When I was thinking about, I don't preach out a lot right now, do a lot of teaching in our church, counseling, stuff like that, but I don't have an official job. I don't have an official job at all. I am in part of their missions committee, so that's my only official position, but we are, I was looking at some texts from Psalms, Psalms are our favorite. I have more opportunity than I've ever had to just read and pray because my wife gets up later and I'm up early because I was genetically trained and tortured by my father to be up early all the time, so I get a couple hours every morning to read and pray, which is really sweet. And this passage, Psalm 32, came to my mind when I was thinking about what do I preach when I go to Detroit, because it was, I mean, truth be told, the things that most light up our souls when we study God's word are not new things. They're old things that we haven't thought about for a while, or never thought about in that way. Because there's not a lot of new things left, you know, after a while, you pretty much got it all, you cover pretty much all of it. And so, To go back, and so the simple thing here that I want to look, I'll mention stuff out of Psalm 51, and you get all the authorities and scholars, and 51 and 32 are connected for sure, or no, they're not connected at all. What are you thinking? I think they're connected, so I'm going with that. And at the end, is it God that talks, or is it David that talks, or is it God and David talking, and it's like, I'm going with God, and we're just gonna go with that. Okay, so that's how I'm gonna preach it tonight. I'm gonna preach it to you because it's been such a significant blessing in my life. Forgiveness. By way of introduction, certainly there's a once and for all forgiveness that is glorious and astounding and overwhelming, which took us from being condemned to eternity without Christ to being children of God with looking to forever fellowship with our Savior. And that happens through that once and for all forgiveness of our sins that's found in Jesus Christ, right? And clearly, what's better than that? Nothing. That's an amazing aspect of forgiveness, but that's not the forgiveness that's being talked about in Psalm 51 or in Psalm 32. But I want to read you some verses just so we can enjoy together again of that grand once and forever time that God forgave us of our sins. Colossians 2 verses 13 and 14 say, and you, who were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. Now we read that, that's like, who doesn't know that? But it's astounding. So it's done, it's done. Having forgiven us of all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to his cross. I don't know when it was, but it was a long time ago, but I do remember the first time that picture comes, where the way God described this is, all the indictments that demand my eternal damnation were in God's hands, in Christ's hands, and it was nailed to his cross. Once and for all, we are completely and forever forgiven. What's better than that? I mean, I got nothing. The psalmist, David, says, it's as far as the east is from the west. You've heard this a thousand times. So far does He remove our transgressions from us. Doesn't seem that way, does it? Because we confess our sins and we still, they're quite at hand here, and we can still smell them on us. You know, we can still feel it. And yet, here's what I did. when I forgave you when you were a little boy or an old man and you asked Jesus to save me, God's spirit worked and he opened our eyes and he drew us to himself and we received Christ the Savior. He took our sins and removed them as far as the east is from the west. In Micah it says this, he will again have compassion on us. He will tread down our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea. Those people at that time had no better way, no more forceful way to explain as far, as far, as far, as far away into the depths of the sea. So here's the deal. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, we still wrestle with sin, do we not? But the penalty of our sin, the sin that damned us, it has been placed in the depths of the sea. And then Hebrews 8, 12, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities. I will remember their sins no more. Do you remember your sins? Do you? Yeah, we do. That's why we confess them like lots of times. We remember them. Do people remember them? Sometimes. Like only on days that end with Y. And we don't understand this, but it's absolutely true. It's not this nice little fuzzy wishful thought. He remembers our sins no more. So what are we complaining about? I can remember what I complained about today, a number of things. But really, when we think about that once and for all forgiveness, that this text assumes, because David experienced that once and all forgiveness. But what I want to focus on for a while tonight is that everyday ongoing forgiveness between us and our Savior, day-to-day life stuff. So, Psalm 32, verse one. 