WWUTT 994 Blessed Is the Man Whose Sins Are Forgiven?

How can we find meaningful and lasting happiness? That very question is actually answered several times in the scriptures, including the Psalms. And to put it simply, we find happiness in Christ when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's word that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Well being Thursday, we do our Old Testament study and lately we've been in the Psalms. So today I'm gonna start out by reading Psalm 32 and we'll open with all 11 verses.

Psalm 32: Blessed Is the One Whose Sin Is Forgiven

A Mascal of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble.

You surround me with shouts of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with mine eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you.

Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. This would be considered a penitent Psalm.

The Psalmist is apologetic before the Lord, seeking his grace and his forgiveness. Some have connected this with Psalm 51, which is kind of the, that's the quintessential Psalm for brokenness, coming before the Lord with a broken and contrite heart.

David in Psalm 51 was praying after Nathan the prophet had confronted him, saying he had been found out, that he, Nathan knew of the affair that David had had and then tried to cover it up by having the woman's husband murdered.

All of those things had come out and David felt great sorrow before the Lord. And so that's kind of the brokenness Psalm there, Psalm 51. 32 is not quite as personal as Psalm 51 is. So though there are some that have tried to connect the two of them together and maybe 32 was written at about the same time, it's clear that this is really more congregational.

This is for the assembly of Israel to pray and doesn't quite have the personalness, the personal touch that Psalm 51 does. The beginning of the Psalm really answers a question, all things considered. The question would be, who is the happy man?

There are a lot of questions that are responded to in the scriptures that are common questions to the philosophers. One of them we responded to just yesterday. So as we've been going through John in John 18, when Pilate had asked Jesus, what is truth?

And what is truth? Well, the scriptures tell us very plainly, Christ is truth. He is the one who establishes what is. He is our deliverance from the grave. All meaning and purpose is found in Christ. He is the creator of all, so he is the definer of all.

What is actual is found in Christ Jesus. He is the truth, said so to his disciples, confirmed it with his resurrection from the dead. So as there are these common questions throughout scriptures common to the philosophers here, we would have one in Psalm 32 that would kind of pre, well, it would be the question that would be asked prior to reading the Psalm.

And then the answer is given right at the very beginning. The question would be, who is the happy man? What person is happy? Who is glad? Who finds satisfaction in life? And what do we have in Psalm 32 verse one?

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven. That word blessed is synonymous with happy. And it's, blessed is the better word though, because happy is a cheap emotion. It can be taken from you pretty quickly.

You can wake up today and be determined that you're going to be happy, but then the happiness doesn't happen because things don't go your way, all right? Or somebody makes some sort of crude comment and immediately the happiness you were determined to have or whatever mood or attitude you were in is gone, just like that.

So happiness is cheap. Blessed is the better word, but it's synonymous with happiness. It's just a happiness that's a little bit deeper than that surface level emotion that we want to have, but it's hard to hold on to.

So how does a person have a glad heart? How does a person delight in the life that they experience? Well, first of all, the person who's blessed when their transgression is forgiven. They have no wrongs held against them.

How wonderful is it to know that you're not guilty of anything? There's nothing you're trying to hide. There's no fear of being exposed for as we have said in Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So though there are probably people on earth who might blame you for something and they're always going to want to dig up your past, there's no reason for you to be in despair over that because God has forgiven you of it.

And in the heavenly registry, it's not being held against you. You stand before God innocent, justified, pure, growing in holiness. You are received by your father in heaven. You are his son or daughter adopted by faith in Jesus Christ.

So there is nothing for you to be concerned about those wrongs having any sort of eternal weight against you. That burden has been taken from you. You have been relieved. You are set free. People don't forget people can be jerks.

They're ungracious. But our Lord God in heaven is such a loving and merciful God that he does not hold our wrongs against us and has promised us so. Clothing us in white garments of righteousness through his son, Jesus.

So blessed is the man first and foremost, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. It's been paid for, paid in full, tetelestai. That was the Greek word, not held against you anymore. Doesn't exist, cannot find any record of it.

