Guilt, Forgiveness, & Knowing God Is for Us

Father, we do thank you for this opportunity this morning to gather, to just gather, and if there are any among you, that you would just bless our time. May we sing as unto you. May our time in your word just be awesome, growing, convicting, whatever you have in mind for what your word does. We thank you, Lord Jesus. Bless our time, we ask.

With a thousand tongues to lift one,

I'll stand strong and worship you. If it what is true, if the cross brings transformation, right with you is just the doorway into your suffering. May we be light and salt, Lord, to a world that needs you.

My God is vision.

In the beauty, I'll place my crown.

Justice. Let's try it again. My God is mercy.

Your faithful could say your very name, your very name, or something to grasp, to be equal with God, but to come. Yourself in the form of a servant. Humble to yourself. Died on a cry.

Father God, I'm exalted in him. Would you all stand? Oh, not yet. Never mind. You've been standing for two songs. You might complain at me, so.

Oh, some of the saints adore. We're switching songs. Okay, here we go.

Would you all stand now for real?

It is what it is, guys. We trust the Lord. He will glorify him in spite of me. Oh, some of the saints adore. Praise you, Lord. Continue our service, Lord. We also lift up those folks that they're young Christians. We can give them sacred trust.

In Jesus' name. Please anoint, break by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring to you. Let's have some fellowship.

We'll go over a few announcements real quick. The intercessory prayer is tonight at 6 p.m. We meet it in the Agape room. The women's breakfast is going to be this coming Saturday, April 13th. They're going to meet at Daisy Mae's at 8 o'clock. And there's two spots still available for the Guatemala missions trip. It's taking place between May 27th and June 3rd.

And if you're interested in going to it, get a hold of Ross or Jana Lumbert. They're usually here at the second service. So if you're interested, just kind of hang around a little bit. They'll be here in a little bit. Also, Doc Sellers. Everybody knows Doc. He's needing somebody to give him a ride to Wichita to get some medical treatment on Wednesday. He doesn't know what time his appointment is

or anything yet. But if you're available, I've left his cell phone number with the ushers. So when you leave, if you're interested in maybe giving him a ride to Wichita Wednesday, just get his cell phone from them and give him a call and he can update you more on what's going on. So for our responsive reading, we're going to be in Psalms 32.

I'll read the, we're going to read out of the New American Standard just so that we're all the same. I'll read the odd number verse, and you guys follow along with Glenn with the even number of verses. Are you there? All right. 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,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin to thee, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,

and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah. Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found. Surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him. Thou art my hideout, my hiding place. Thou dost preserve me from trouble. Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go.

I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check. Otherwise, they will not come near to you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. And read verse 11 with me. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,

you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. Father, we just come before you this morning, and we just ask, first of all, that you would be with the kids as they're coming back from Missouri, and just pray that you would bless them and keep them safe. And I also ask that you would just speak to us from your word this morning. Just make your presence, very real to us, Lord.

We just love you, and just ask that you be with us as we spend time in your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

I don't know if you caught that when we were reading, but as we were reading through the Psalms, I don't know if you noticed that Glenn started slowing down as he was reading. That was intended for me.

Psalms 32 is what my main text is that I want to cover. But Psalms 32 is built off of two other passages. He wrote Psalm... David wrote Psalm... Psalms 32 after he wrote his confession in Psalms 51. And his confession in Psalms 51 was written after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed her husband, which is dealt with in 2 Samuel 11. So we're going to start

in 2 Samuel 11, go through 11 and part of 12, go to his confession in 51, and then we're going to concentrate on his instructive Psalm in 32 based on everything that had happened to him before. So 32 is the main text, but we've got to build up to it. So we're going to be in 2 Samuel 11 to start out with.

It says, Then it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle that David sent Joab his servant with him and his servant with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Reba. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Now when evening came, David rose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing.

And the woman was very beautiful in appearance. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, Is this not Besheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Pause here for a second. First of all, I want you to notice that it started out as wanting you to know this is the time of the year when the kings are supposed to out be fighting.