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. So he talks about this great joy of being forgiven. And when it's put into a question, how blessed, it's like, how good is that? And so it sets the stage that He's, nobody's gonna say like, well, it's okay. Now he's talking about the sin that occurs in our day-to-day lives that separates us, obviously from people and our loved ones at times, but separates us from God himself for a time. And so he's saying here, it's when, and our sins are forgiven and our sin is covered, this, and God does not lay it to our charge It's like, it's amazing how wonderful it is. Then he says this in verse three, 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. Think about it. I think this is true, so I'm going to say it. One of the things we don't appreciate about the process of forgiveness is the gift of shame. And we could use a bunch of different words to describe that. But what David is saying is, when I didn't address the sin in my life, back to Psalm 51, when I just buried it, when I just kept moving it on, when I kept covering it, when I kept denying it, he says, and I'm putting on the happy face, he was putting on the happy face, he put on the self-righteous face when Nathan said, thou art the man. But he says, what was going on inside David all this time was extreme, excruciating pain and shame for what he had done and was doing. What is good about shame? It kind of reminds me of what's good about pain. Without pain, how many fingers would you have left without pain? Seriously. It'd be like, oh, lost another one today, dear. Where'd that finger go? I don't know. Follow the blood trail. I mean, none of us love pain, but in fact, it's a gift from God to say, something's wrong, don't keep doing that. Get some help, okay? Change your path, change your course. And so shame, is painful and it's awful. And David wrestled with it maybe for a year and a half, going through the motions, saying God's stuff, writing Psalms. But when David acknowledged his sin and he repents, he says, here's the deal. And he's talking about it, he says, when somebody is forgiven, he says, there's nothing like it. How blessed, it's beyond my ability to describe. My sin's forgiven, the debt's canceled, it's covered, not covered up in some superficial way, it's been atoned for, it's gone. What a joy that is, but I wouldn't even know I had it and I would done nothing about it if it wasn't for the shame that God caused to show us our sin. And I don't think we often, Think about that. Because if God didn't convict you of what you were watching or saying or listening to, what would you do? You're expecting, should I say something, and then they'll know, and I don't say anything. You'd keep doing it, right? And that sin would separate you from God, and that sin would have with it its own consequences over time, right? You'd just be losing health, losing body parts spiritually, over time. So it's God's love and grace that confronts us about our sin. Would you be a Christian if God's spirit didn't show you were a sinner? Would you? You can say something now. No. And again, the conviction and the shame, it's not fun, but it is a gift from God. We would be utterly lost without it. We're not saying it's fun. We're just saying it's true. And David says that. He says, being forgiven is phenomenal. But when I wasn't, God was relentless in putting the squeeze on me. And it was awful. I mean, the way he felt about his own sin comes out when he talks, you know, with the parable thing that the prophet did, and, you know, the guy with thousands of sheep, and the guy with one sheep, and when David was, he was just worn down, because he didn't get that he was getting snookered. But when it came out, thou art the man, he could have said it off with your head, but he didn't. He was crushed. He had been carrying the shame so long. And obviously, that's not a gift from God, carrying the shame forever. The quicker we respond, the better, as long as it's genuine. But shame, another translation puts it this way, oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives have lived in complete honesty. When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away and I groaned all day long. Day and night, your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Think about it. In the issue of day-to-day forgiveness, God's great and gracious gift of forgiveness includes shame. We shouldn't like shame. We shouldn't seek shame. But we should thank God, because without it, we would just keep on those paths that disgraced Him, hurt His heart, damaged relationship, and brought harm to ourselves, wouldn't you? What if God never said to you, stop that? What if God never said to you, what are you doing? Why aren't you doing that? Why'd you say that? Why didn't you say something? What if he didn't? Where would he be? So, one blessing in the ongoing everyday kind of forgiveness is shame. So second part there is, okay, so there's shame that's part of the blessing of God's gift to us. And then obviously there is the actual forgiving or the canceling of the dead itself when confessed. So verse 5 says, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity. I did not hide, which he did hide it, but he stopped. When it came time, he got the thou art the man deal. There was no excuse. You go to Psalm 51, it's glorious. No excuse. Her name never comes up. That's the work of God. So when he is crushed by this sin, he finally acknowledges all of it to the prophet, to his family, to the nation. Whoa, that's a lot. He says, I will confess, he says, I acknowledge my sin, my iniquity, I didn't hide, I stopped hiding it, and I will confess, I will completely own my transgression, not this, I will confess this shortcoming. It's not a shortcoming and whose is it anyway? He confesses, he says, I will confess my transgression to the Lord for you forgave the guilt of my sin. He confessed it. The passage of Scripture that comes to my mind, because I think it's very practical and it certainly applies, okay? David had owned, what I did was sin and what I did was mine. And I have no power myself to fix this. I must fall on the mercy of God. John says in 1 John, he talks about 1 John chapter one, he's talking about walking with fellowship with the Lord, and then he says, we say we don't have any sin, we deceive ourselves, and then he says, but if we confess our sins, and the time embedded in that very simple verse I think is enormously significant, which is really the nuance there is if we keep on confessing our sins, If