Blessed through Faith

Romans 4:5–8 ESV

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

In our last meeting, we looked at how we are justified by faith alone by looking at the story of Abraham.

We saw that God counted Abraham as righteous because he believed God’s promise to him.

Today’s passage starts out by pointing to another person from the Old Testament, David.

In particular, Paul quotes what David wrote in Psalm 32.

This quote is broken up into 3 stanzas that communicate the same truth, but using different words:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

The key truth here is:

We are blessed as a result of faith.

Because of our faith

our lawless deeds are forgiven.

our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus.

God will not count our sins against us.

I believe that we often overlook the significance of the word “bless” here.

The word blessed isn’t just thrown around for anything in the Bible, unlike how we often use it.

We might casually say “bless your heart.”

We might take a cute Instagram picture and tag it with “#blessed”

We might make a cute Facebook post with our boyfriend or girlfriend and say “I’m blessed with the best”

Yet, David wasn’t using this word casually in Psalm 32.

David understands the significance of being blessed with God’s forgiveness.

You might know David as the hero of several Bible stories.

You may know him as the youth who defeated Goliath with a slingshot.

Or you may recognize him as one of Israel's greatest leaders, its second king.

Perhaps you know him as the one whom the Bible describes as "a man after God's own heart."

However, David wasn’t always the hero or the good guy.

His most notable act of sin was his affair with a woman named Bathsheba.

David, upon seeing Bathsheba bathing, not only lusted after her but summoned her to his palace to sleep with her.

Yet, his sin goes even deeper than this.

When Bathsheba became pregnant after this affair, David tried to to conceal it, but when this failed, David took his sin a step further by placing Bathsheba's husband on the the front line of battle so that he may surely die.

See, David’s sins are just as horrendous as his stories of heroism are inspiring.

He not only lusted, but he also commited adultery, taking it even further by committing murder.

Yet, this fall allowed David to see the significance of being blessed by the Lord.

We see the resolution of David’s sins and the Lord’s forgiveness in a conversation between the prophet Nathan and David in 2 Samuel 12:5-15.

2 Samuel 12:5–15 ESV

Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 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 out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’ ” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan went to his house. And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick.

Seeing our sin reveals the mercy of God.

There are two parts of this conversation that I would like for us to focus on.

First, let’s look at David when he says “the man who has done this deserves to die.”

Before this passage we just read, Nathan tells David a parable of a man that did great wrong.

David’s response to the actions of this man in the story is one of great anger which causes him to say “the man who has done this deserves to die.”

Yet, Nathan reveals that the man in this story is David.

After this revelation, David’s sins against the Lord is brought before his eyes.

Which brings us to the second part of this conversation.

David, recognizing the gravity of his transgressions against God through his conversation with Nathan, repents and turns to the Lord, demonstrating his faith and trust in God's mercy.

David’s faith and repentance leads to the most important part of this conversation:

Nathan’s proclamation on behalf of God “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”

It is clear that David’s transgressions meant he should die.

But because of David’s faith we can put his name into Psalm 32

Blessed is David, whose lawless deeds are forgiven,

Blessed is David, whose sins are covered;

Blessed is David, against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

The Lord promises each one of us that same blessing if we would only come to faith in Christ alone:

I can now say:

Blessed is Jacob whose lawless deeds are forgiven,

Blessed is Jacob whose sins are covered;

Blessed is Jacob against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

How will I respond to this message?