David's not out fighting like he's supposed to be. He's hanging around in Jerusalem, not where he's supposed to be. And this Hittite that he's referring to, the Hittites were some of the people that were living in Canaan before the Israelites came and took possession of the area. And Israel didn't destroy them like they were supposed to. They ended up intermarrying with some

of these people. And Besheba is Jewish, but her husband is a Hittite. But he converted to Judaism. So just filling you in on that part. We'll keep going. And David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her. And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. Now, that doesn't read very good in the New American Standard,

so I'm going to read it in the New Living Translation. In fact, quite a bit of what I'm going to read in that, part of it will be in the New American, and part of it will be in the New Living Translation. But verse 4, if you read it in the New Living, it says, And when she came to the palace, he slept with her, and she had just completed the purification rites after her minstrel's period, then she returned home. Now, the reason this is important is because the Scriptures want us to know that Bathsheba was not pregnant before she had relationships with David. The Jews

had purification rites that they had to go through, and it's listed in Leviticus chapter 15. When a Jewish woman had her minstrel period, when it ended, she was to count off seven days, and at the end of that seven days, she was supposed to have, what's called a mikvah, M-I-K-V-E-H. It's a Jewish ritual bath. And it had to be either in a moving spring, or in a pool that was made out of rainwater that had been saved. And there were several

of these that had been found around Jerusalem, several of them around the Temple Mount. And you have to remember that the city of David was here, the Temple Mount was up here, and David's palace was in between the Temple Mount and the city of David up here. And so even though these ritual bathing, places, were kind of secluded-like, because of David's height, where his palace was, he could see down over walls and stuff, and see what was going on. And when these women did these purification ritual baths, they weren't supposed to have anything that was hindering the water from touching their skin. They had

to get totally wet, so they couldn't wear clothes, they couldn't wear jewelry, they had to take everything off. And a lot of the women, a lot of times, would actually sit by the pool and sponge bath, bathe themselves, first, before they got into the water to do that ritual. And David's sitting up there in his palace, he's able to see everything that's going on in this ritual bath. But Bathsheba just wasn't out skinny dipping.

She was actually performing a ritual bath that's required by the Jewish law, and that's after her period was over. So, anyway, the reason that's important is because the Scriptures are wanting us to understand that she wasn't pregnant before David had relationships with her. In verse 5, it goes, And the woman was conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. Then David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite.

So Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked concerning the welfare of Joab and the people and the state of the war. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house, wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and a present from the king was sent out after him. This present that the king sent out was, he sent a meal from the king's table,

to Bathsheba's house, for him and Uriah to have a nice, romantic meal that night, because David wanted to try and set the mood. It wouldn't surprise me if he set some candles along with the dinner. But look what Uriah did. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. Then when they told David, saying, Uriah did not

go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey? Did you not go down to your house? And Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camped in open field. Shall I then go down to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life

and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing. Here Uriah is, his devotion is showing the lack of devotion to David, because David was supposed to be out fighting. He wasn't supposed to be home. And this guy had more devotion than David did. And he's just it's hitting home to David. Then David said to Uriah, Stay here today also and tomorrow, and I will let you go.

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. Now David called him, and he ate and drank before him, and he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his bed with his lord's servants. But he did not go down to his house. Again David was trying to get him drunk. He thought, Surely if I get him drunk, he'll go, home. But he didn't go home.

Now it came about in the morning that David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah and had written in the letter saying, Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die. So it was as Joab kept watch on the city that he put Uriah in the place where he knew where valiant men were. And the men of the city went out and fought against Joab. Some of the people among David's servants fell.

Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and reported to David all the events of the war. And he charged the messenger, saying, When you had finished telling all the events of the war to the king, and if it happens that the king's wrath rises, and he says to you, Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who struck

down Amalek, the son of Job? Did not the woman throw down an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Jephthah? Why did you go so near to the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite shall die. This illustration he's talking about, Amalek and the son of Jehoshaphat, I can't remember if it's in Joshua or Judges, where this woman,

she dropped this millstone over the top and landed on this guy's head and killed him. It was just an excellent shot. We just went through it not too long ago, but I can't remember which book it is. It was in. But when he heard that Uriah had died, so the messenger departed, came and reported to David all that Job had sent to him to tell. And the messenger said to David,

The men prevailed against us and came out against us in the field. But we pressed them as far as the entrance of the gate. Moreover, the archers shot at your servants from the wall. So some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite also is dead. Then David said to the messenger, Thus you shall say to Joab, Do not let this thing displease you,

for the sword devours one as well as another. Make your battle against the city stronger and overthrow it, and so encourage him. So David kind of played it down, because David set it up for Uriah to be killed. He had him put to death. Now when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she mourned for her husband. When the time of mourning was over,

David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife. Then she bore him a son, but the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. Now David in just this one chapter broke four of the Ten Commandments. He broke the Seventh Commandment, you shall not commit adultery. He broke the Sixth Commandment, you shall not murder. He broke the Ninth Commandment, you shall not bear false

witness, because he lied about the whole event of getting Uriah killed. And he broke the Tenth Commandment, you shall not cover your neighbor's wife. And he was just blowing it. Now these next few verses I'm going to bring in is because I think there's some of you, I've shared these before, but there's some people here that I think need to hear them. And that is

why God gives us the law. The law first of all was not written for the righteous, but for sinners. It says in Timothy 1, 8-10, But we know the law is good if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men, and homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching. The law is not made for those who are righteous. It's not made to make

you righteous. It's written to sinners. And in Romans 3 19-20 it says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in a sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The purpose of the law is to show us that we don't measure up.

It's not there for us to try to live by and make ourselves perfect. The purpose of the law is to show us that we're not perfect, and that we're sinners. And until you know that you're a sinner, you will never see your need for Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. It actually points us to Christ. In Galatians chapter 3 it says, But the scripture has shut up all men under sin

that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We're not under the law anymore. God actually when you accept Christ in your life,

He begins to write His laws on your heart. He does the work inside you. He makes the changes take place in you. But David, at the time he was living, he's still living under the law. And in Deuteronomy 22, 22 it says, If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lied with the woman and the woman. Thus you shall purge the evil of Israel.

David and Bathsheba should have been put to death, but God had mercy on them. After almost a year of David hiding his sin and not dealing with it, God sent Nathan the prophet to reprove David. In the first 14 verses of chapter 12 of 2 Samuel it says, Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said, There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb, which he brought and nourished, and it grew up together with him and his children. He would eat his bread and

drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his wife, his own flock of his own herd, to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him. Rather he took the poor man's ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, surely that man who has done this deserves to die, and he must restitute for the lamb for full because he did this thing and had no compassion. Nathan then

said to David, You are that man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, It is I who anointed you king over Israel, and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household. I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed, you did

not, indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel under the sun. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord has also taken away your sin. You shall not die. However, because of this deed, you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, and the child also that is born to you shall

surely die.

God forgave David, but that didn't take away the consequences of sin. It's the same way in our lives. God's going to forgive us when we blow it, but that doesn't necessarily mean the consequences are going to go away. In James 1, verse 13, it says, Let no one say that when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is

tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Whenever you sin, there's a death that takes place. There's something happening. Either a relationship is messed up, or the guilt is just so heavy between you and God.

It's just a mess. And in David's life, it was his family. The first thing that happened was David Bathsheba's baby died. David had three sons who also ended up dying violent deaths. In chapter 13, Amnon, David's oldest brother, oldest son, raped his half-sister and David did nothing about it because David was guilty of sexual sin himself. So his brother Absalom had

his servants kill his brother. In chapter 15-18, Absalom tried to take the kingdom from his father, David, and tried to possess. In the process, he openly had a relationship with David's women. Joab, who was in the command of David's army, thrust three spears into Absalom. And in 1 Kings chapter 2, another one of David's sons was a commander of Solomon's army, which was

his half-brother, and Solomon he wanted Solomon's throne and so Solomon had him put to death by this other guy who took his brother's place. So after David's sinned, basically what happened is David's family became a very dysfunctional family. And that's usually what happens when sin takes place in a family. Afterwards the family is very, very dysfunctional.