It's gone, it's been expunged and even better than expunged, it's been expiated, meaning it's been atoned for. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

The Lord has forgiven you of your sins and he's done more than that in Christ Jesus. He's also given you a new heart. So the dead sinful heart that you had before has been replaced by the Holy Spirit of God who has given you a new heart.

And in this new spirit that you have been given, there's no deceitfulness. You no longer have the desire for sin, but you have the desire for righteousness. Verses three and four, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me.

My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. David conveying here the guilt that he felt was so great that it even had a physical effect on him. It took a physical toll. And I relate to this. I have experienced this before, to have been so riddled with guilt over my sin that it affected me physically.

When I was in college, there was a girl that I was dating, good Christian girl. We went to church together. We actually went to two different colleges. So we would pray on the phone together and we would even do devotionals together.

But when we were together, we would be together alone. And that led to us doing some things we shouldn't have been doing. And I was so guilty over it because I knew that I was sinning and I was causing her to sin.

And this actually led to me getting really sick. I lost a lot of weight. I was six foot one and dropped down to 135 pounds. That's a scrawny guy. But I did not want to make the connection that the reason why I had completely lost my appetite and just the thought of food made me feel sick at all.

I did not want to admit that this was connected to the sin that I was doing in private. Long story short, eventually the relationship just ended and my health came back. I never really fully repented of that.

That wouldn't happen for a couple of years later, but I wasn't in that sin anymore. And so I wasn't feeling the guilt of that sin and therefore taking a toll on my body. I'm grateful for that. I'm thankful to the Lord that that feeling of guilt that I had probably kept me, probably protected me from doing worse sin than I was doing.

And eventually convicted my spirit to a point of realizing what I had done was sin so that I might rightly repent before God. It was a grief that was a godly grief for it led to repentance, but not everybody does have that.

God does not actually bless a person. I consider that a blessing looking back on it. God doesn't always bless a person with feeling their guilt in that way. Some people manage to suppress any sort of rotten feeling that they might have, whether it's physical or mental or emotional or any of those things, they just managed to suppress it with more unrighteousness.

Praise God I wasn't built that way that I had the Holy Spirit in my heart who was convicting me of those things. But this is just an example of the way that guilt that we have over sin can take a physical toll on us.

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. When I wasn't repenting of my sin, when I wasn't calling upon you for help, when I was still kind of savoring even the memory of my sin, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me.

My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah, then we have that word selah, which means to pause, to ponder these things that had been said. And you're thinking of this as an assembly psalm.

So there might've been kind of a musical thing there going on while the singers are considering deeply what it was they had just said. David goes on, I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity.

This is after the guilt that he felt. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Another pause again. And this pause to reflect upon the goodness of God, the mercy of God first, that he might give us guilt over those things that are unholy and would otherwise separate us from God.

And then a pause of consideration again to recognize the mercy that he has for us to forgive us of our transgressions. Now, verse six, therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.

Because like I said, once again, there's gonna be some times when you may, the spirit of God will convict your heart and you may feel guilt over the sin that you are doing, but there may be another time where as you persist in that sin and you refuse to repent of it, God is gonna turn you over to a debased mind or he may harden your heart to a place that you won't feel that guilt anymore.

You won't know to turn from it and turn back to God. So David says, offer prayer at a time that God may be found. So you don't fall into deeper guilt and God give you over to your own transgressions. As David goes on to say in verse six, surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.

And you think of the rush of great waters in this sense as either judgment that comes upon a person or the consequences of their sin, just kind of the ebb and flow of whatever you sow, that's what you're gonna reap, right?

The one who prays to God, cries out for forgiveness and turns from that sin, God will keep him from the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. Verse seven, you are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble.

You surround me with shouts of deliverance so that you may remember what you had been delivered from and not return to the sin that God has forgiven you of and pulled you out of. And then pause again, say law.

