Rejoicing in Repentance

Good morning again, see I'm not Brad, but I am filling in for Brad this morning, largely because at Christ Reformed Baptist Church we're committed to having a biblical approach to our church and the leadership of our church, and part of that is a plurality of elders, so that all the responsibility isn't just on Brad and the leadership and the teaching, all resting on his shoulders alone, and so we're committed to a process of raising up elders to be able to serve alongside

Brad and help in the leadership and teaching of the church, and part of that process is elder candidates having the opportunity to come up and offer a message and grow and learn through that process, and so I appreciate your patience and willingness as we go through this today together, so just so you know, that's kind of the driving force behind how we structure the times that Brad's not able to get up and lead, but he will,

Lord willing, be back next week, so don't worry too much about that. We're also committed to a biblical model of preaching in which we are expositional and committed to sound exegesis, the teaching of scripture, and part of that has been modeled in Brad as he has taught through the book of Exodus, passage by passage, faithfully drawing from it the truths that God has for us, and I have kind of prayerfully decided to allow

Brad to continue in his walk through Exodus. We're gonna step out of that today, and we're gonna look at Psalm 32 together, so we're gonna look at the entirety of the

Psalm, but this is stepping outside of the kind of march through Exodus that Brad has been leading us in, so we're not real big on topical sermons here.

This one is an attempt to be both expositional but not derail what

Brad is doing in Exodus for us all, so just as you know kind of what the structure will be, we will read through the

Psalm and pray, and then we will look at different components of this

Psalm and see the incredible blessing that it is as God reveals the gospel to us and teaches us more about how we can love and serve him well through this.

So if you will, please stand to read. I'm gonna read all of Psalm 32.

Stand for the sufficient, certain, and infallible reading of God's word.

So this is Psalm 32 in the Legacy Standard Bible. You forgave the iniquity of my sin of David a masco.

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

How blessed is the man whose iniquity Yahweh will not take into account, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent about my sin, my bones 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 heat of summer.

Selah. I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I did not cover up.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Selah. Therefore, let every holy one pray to you at a time when you may be found.

Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place.

You guard me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.

I will give you insight, 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 harness are bit and bridle to control them.

Otherwise, they will not come near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he who trusts in Yahweh, loving kindness, shall surround him.

Be glad in Yahweh, and rejoice, you righteous ones, and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

Let's pray. O Lord, we thank you for this truth that you provide for us.

We thank you that you give us this word that convicts us.

May we understand fully what you reveal to us in your word. And may we echo the voice of David as we cry out in repentance, and recognize the sin that corrupts us.

Lord, let this time be a encouragement, as well as a conviction.

Let us grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. Open our hearts to hear the truth, and let us be more conformed to the image of our

Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated. Well, as any passage of scripture, we want to begin by looking at the context and form of the passage.

So it's, this one is pretty easy because it explains exactly what it is from the very beginning.

So we know that this Psalm is written by King David, and we see that it is a masco, that is a song of wisdom and of teaching.

And so this Psalm is meant to be edifying and meant to allow us to understand more about our

Lord and to grow in our understanding. It's important to note that in the eighth verse, we have a change of voice where it is no longer

David speaking, but it is God speaking. And at least in the LSB, you can see the pronoun is capitalized, the my there reveals to us that it is

God offering us a promise. So I just want you to be aware of that as we work through it, that there is a structure here that has an arc of a really helpful approach that really mirrors our understanding of the gospel with a introduction that sets the whole premise of what we're looking at.

And then it works through how David interacts with his sin, with God offering clarity on how we can grow and obey him.

So to start, as we look at the first four verses, we are confronted with a very challenging concept.

Verse three, David says, when I kept silent about my sin, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

And all this, this is King David. And we're familiar with a sin of King David in 2

Samuel 11 and 12 with Bathsheba and the resulting sin of lust and of murder that came from that.

It's not explicit that Psalm 32 is dealing with that sin itself, but whether or not he's describing that episode or not, it's still helpful for us to see how

David interacts with sin. But he's saying here that he kept silent about his sin and his physical body was attacked.

He had real physical suffering because of the sin that he was committing.

And it was constant for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. That's the hand of the Lord was heavy upon David and his very life was drained away.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to deal with a very difficult topic, but one that as believers, we are hopefully very familiar with, and that's the topic of sin.

David acknowledges that he was in sin and refusing to confess it.

We know that we are all sinners. If you don't know that, I'm here to tell you right now that we are all sinners.

I'm a sinner and you are all also battling sin. All are guilty before God.