In Joshua 6-17, it talks about how the Israelites took Jericho. Nobody was to take anything from them, anything for themselves. Everything belonged to the Lord. But in chapter 7, one guy took some stuff and hid it under his tent. And as a result, the next time they went out to fight, they lost the battle because of secret sin. Secret sin not only affects you, it affects everybody else around

you. And when you think you're getting away with something, God sees it. And that secret sin, you may not realize it, but it affects other people. It affects the body of Christ because the power in the church only resides as we yield ourselves to Him. And if you're not yielding to the Lord and you're just playing church, the church becomes weak because we don't have the power because

we're not yielded to the Lord. And we've got secret sin. We're not going to win the battle when we allow secret sin to be in the place. So anyway, David screwed up and he confessed. So I want to read David's confession to you out of the New Living Translation. I'm just going to read the first 17 verses. He says, Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love,

because of your great compassion, blot out the stains of my sin. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin, for I recognize my rebellion. It haunts me day and night. Against you and you alone have I sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. For I was born a sinner. Yes, from the moment

my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the womb. Teach me wisdom even there. Purify me from sins, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I'll be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again. You have broken me. Now let me rejoice. Don't keep me looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not

banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Resplore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you. Forgive me for shedding blood, O God, who say, Then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you. You

do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Excuse me. You have to humble yourself before the Lord. And a couple months ago, we were at a conference in a in a Arizona.

And I heard this example given. And I don't remember the guy that told it, but he used water as an example. And water flows to the lowest place. Water always flows to where it's the lowest. And when we humble ourselves before the Lord, the water, which is a picture of the Holy Spirit, God pours that into our lives as we humble ourselves. If you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit,

you're going to have to be in a place where the water can flow to you. And that means you're going to have to humble yourself before the Lord to have that experience. In 1 Peter 5, it says, Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you. In Psalms 32, which is the main text I wanted to get to, this Psalms 32 is the first of maybe about 12 or 14 instructive Psalms in the 150 Psalms that are in the Bible.

The word at the top of it where it says Meskel, it means that this is a contemplative instructive Psalm. And this is the first one in the Scriptures. And David wrote this after his confession and after what he did to David and Bathsheba and Uriah. And this is him looking back on it all. And he says, 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, and whose spirit there is no deceit. That word blessed in the Hebrew is actually in the plural. It doesn't mean many blessings. It means the fullness of blessing. It's the same way with the tree of life in Genesis where it talks about the tree of life. The word life in the Hebrew is actually in the plural. It doesn't

mean the tree of many lives. It means the tree of fullness of life. And that's what he's saying here. How fully blessed is the person whose transgression is forgiven. How fully blessed is the man whose sin is covered. Then he goes on and describes four different aspects of sin. He mentions transgressions which transgressions are willful disobedience. Then he mentions

sin which is missing the mark, falling short of God's righteousness. Then he mentions that God does not impute iniquity. What that means is God does not well the iniquity is the word iniquity itself. There's several meanings for it depending on the passage. In this passage here it means distortion or perversion. Then he mentions deceit. And the deceit is primarily self-deception.

Because when we fall into sin we think we can somehow hide it. And that God doesn't see it. But it doesn't work that way.