we keep on owning them fully without excuse, if we keep on confessing our sins, He's faithful and just to keep on forgiving us our sins and to keep on cleansing us of all unrighteousness. And all those, if we, He will, All take, they all give different descriptions of how God takes that sin away. Take it back up to the first part where we're talking about our eternal salvation, east is west, bottom of the ocean. Gone. Gone. That's not news to you either. The shame thing, that's maybe, didn't think about that before. This, we've clearly, forgiving sin when confessed, that's what we ask for, that's what he does so graciously, and he's promised to do it as long as we do it. The sin and the confession. And if you're an unbeliever, and you might use that as well, then hey, that's kind of like an e-ticket, an old e-ticket at Disney World. But if you're a believer, it's not. it brings great gratitude. Now, so, he brings the shame, we own it, we ask for forgiveness, we don't demand it, and he gives it, the debt is canceled, but an illustration that came to mind here, when Amnon killed his his brother. No, Absalom killed Amnon. I'll get it right. There's a bunch of them. So Absalom kills Amnon. When he did that and he runs off, and he shouldn't have done it, but nobody was taking action because he should have been punished anyway for a very serious sexual crime. So, It takes a while, and Joab tries to get him back, and then you have the wise woman of Tekoa, and she does this parable thing, and David says, okay, I'll let him come back. This is years now, but he won't see my face. It's like, okay, so I'll forgive you. And there's a lot wrong with that. Like David didn't have a sin or two of his own, you know? So if this is okay, you did wrong, you would shame, I forgive you, but that's that. To me, the greatest joy of this little psalm is what comes now. Okay, therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you in the time when you may be found. Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place, you preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance. So how does the forgiver respond to the person who was forgiven? He says, here's what you do for me. There is shame, and then there is forgiveness, but there also is, and this is, I struggle with this, because you tend to live with a guilt. A part of God's grace is to restore relationship. He won't shut you out. He won't make you pay for it. If you pay for your sin, where are you? Where are you? If you're paying for your sin, you are someplace. Where are you? Hell. But God doesn't do that. I mean, he does send people to help, they don't receive Christ. But to the repentant, he will confront us with shame because we need to see our sin or nothing can change. And he forgives us for it all. And he removes it as far as the east is from the west. And then he doesn't walk away saying, you're welcome. He initiates and cultivates a renewed relationship with you, restoring you. The relationship that I thought about was the prodigal son and dad. So when the son came back, we don't need the whole story told, the son comes back, dad's been looking for him. I mean, the way the story reads, when that boy crushed at the hill, it wasn't like, well, where's dad? Somebody go get dad. When he crested the hill, his dad's eyeballs were on him. And he came down, and it wasn't like, okay, because the son was thinking kind of like the David, okay, I'll come back and I'll be one of your servants, because at least that's a better deal than eating with the pigs. And that will be grace. That would be kind and gracious for a dad to do. But dad would have none of that. It's like, kill the calf, get the food, get the people, come, let's, let's, your brother, when he's talking to his other, the other son, your brother, he was dead, now he's alive. This is time for restoration and joy, not, okay, I forgive you, but I'm not forgetting this. When I look through this and I think about what God does for me, when he produces, you know, juices me with shame, like, what were you thinking? Well, we know what we were thinking. And like, that's horrible. It is horrible. Feel terrible about it. I own it without excuse, without justification, without shifting blame, without minimizing. I owned it, full bore, owned it. It was sin, it was there, it was awful, and it was mine. And anybody else who had a play in it, they don't have a play in it there. It's just you, me, God, this is what it is. And so now you say you forgive me, okay, I'm forgiven. He says, but then God restores fellowship and relationship. The prodigal's father, it's like, so what was the next dinner like? It was a party. It was an enormous celebration. Because forgiveness from our gracious God, if it's genuine, our owning of our sin is genuine, it also includes restoring relationship. We're not restoring our relationship with him. Although that's the result. He is taking the initiative to restore our relationship with Him. You are my hiding place. Now this is where it gets into who's talking, is it God or is it David? And it's like. Yes. So what's it like now that you own this sin? So say you had trouble with your dad as a young person or trouble with your spouse as a married person and you go see your pastor and he says, you need to go talk to them about that. You need to own that and see what happens. What he's saying here is, so now what? He says, here's what, so I went back, and what happened when you talked to your wife? Went back when you talked to your dad, what happened? He says, here's what happened. I found him to be my hiding place. I didn't have to hide from him. I could hide with him and in him. And you preserve me for trouble. You don't throw me out on my own. Well, you know what you get, you know? Yeah, I