And the sin that attacks the holiness of God brings misery and death.

We know Romans 3, 23, familiar passage, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Sometimes we talk about sin, but we don't actually name exactly how to understand sin. So I have a definition here of sin.

It's any thought, word, deed, or desire contrary to God's law, rooted in rebellion against him, corrupting all of humanity and deserving

God's righteous judgment. This strikes at the very heart of what

David is understanding here about how he is suffering under the sin that he has not confessed.

And this is a good reminder for all of us to truly understand how seriously we must all take sin.

We don't always think about sin and the physical effects. We think of it in the spiritual context, but we have to understand that to truly understand the gospel, we must truly understand sin.

We must understand that it's not big sins.

It's not just murdering and stealing wives and the big, most obvious sins that are the sins that are corrupting us, while those are, of course, a problem.

The truth is that any faint whiff of the odor, the stench of sin is absolutely repugnant to God.

It is absolutely impossible for God to tolerate even the smallest speck of sin because he is perfectly holy and righteous.

He is utterly good and pure, and any violation of his law in any part is a violation of the entire law.

And God is eternal, and he is perfectly just. So his punishment is also eternal and perfectly just.

That's the heart of the gospel, that each one of us, no matter how good we are or how well we live in this world and how well we're thought of, are utterly, utterly sinful.

And our very nature is at enmity with God and rebellion against God.

This is the heart of the gospel because there is no way for us to save ourselves.

And I'm not saying this in an effort to insult your intelligence or to suggest that you're not aware of what it means to be saved.

I'm so glad to look out and see so many faithful faces, but it is always a good reminder of what indeed the gospel is and who it is we worship and why we worship our

Lord. David understood this gospel in verse five when he says,

I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not cover up. I said,

I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

David acknowledged that he was sinning. He knew it was his sin.

He didn't blame anyone else. He didn't try to explain it away. He agreed with God that he was sinning and that God was perfect and righteous.

God freely forgives those who confess. He covers our sin with his mercy.

There's only one way that we can be forgiven of our sin, that that sin can be covered because the requirement is always there for our sin to be justly atoned for.

There must be a sacrifice to pay the penalty for the sin that we have earned in our lives.

And we know as 2 Corinthians 5 .21 says that he made him that is

Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

It is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone that we are saved.

It is our faith in Christ and our acknowledgement of our sin and turning from that sin that is the only way that we can be saved from the just penalty of our sin.

And it doesn't matter how often you come to church. It doesn't matter how strong your theology is or which podcasts you listen to or how good you are at arguing with other people about the small details of the

Bible. It is only through the acknowledgement of your sin, the faith in Jesus Christ alone and turning from that sin that will save you.

We'll see later that the result of this salvation is joy and peace and security in God's steadfast love.

But I wanna rest a moment longer on this idea of repentance. We see here

David modeling that for us as he acknowledges his sin. He's broken, he's wasting away, he's dying because of the sin that has corrupted his life.

And he is desperate to be free of it. And so he acknowledges it and confesses it.

I'm emphasizing this point because there are times and there are doctrines that don't associate repentance with the gospel.

They look at the verses that say that we believe in Jesus and we're saved.

And that repentance is an optional extra if you wanna be extra faithful.

But it is very clear from scripture that simply acknowledging that God is who he says he is or acknowledging the historical fact of Jesus is not actually what saves you.

James 2 .19 says, you believe that God is one, you do well. The demons also believe and shudder.

Even Satan knows that Jesus died and rose again. Merely acknowledging that historical fact is not all that is required for salvation.

We must repent. And repentance and faith are two parts of the same coin.

Repentance is not what you do to be saved. It is the result of your salvation, just like faith is a result of your salvation.

Pastor Brad has mentioned many times how salvation works in a biblical sense.

And the main focus is that in our sinful nature, we have scales over our eyes and we are blinded to the truth.

And in our rebellion and hatred for God, we do not look at sin the way God looks at it. And in that same way, when we are saved, when

God gives us in his grace and mercy, a new heart turned from stone to flesh, we are regenerated, we are born again and made new, and we're able to see sin the way

God sees sin. The definition for repentance denotes a radical, moral turn of the whole person from sin and to God.

We give up hating God and loving our sin, and we turn to love

God and hate our sin. John Calvin is very helpful.

This is an extended quote from his commentary, but I think it is very insightful for understanding this point.

He says, David's only relief from the divine wrath was to open his heart completely before God and admitting his guilt, crave his forgiveness.

It was not that David merely remembered his sin, both Cain and Judas did that.