Look now how God deals with the sin. On the transgression our willful disobedience God forgave David. On the sin, he covered it. When he talks about covering our sin, he's not talking about hiding our sin. God doesn't hide our sin. He atones for it. He deals with it. He means that the debt has been paid. It's like if you and your friends go out to eat dinner and the

waitress comes along with the bill and says how do I need to divide this ticket up? And you say, I've got it. I cover it. I'll cover it. Well, when you say you're covering it, you're not going to take that bill and hide it. You're going to take that bill and you're going to pay the debt that's owed on it. And that's what it means to have our sin covered. It means to be atoned for

it, to have it dealt with. And thirdly, he does not lay, he doesn't impute iniquity. He does not lay it to our charge like an accountant keeping a record of everything that we do wrong. God doesn't hold it over our heads. To bring it back up later on to just condemn us. That's what Satan does. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He's the one that constantly

tries to accuse us and condemn us by the things that we do, even after God has already forgiven us. In Psalms 103 it says, He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. God deals with it. He puts it away. It's done. In verse 3 and 4 he says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night

my hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained away as with fever heat of summer.

There is nothing worse than to be a believer out of the will of God. That is the most miserable place that you can be. And I know because I've been there. Back in 1990 I started a Calvary Chapel in Joplin. And I knew that I wasn't supposed to be the pastor of the church. God just called me there to start it. And after the church got started, a guy came. We had prayed. Actually it was kind of neat how it worked

out because I told everybody to be praying that God would bring back somebody from California to take over as pastor. And this guy out in California a couple months later after we had been praying called me up and said the Lord was laying on us to come back up his heart to come back to Joplin and start a church and pastor a church in Joplin. And he had been taking the Joplin newspaper and he saw all our Bible studies listed that we've been doing in the area and thought he was too late. And I said, No, you're not too late.

You're right on time. So he sold his fencing business he had, came back to Joplin and when it was time for him to take over the church what I wasn't prepared for was that feeling that I would have because it was like handing my children over to somebody else to raise. And I went into a very, very deep depression. And when I came back to Ark City, every time I'd walk into the church all I would do was beat myself up over what if I'd have done this different or what if I'd have done that different. And it got so bad

that I just decided I wasn't going to go to church anymore because every time I walked in here I just beat myself up. So I started getting drunk and I threw myself into work. I worked two full-time jobs for years and I worked partly not only because I needed the money but also because my work was a painkiller. It killed the pain. As long as I was working all the time I didn't have to deal with my

problems. And when I wasn't working I was drinking. And after seven years of being away from church my wife at the time divorced me. She was tired of it. And so I moved out and that's when I realized how far away from God I'd gotten. Seven years. I haven't been to church for seven years. I've been a believer for 17 years. And that's when God broke me. And I moved into a little house that wasn't

far from a little Pentecostal church and I walked down there on a Sunday evening and I was in there praying during worship time. And this older gentleman came up behind me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he started praying for me. He just started bawling. I mean the tears were just dripping off his face. And he didn't know what I was going through. But he could

feel the pain. And God used the people in that little Pentecostal church to help bring healing in my life. but anyway just like David because I threw myself into work and everything else because I let sin get in my life, get in the way my family became dysfunctional. Because I worked all the time I wasn't around my kids. I never had a relationship with my kids. And so now we're

growing up and there's that one song you used to play how the guy I can't remember how the song goes but the guy grew up the dad wanted to spend time with his dad. His dad was working all the time then his dad quit working but his son was working all the time. He still never got to see his kids. And but just that's what happens. Relationships get all torn up when you allow

sin to come into play. Okay now I've got to take a pause and get these tears out of my eyes. Okay.

Anyway David had this guilt that he carried with him for a year of the sin and it was heavy on him. God's hand was heavy on him. And God's hand, if you're a believer God is going to discipline you. He's going to do what he has to to get you turned around. In verse 5 it says, I acknowledge my sin to thee and my iniquity I did not hide. I said I will confess my transgressions

to the Lord and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. David confessed his sin. He didn't hide his sin. He didn't hide his iniquity. But what David had been doing for a year he was trying to hide his iniquity for about a year. But he finally acknowledged it. He finally confessed. Now what does it mean to confess? It means to acknowledge your sin to agree with God about your sin.

It means that until you agree with God about your sin and just how sinful your sin is you'll never know how wonderful God's forgiveness and His grace really is. If you just look at confession as a way to earn your forgiveness and it doesn't change your life any, then you're turning the grace into a license to sin. And that's not true grace. Because true grace will teach you to turn from sin and to live a holy life.