deserve hell. Doesn't help me much. But when he forgives us, he restores, I'll preserve you from trouble. I will surround you. You surround me with songs of deliverance. Doesn't say God's singing the songs. He's just saying what I hear from you and it's around me is you singing hymns that tell me I've been forgiven and set free and restored and my relationship with you is real. And it's not on a conditional basis trial run. And then in verse eight, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. You're good, yep. So now the prodigal comes back. Well, how does he get back in? What does he do the next day? How does he deal with the fact that he squandered all the money? How does he get involved again in the family? He says, I'll instruct you. When we confess our sin to God, he shames us, not embarrass us, but he breaks, call it conviction if you don't like the word shame. He works in our heart and breaks our heart. So we own it to God. And then he has the grace to say, I'm gonna help you with this. Yes, I sent songs and verses that broke your heart, but now you're gonna be driving your car down or truck down the road and the song's gonna come in, it's gonna remind you of his unfailing love. I'll comfort you. with my matchless grace. God doesn't run off. He didn't run off from David. He kept sending him shame until he repented of his sin, right? And then when he repented, he restores him. He's still the gold standard for kings in the Bible, like my servant David, because God didn't walk away. I'll counsel you. Don't be like a horse or a mule which has no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them back. 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 for all you who are upright in heart. So God will minister to me after he breaks my heart with my sin and I finally own it all without excuse. He will take the initiative and take me by the hand and lead me through a genuine restoration of relationship. Now how good is that? It doesn't get any better. Another translation says it this way, therefore let all the godly pray to you while there is time that they do not drown in the flood waters of judgment for you are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory. The Lord says, I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you. I will watch over you. Don't be like the senseless horse or mule that needs a bitter bridle. Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the Lord. What trust is he talking about? Coming back to the Lord and owning the sin and asking for forgiveness. You trust God with that. And he says, so what do I get for that? Unfailing love surrounds those. What am I going to get? And it's not about a deal, but you think, so what's going to happen to me? You're going to experience God surrounding you with his love in whatever ways he knows is wise and gets your attention and can get the message to you with your own individuality. So rejoice in the Lord and be glad. That's a hard thing, isn't it, when you're really messed up? And you own it, and you feel, well, bad. There's other more colorful words, but we'll just leave them out. Just, you feel awful. And God doesn't say, well, you go away. I'll forgive you when you show me that you're different. I don't want to talk to you. Just leave me alone for a while. I'll talk to you later. God takes the initiative to reassure us of his love. Hasn't he done that for you? Hasn't he? Isn't it glorious and kind that he would? Does it make you wanna say like, well, if he's gonna be that good, I'm just gonna clip those coupons and do a bunch more sins. Does it make you feel that way? No. No, it draws us in. And so forgiveness, like that's a new thing to talk about. It's like almost as Christianity 101. But sometimes we skip past the simple and the eternally significant to things that are a little more trendy or fit our personality. David sinned horribly. He had many lifelong awful consequences as a result of it. But it never was that God left him. It never was that God stopped speaking to him. It never was that God didn't forgive him. Even when he had to run from his own son, God was with him, God was helping. We need to glory. in forgiveness. We need to thank him for forgiveness. We need to run towards it rather than away from it when we sin. What a glorious thing. Let's pray. Father, you know us and we're glad it's just you. If everybody knew us like you know us, that would be awful. But you know us, so you will not. You love us enough to not let us go on in our sin unchallenged. And you will shame us, and you will bring us up, and you'll chastise, not because you're mad, not because you want to punish, that's hell. but because you love us, so you will discipline us. And when we ask, you will forgive us. And then you will commit in your relationship to us to restore us, to speak to us, to comfort us, to direct our steps. We are unspeakably blessed. Father, if just by chance there's someone here tonight who has never trusted you as their Savior, I pray that you would draw them with the glory of your grace, the glory of your forgiveness, and bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ. Lord, I pray if there are believers here who are out of shame staying away, keeping their distance on you, thinking they're beyond help and that you really don't want to have an ongoing relationship with them because they did it again, Lord, I pray they would never minimize their sin, but I pray they would also never minimize your grace. Your heart aches to bring them home. So I pray for them that you'd bring them home. I pray for all of us that we would just get a better picture. of Christianity 101, forgiveness of our sins, and glory in it. We thank you for these things, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.