Rather was it that he humbled himself, sought God's face and in faith pled for pardon.

We know that hypocrites will admit some sin, but concealing the full truth, and because they secretly want to continue in a particular evil, make only a partial confession.

But David, without any concealment whatsoever, did not cover his iniquity, but revealed all.

When he says, I will confess my transgressions, the word my is emphatic, meaning he blamed no one but himself.

We know that repentance is an essential part of salvation because it proves that we are seeing our sin the way

God sees sin. That while we're often comfortable with the layers of sin in our lives and able to explain away the weaknesses, it's actually a godly sorrow that must pierce our hearts as we consider what it means to violate the holiness of God and to rebel against him.

There are a few passages that illustrate this point of godly sorrow. Joel 2, 12 and 13, you don't have to turn there, but I'll read it.

Yet even now, declares Yahweh, return to me with all your heart and with fasting, weeping and wailing.

And tear your heart and not your garments. Now return to Yahweh, your

God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness and relenting concerning evil.

I love that passage because it says, tear your heart and not your garments. In the culture of the time, you'd rent your garments when you're mourning, and in this it's saying it's your heart that matters.

It's the same today, it is your heart. We must look inwardly and consider our heart and how we regard sin.

James 4, 8, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double -minded.

Be miserable and mourn and cry. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you. This is a moment to deeply consider how you've interacted with the truth of the gospel.

Has your heart been broken for your sin? In our culture, in this town, we are often able to understand who

Jesus is, what the Bible says. We're raised on the Bible stories and we're comfortable in church.

We must be deeply uncomfortable with the sin in our lives. Are you miserable and mourning and crying when you consider how your sin is an absolute attack on God's holiness?

In 2 Corinthians 7, 10, it says, "'Godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, "'leading to salvation.'

"'But the sorrow of the world brings about death.'" We see here that repentance is a key part.

It continues to be an important part of understanding what the gospel truly is.

And it is a unimaginable attack on the gospel to suggest that we shouldn't expect repentance when we have faith, that we can have faith in God, but still remain comfortable with our sin is a complete misunderstanding of what it is that we're talking about.

Over here, we have God's holiness and his perfection and his justice. Over here, we have our sin and it is completely, completely separate.

And when he saves us, he gives us this faith and this repentance, which are two sides of the same coin.

They are together. We have the faith to know that we trust

Jesus Christ as our Lord and our Savior, that he is true and he is real.

And everything he says in his word is to believe and obey. And in the same way, we are broken over the sin in our lives.

So to preach a gospel without repentance is to not preach the gospel.

If you'll indulge me, I'm gonna read a few short passages to illustrate this point, because we are often unable to call to mind the moments of repentance being preached when we just think of verses like John 3 .16.

So let me read through quickly a series of passages that illustrate how the

New Testament describes the preaching of the gospel. Matthew 3, one and two.

Now in those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, "'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

So that was John the Baptist. Now in Mark 1 .14 and 15. Now after John had been delivered up into custody,

Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God and saying, "'The time is fulfilled, "'and the kingdom of God is at hand.

"'Repent and believe in the gospel.'" So that was Jesus. Acts 3 .19,

Peter speaking at the Solomon's portico, he says, "'Therefore repent and return "'so that your sins may be wiped away, "'in order that times of refreshing may come "'from the presence of the

Lord.'" And finally, Acts 20, Paul speaking, describing his ministry in Ephesus says, "'Solemnly testifying both

Jews and Greeks "'about repentance towards God "'and faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ.'" Repentance is a key aspect of showing and demonstrating the true faith in Jesus Christ.

And David, who trusted in the promised Messiah to come, reflects this.

He says again in verse five, "'I acknowledged my sin to you "'and my iniquity I did not cover up.

"'I said I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh, "'and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.'"

So as we understand that the gospel includes repentance and that when we preach the gospel and share the gospel with our loved ones and our friends and our children, we are clear that it is not just a mental assent of the truth.

It's not agreeing with the historical fact that Jesus was indeed the

Son of God, the man who was perfect and sinless and died on the cross to bear the penalty of the sins for God's chosen people.

That that truth carries with it turning from sin and following God in a desperate, desperate yearning to obey and to no longer sin.

Another hard truth and one that's probably harder to face for each one of us is that we are all called to repent.

And not just when we're saved, we're called to repent continually. Verse six says, "'Therefore, let every holy one pray to you "'at a time when you may be found.

"'Surely in a flood of great waters, "'they will not reach him.'" This is a call to repent.