In 1 John 1.9 it says, If we confess our sin, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In verse 6 it says, Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to thee in a time when thou mayst be found. Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.

God wants us to come to Him willingly. Don't wait until He has to put His hand of discipline upon you to come to Him. He wants you to come to Him right away. Don't put it off. In verse 7 it says, Thou art my hiding place. Thou dost preserve me from trouble. Thou dost surround me with the songs of deliverance. God's not our enemy. He's our safe spot. He's that

place of hiding. He's our safety place that we can go to. But just like Adam and Eve when they sinned, they went and hid themselves. And the first time we blow it, our tendency isn't to turn to God right away like we should. Our tendency is to go away from God. Because the sin is there and we're ashamed of the sin and we don't want to have to deal with it with

God. And we've inherited that sin nature in us. That's the direction we want to go. But God's right there. He already knows that we're sinners. He already knows what we're like. He knows everything about us. And He's just waiting for us to come to Him. He's not our enemy. In verse 8 it says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eyes

upon you. In verse 8, this is God speaking to us. But at the same time, it's God speaking through David. Because back in Psalm 51, when David was praying, he said, Restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your way to rebels and they will return to you. He asked God to help him to be able to teach others. And that's what Psalms 32 is.

God's using David right here to write to us, to teach us on how we should be living. In verse 9 it says, Do not be as a horse or as a mule, which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them to check. Otherwise they will not come near to you. God didn't create us to be robots. He doesn't want automatic worshipers. He wants us to come to Him of our own free

will. In Philippians chapter 2 it says, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is a work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. So a lot of people get hung up on this, work out your salvation, as if you're supposed to be working for your salvation. But what it would

be, it's better to read it as, work your salvation outward. In other words, the salvation is in you. You've already got it. But God wants you to be a light. He wants what He has done for you to be showing outward for other people to see it. He wants you to live that life. It's God that's working in you. It's God who is working in you, both in will and to work His good pleasure.

But it's, you have to be willing to let Him work out through you. And if you're a believer and you're not allowing that to happen, then you're going to stagnate. And you're going to wonder, what happened to my relationship with God? And if you will let that flow, if you will ask God to give you opportunities to minister to somebody else, you would be surprised. Because Jesus said

in John chapter 7, if you believe in me, rivers of living water will flow out from you. If those rivers of living water aren't flowing out from you, you're missing out on a big part of your Christian walk. Because that's the joy of the salvation, is actually knowing that God is through His Holy Spirit His point moving through you outward. And that feeling of that rush of the Holy Spirit coming through you to minister to somebody else is so, so exciting. And God will do

so many exciting things. In verse 10 it says, 10 and 11 it says, Make our sorrows, many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. It says that loving kindness shall surround you. The thing that I want most in my walk

with the Lord is I want to know His presence, with me. I want that presence. I want to bathe in His presence. I want to be in His presence. Because when I'm not in His presence, that's all I've got to live for. I just want to be in His presence. And that's the greatest part about being a believer, I think, is just knowing that I'm forgiven and knowing that I'm in His presence.

And I don't want to go through the day just living my life and not being in it. Trust in the Lord, experience His loving kindness. Now, in this psalm, there's only 11 verses, but if you notice, there are three salahs in this passage. A salah is actually a musical notation. It's not really, you know, when we read it, we usually go through and we say the word salah.

But really, what it means is to pause and ponder what was just said. Think, it's supposed to be a time of just stopping for a minute and think about what was just said. And there's three of them in this passage. The first one takes place after verses 3 and 4. In verse 3 and 4, he says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night, my hand was heavy on me. My vitality was drained away, and with the fever of heat of summer. His first salah, he's thinking about his guilt. He's looking back on his life, and he remembers the guilt that he felt. The second salah is after verse 5. It says, I acknowledged my sin to thee, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord, and thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. The second salah in his life that he mentions here in the psalm is he's focusing on the forgiveness that God has given him. He first dwelt on the guilt that he had. Now he's focusing on the forgiveness that he has. And the last one is in verse 7. He says, Thou art my hiding place. Thou didst preserve

me from trouble. Thou didst surround me with songs of deliverance. He's our hiding place. He's our safe place. God is for us.