And then what we have after that is it kind of shifts voices a little bit. This almost goes to the voice of God or you might even think of it as the wise father as speaking to his son, like you would hear in the beginning of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter one.

So verses eight and nine here, I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curved with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.

You act like a stubborn animal and then the forgiveness that you've received or the lesson that you've learned is not gonna be near to your heart. You're gonna continue to go after that way and eventually the Lord's just gonna take his hands off the reins.

Fine, you wanna wander off? And that's what he's gonna let happen to you. You will fall into your sin and transgression or a pit that you have dug for yourself. And these are the words of God. Of course, spoken to David, it is the word of God.

Verses 10 and 11. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. There are wicked men who do feel guilt over what they have done. Even people who are not Christians, they understand the concept of guilt, feeling guilty about something and wanting to make it right, wanting to make amends.

They just don't understand where that guilt comes from or how they can absolve it. How do I get rid of this feeling? So they experience many sorrows that never find a resolve, but the steadfast love of God surrounds the one who trusts in him.

Verse 11. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart, to know our sins have been forgiven and the Lord remembers them or holds them against us no more. Psalm 33.

Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre. Make melody to him with the harp of 10 strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts.

For the word of the Lord is upright and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth, all their host.

He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spoke and it came to be.

He commanded and it stood firm. Now let's stop there. That's the first nine verses of Psalm 33 here. You just recognize the Genesis language that is in here. Shout for joy to the Lord, O you righteous.

Praise befits the upright. So it begins with instruction, with exhortation to praise God and how to praise him. Singing to him a new song and playing skillfully. You know, when we praise God with musical instruments, we demonstrate a worshipfulness to God in the sense that we practice our worship.

We practice so that we may become skillful on the instruments that we use in worship. Playing well on the guitar. And then as you're playing guitar and you're playing guitar for the purpose of being able to sing songs, being able to accompany songs unto God, you are practicing that instrument and becoming skillful at it so that you may give the Lord what he is worthy of.

And that is your absolute best. And of course, the Lord is gracious. You don't have to be, you know, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Phil Keggy on the guitar or something like it. You don't have to have that kind of skill level for God to finally go, okay, I receive you.

He is a gracious and merciful God, but desiring to offer the Lord your best. And so you practice to play skillfully on that instrument that you're gonna use to accompany the songs that are sung. And then where the psalm goes next is describing the word of the Lord.

And it is by that word, the heavens were made just as we have in Genesis. And God said, let there be light. And there was, and it was by the command of God that all the rest of creation came to be. So now verse 10, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing.

He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

Now that is us in the sense of the church. We are a holy nation as Peter describes the church in 1 Peter 2. We have become a nation of priests in the Lord God who has justified us and called us out from the world into his son.

And we are being built up into a spiritual house unto the Lord. We are called a holy nation. So in this way, we are a nation whose God is the Lord. And that's the way that we should understand that and apply it to us at the present.

There are not nations of men on earth. You're talking about worldly governments. There are not any that that government exists as a people unto God. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. There isn't anyone on earth that's like that.

Nope, not even the United States of America. The nation on earth whose God is the Lord is the church, the holy nation that has been called out from the world to God in Christ Jesus with the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts.

The people whom he has chosen as his heritage, that is most definitely us, the church. We are the inheritance of Christ. Verse 13, the Lord looks down from heaven. He sees all the children of man. From where he sits in throne, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth.

He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation.

And by its great might, it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.

Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield, for our heart is glad in him because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us even as we hope in you. And we really come to the end of Psalm 33 the same way that we started Psalm 32.

32 begins, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Remember, happy is that man. Happy is the one whose sin has been forgiven. And at the end of Psalm 33, verse 21, for our heart is glad in him because we trust in his holy name.

We don't trust in our holiness. We have none apart from God. It is only in God that we trust and receive our acceptance from him by him when he clothes us in righteousness and therefore makes us acceptable in the eyes of a holy God.

He is good and he is gracious. Praise his name forever.

Amen. This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.