It's a call for God's people to continue to repent and to repent immediately.

This is, I think, perfectly described by the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon.

He says, "'A Christian must never leave off repenting, "'for

I fear he never leaves off sinning.'" I hope that affects you as it affects me to really look at my life and see how much sin is there and therefore how much repentance is required.

A reminder of our call to worship, Isaiah 55, six and seven. "'Seek Yahweh while he may be found.

"'Call upon him while he is near. "'Let the wicked forsake his way "'and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

"'Let him return to Yahweh, "'and he will have compassion on him, "'and to our

God, for he will abundantly pardon.'" We must continue in the gospel that we started off in, understanding how dire our situation is without Christ, and how the sin that continues to infect our lives is equally as offensive to God.

We are each confronted with the sins in our hearts, and this is something that might be hard to hear, but I hope you are battling sin today.

I hope that you are struggling against the pervasive sin that continues to attack you, because that means that you are seeing it the way

God sees it. You are confronted with the evil thoughts and deeds and desires of your heart, and you are addressing them by turning to God, acknowledging them, calling them what they are, and turning away from them.

Each one of us battles these sins. They might be fear, might be anxiety, drunkenness, lust, greed, anger, laziness, pride.

One of those might stand out to you. That's just a list of the things I've had to deal with in my life. Those are my sins that I've had to navigate and repent of.

The hard thing if you've been growing in spiritual maturity is to realize that the weight of sin continues even as we move away from that sinful life that we began when we were first saved.

It might be that at the beginning you were first saved and you were struggling with profound sins that consumed your day -to -day life, things that the world would consider wrong and evil.

The challenge is as you grow in spiritual maturity, you realize new things that are sins that weren't even problems before.

You quit getting drunk in the middle of the day, so you watch TV instead. Well, you're not getting drunk, so that's good, but now you realize you're just being lazy and ignoring

God the whole time. You sit around and are convicted of your laziness, so you turn to the

Scriptures and you read and you consume your time reading the Bible and then you're full of pride because you know more than everybody else.

It is a constant attack on our lives because we are continually battling the flesh that we are in.

This is sanctification. This isn't glorification. We're not yet glorified, but we can take heart.

I know I'm laying down some pretty depressing things for you, but be encouraged from verse eight where it says,

I will give you insight. This is God speaking now. I will give you insight 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 harness are bit and bridle to control them.

Otherwise, they will not come near you. This is

God giving us the encouragement and the blessed truth of what it means to be a

Christian. As we continue in our battle against sin, we have the assurance that God will teach us, guide us, counsel us.

When we are saved, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. We're given eyes to see not just the sin in our lives, but we are able to see and understand the truth.

But it's important to note here what God is saying in verse nine that you're not to be a horse or a mule that have no understanding.

Those animals are seemingly obedient because they go wherever the rider directs them, but they don't have any desire to go there.

They go there because they're required to go there based on the controlling bit and bridle.

If you've ever been around a horse, there are many different ways that they interact with that, but they're always fighting against the bit in their mouth.

They're always moving their mouth around and uncomfortable with it because they're only responding to the negative pressure that moves them around.

However, we are drawn to love our God who has saved us.

We pursue holiness. We turn from sin because we love

God more than we love sin. 1

John 5, three and four says, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome. For whoever has been born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith, our faith, our faith that drives our lives, that builds our love for God.

And it's not one steady march of obedience every day, more obedient than the day before.

I don't, don't, don't misunderstand me. I'm not claiming that every day is easy and that as soon as we're saved, we're just on a steady march up the hill to glory and we will be more and more perfect every day.

We are confronted more and more with attack and challenge.

And I don't know about you, but if you are saved and you are growing in spiritual maturity, you might find that it's harder as you start to get the hang of something.

You start to pray more and something blindsides you, a sin that you thought had not been an issue or something that you never expected to be a problem comes in and attacks you.

We are to remain watchful because the love of God is our desire to obey our

Father and our Savior. He will give us insight and teach us.

And we can have assurance in that. In fact, all of this

Psalm is a Psalm of assurance. It seems like there's a lot in here dealing with a sin that wastes away our bones and attacks our bodies.

But if you look back at the beginning, what does David say? He says, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

How blessed is the man whose iniquity Yahweh will not take into account and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

We find our assurance in the battle against sin and in our desire to love and obey

God. And we trust in him to be faithful, to see us through the challenges we have because he has promised us that he will do that.

Our obedience is a crucial indication of our love for God.

As we love God more, we desire to obey him more. As we obey him more, we learn to love him more.