And second, oh, to show you how much God is for us, when I said earlier that God does not impute iniquity onto us, you know who God did impute our iniquity on? He gave it to Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5.12 says, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God. He took what we deserved, gave it to Jesus so that we could be made righteous.

That's how much God loves us. In Hebrews 9.28 he says, I don't know about you, but that thrills me because I'm ready for him to come take me home. I'm ready to go be with him. And those of us here that are in times buffs, we know we're not too far off. We know that the Lord's coming back. There's some exciting things taking place. We may have some things we have to go through, but

we're getting close to going home. And when he comes, he's not going to make reference to our sin. He's already made us his righteousness. And so that's what we're going to focus on. Today is communion. And it's been a while since I've done this, so I'm not really sure if the ushers are hearing anything that I'm saying. And I'm doing really good on time. I can actually slow down on the second service.

Nick heard me. Anyway, so explaining about communion, I want to just I'm going to paraphrase the first couple of verses of this psalm. How fully blessed is the person whose transgression is forgiven? How fully blessed is the person whose sin is covered? How fully blessed is the person to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity? If you're a believer here this morning, when we take this communion,

this is a time of really a neat time of fellowship with God because you've been forgiven. How fully blessed you are. And if you've fallen into sin, if you're living in sin right now and your fellowship with him is broken and God's heavy hand of discipline is on you, on your life, then this is a good time for you to acknowledge that sin to him and go to him. As your safe place and let him deal with it. He'll deal with it. He just

wants you to agree with him that it's a sin and turn it over to him and let him do it. And he will. And if you've never accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, then this is a good time for you to acknowledge to him that you are a sinner. And then thank him that he sent Christ to die on the cross for your sins and allow Christ to rise again on the third day so that you could have new life in him.

Christ is a God. He wants to be your Lord and Savior. And if you'll accept him as such, the Holy Spirit will come in and take residence in your spirit. The Holy Spirit will bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. When you accept Christ, you'll know it. You'll know the change in your life. Your spirit will be born again. So I'm going to go ahead and pray

and then the ushers will come up and we'll, I keep forgetting this, we don't have kids this morning.

Father, we just thank you that you loved us enough to send Jesus Christ to take our sins for us. Lord, we pray that you would just help us not to allow sin to hinder our fellowship with you, but that we would yield our lives to you in such a way that we would experience your loving kindness surrounding us, that we would know your presence, that we would feel your, know your rivers of living water flowing out of our lives to touch other people. Let us live for you, Lord. Let us look for your coming.

Just ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus, Lord of heaven, you have given that I stand in last. You make mercy beyond measure.

The sky is your light beyond measure. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your great mercy that you have shown towards us by sending your son to die on the cross for our sins. We can't begin to fathom the depth of your love for us and the righteousness that you've given us because of what you did for us by sending Jesus to the cross. As we take this bread,

Lord, we just remember what you've done for us on the cross. And as we take this blood, Lord, this juice, let us remember that there's going to come a time when we're going to take this with you in the kingdom and that you're coming back for us. We just love you, God, and we just thank you for your forgiveness, God. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Pray one

more time. Fathers, we leave here today. I just pray that we will leave knowing that your loving kindness surrounds us, that you are our safe place, that when we fall into sin, that we don't have to hide from you. We can turn to you, that you you've already taken care of it. You just want us to have that fellowship restored. Help us to be the lights that you

want us to be. Help us to live our lives out loud for you. Let others see what it is to have your grace in our lives. Amen. Thank you and give you the glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. Like usual, I'm going to be hanging out up front. If anybody's got something they want to pray about, there's something I'll be up here just hanging out up front. Have a good day.