sin before God. He had reason to be depressed, had reason to have a world living on pills, depressed and unhappy with his life. Suicides have gone up, and even believers so that we have modeled the world and have all the Christian counseling and books and all of this going on. So all God's salvation does is rescue you from hell, then you just have to struggle along with life, just like everybody else who doesn't know the Lord. David didn't know that kind of salvation and grace. The Bible doesn't know that salvation and grace. He says “before I dealt with my sin before the Lord, my body wasted away, my groaning all day long, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.” That is similar to when he was reflecting back like we saw in Psalm 51. I had nothing, I was just like a wet rag. It affects you physically, it's true. People come in and say, “I can't get out of bed, I just want to pull the covers up over my head, I just can't do it.”

Yes, I know a man like that, he wrote his account, here it is. Then he says, “I acknowledged my sin to you, my iniquity I did not hide.” Did you underline that? “My iniquity I did not hide,” as though we could hide anything from God, the One who searches the heart, who tries the thought, who knows every word before we speak it. The problem was David thought he could hide it for a few months, several months. I acknowledged my sin to you, my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. Of course, after Nathan confronted him what could he do? Well, praise God he did what he had to do, what he was supposed to do. I agreed with God, I quit hiding it. That's the deceptiveness of sin. None of us sits here and can act like, I don't know what he means. Of course, we know what it means. We've all thought we could cover over our sin and it will be all right. And it's not that big. And then if we are soft to the Lord and the Spirit, we end up saying, Lord, I know I've sinned. It was an offense against you. And there is a certain relief that comes, we are no longer hiding it. It's like Adam and Eve in the Garden hiding from the Lord. You play hide and seek from the God of the universe who created everything? How silly. David said, I stopped hiding my sin, pretending it was something private. It might be private from other people, but it wasn't private from the Lord.

“I confessed my transgressions to the Lord.” You don't have to come confess to me, you have to make it right with the Lord. To confess is to agree with—God, you are right, I agree with you, this is sin. What happened? You forgave me the guilt of my sin. You see some time has passed, David can talk about how different life is when you have dealt with your sin before God. He starts out talking about his joy and his happiness, talking about the contrast of what it was like before and what it is like now. You forgave me. Isn't it amazing how the world will persevere on doing whatever they can to not acknowledge their sin and guilt before God and receive the free gift of God's salvation? Isn't it even more amazing that we as God's people will sin and struggle on and suffer with the guilt and the misery and the unhappiness and the lack of joy and try to hide our sin and act like it's really not that bad and it wasn't that serious, blah, blah, blah. All we have to do is come before our heavenly Father.

“I confessed my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave me.” That's it? No penance? No trying to earn forgiveness? Doesn't mean there is not discipline, but it is forgiven, blotted out. Therefore let everyone, here is David's advice, “let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. In a flood of great waters the waters will not reach him. You are my hiding place, you preserve me from trouble, you surround me with songs of deliverance.” It's like David can't talk enough about how wonderful it is to belong to the Lord. Are his troubles over? No. Yes. There still are troubles that are going to come to his life, but his relationship is right with the Lord. That means I can know joy, I can know peace, I can have true happiness, I can know what it means to be clean before the Lord. And you want to read my ledger, there is nothing there against me. It's done, He forgave me.

The floods come, troubles come, you are my hiding place. You protect me. He's not saying now life was easy, life was without trouble and life was painless. Life is totally different. God is my hiding place. God is the One who keeps me. He preserves me. In the midst of the floods, in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the hiding, as we saw in Psalm 3, you surround me with songs of deliverance. All I can think of is how great my God is, how wonderful. What a privilege to belong to Him, what a privilege to know God. You have me under your care.

“I will instruct you, teach you in the way you should go, counsel you with my eye.” The graciousness of God. Here is what he says, “don't be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include the bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near you.” I mean, the Lord is so gracious. Don't fight against Me. You can't win. Sort of like when Jesus appeared to Paul on the Damascus Road, it's hard for you to kick against the goads. Give it up. We are stubborn. Don't be like the mule, don't be like the horse. They need painful things to keep them going. Don't do that, it's not necessary.

“Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving-kindness shall surround him.” Does it get any better than that? I mean, it's a wonder there are not lines out the door of churches preaching the gospel of people hoping to get to hear it. I mean, you can exchange the misery of sin and the sureness of God's judgment for His love, forgiveness. They are not lined up. Isn't it amazing, we can sit and hear the Word even as God's people and still think we can cover over sin. God says, don’t do that, don't be that way, it's not necessary. You don't want the painful things to have to deal with them. Loving-kindness can surround you.

“Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones. Shout for joy all you who are upright in heart.” Now be careful. I have verse 11 underlined in my Bible, but I also have previous verses underlined in this chapter. Because some people read this and say, I wish I hadn't sinned, I wish I didn't have this blot on my record. Read the first part, we're not reading about a man who never sinned, we're not even reading about a believer who didn't sin seriously against the Lord. We're reading about one who didn't continue to hide his sin, who didn't continue to pursue it. He dealt with it. You know we have a hard time coming to grips with the greatness of grace. We want to maintain the balance, I want to talk some about this, this evening. The seriousness of sin but the greatness of grace. We have to have a biblical perspective. David's sin is recorded in Scripture for us, but it's not a blot on God's record of David's life. David says it has been blotted out. But it is recorded here for our benefit so that we might learn from it, not because it's going to be on David's record before God. It is blotted out, he can join, be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones. Shout for joy you who are upright in heart. Why? Because David is shouting like that. We're not talking about people who never sin, who never even sin as believers, we're talking about people who have dealt with their sin. How beautiful it is, how beautiful it is.

If you don't know the Lord, you don't know joy and peace in your heart and mind, don't go another day. Settle it with the Lord. First, do you truly know Him? Have you trusted Christ, placed your faith in Him as the One who will forgive you all your sin and cause you to be washed clean and born into his family? And if your are a child of God, don't go on covering your sin, missing out on the joy and happiness and blessing that comes to God's people if they live in obedience to Him.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your grace. We are before You as sinful people, those conceived in sin. Lord, we went astray from birth, we chose to sin, we were delighted in our rebellion against You. But Lord, Your grace was so great, You brought Your salvation to our sinful, wretched lives, cleansed us, caused us to be born again. Lord, even asYour children we all stumble in many ways. We would not make light of the seriousness of our sin, but Lord, we've been reminded of the importance of dealing with it, stopping it, accepting what only You can provide—cleansing, forgiveness, the joy and happiness that comes from being a child of God, walking in Your will. Thank You for all Your blessings. In Christ's name, amen.