It's a beautiful progression that God has given us, but a warning that we must not try to do this through our own work alone.

Repentance must always accompany our desire to obey. Looking into our lives, remaining watchful over our hearts to see what our motivations are, always being watchful over our sin as we were in the first moment of our salvation.

It is the most dangerous thing to think that we can work out our own salvation, that we can perform the correct duties, that we can busy ourselves with good works and therefore earn

God's favor. There is nothing we can do that will earn

God's favor outside of the work of Christ. It is

God himself who has given us the ability to even come into his presence. It is not our hard work that earns that.

Verse 10 is a convicting reminder. Many are the sorrows of the wicked.

Many are the sorrows of the wicked, the sinful.

If you are continuing in sin and you are refusing to have faith in Christ and repent of your sins, you are continuing to suffer the agony of your rebellion against God.

Many are the sorrows. There's another promise from God for you.

Your sorrows will continue, your suffering will increase. It might look like a miserable, boring life to be a

Christian and give up all the fun that you've had. If you think that you are better off to have fun in your sin than to repent and believe in Christ and follow him, you will have many more sorrows ahead.

And that judgment of your sin will continue for eternity. Now is the time.

Now is the moment to repent. Now is the moment to believe in Christ and love him and follow him.

Follow him at a time when God may be found. Surely, he says in verse six, surely in a flood of great waters, they will not reach him.

We are not promised tomorrow. We're not promised the rest of today. We're not promised to be able to walk out of these doors.

A great flood. Think of a hurricane, just rushes up, takes you out.

This is the promise that we have that we are not promised tomorrow. Now is the time to turn from your sin, to acknowledge what it is, to turn from it and to love the

Lord, your God. On the other hand, when you do trust in the

Lord and have faith, he who trusts in Yahweh, verse 10, loving kindness shall surround him.

The grace and mercy and love of God will envelop him in a way that each follower of Christ is protected from the deepest sorrows.

That doesn't mean your life is easy. Often your life gets harder, but it means that you're able to be encouraged and to take heart in knowing that you are a child of God, that your eternity is secure and you can rest in the

Lord. He says, be glad in Yahweh and rejoice, verse 11.

Shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart. This is where our gladness comes and our assurance rests in Yahweh.

Now don't worry, it says, be glad in Yahweh and rejoice, you righteous ones. And you're saying, well, I'm not righteous.

This guy just told me I was a sinner. What are we talking about here? We're not righteous because of our works.

We're not glad in Yahweh and rejoicing because we are one of the few who don't sin. We are made righteous through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross, his blood.

It is his blood, his death, where we deserve to die. Each one of us deserves to die on that cross.

But Jesus Christ paid that penalty and it is he who is righteous and that righteousness is imputed to us.

We are made righteous so that we can shout for joy and we can be upright in heart because of the grace and mercy of our

Lord. We must take sin as seriously as God does.

And we must take heart in the truth of the assurance that we have. Even in our lives as we battle sin, we are encouraged to know that we are battling what is the enemy of God.

Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? If you don't, now is the time to turn from your sin, to repent and believe.

And if you do, take heart in your journey of sanctification and growing in spiritual maturity.

Be encouraged when you're confronted with the sin in your life because it is one of the best ways to know that you are indeed a child of God.

Rejoice in faith and repentance as you grow closer to God in sanctification.

We must love Christ more and our sin less as we yearn for glory and to be sinless.

Let's pray. Lord, I thank you that you have confronted us with this hard truth of sin.

I thank you that you have allowed us this time together to study your word.

But Lord, I pray that each one of us is able to take a deep look into our hearts, that we are able to see those blind areas that we have explained away, those areas of sin that keep a tight grasp on our lives.

That sin that we have no desire to release, that we rely on for our encouragement or our peace.

Lord, I pray that you show us that sin and that we can root it out and kill it and that we can replace it with a deeper trust in you, a deeper encouragement through you, that we can better trust that you will teach us and counsel us.

That you will keep your eye upon us. Lord, let us be encouraged.

Let us be encouraged as we go from here knowing that you continue with us and that you allow us to turn from our sin and turn to you.

Let us have assurance in you, Lord. Let us grow in spiritual maturity and as a church, let us grow together.

Loving each other more, confronting each other in our sin and encouraging each other in our trials.

Let us love you more than we love ourselves. Let us love you more than we love the world.

Let us love you more than we can imagine because you loved us beyond anything we can imagine.

We thank you for this time together today. We pray that you build us up to grow in the grace and knowledge of our

Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be the glory forever. Amen.