Radical Mercy for a Confessing People
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Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
This Psalm is quoted in Romans by Paul as he explains faith apart from works. And while this is certainly a valid use of the text, I want to cover this text to give the background for Paul’s quotation so that we get to view the radical grace of God from a different angle.
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. Selah
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. Selah
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. Selah
I will instruct you and teach you in the way 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 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!
David’s Conclusion/Proclamation
David’s Conclusion/Proclamation
Illustration: 5 Paragraph essays:
I hated how structured they were
They required that we state our conclusions and main points first.
Sometimes I just wanted to take my readers on a journey and not tell them where we were going.
Some psalms are like that journey where we don’t know where the Psalmist is going until the end, and Some are like the 5 Paragraph essay (for example Psalm 41, which I preached on last time, and Psalm 32
What is David’s conclusion?
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.
Translation Notes:
v2 - Impute vs Account - These both are pointing to the same aspect, like charging to an account, such as a banking or merchant transaction. In this case, God does not count the debt or the wages of sin of some people, and as we will see later this applies to God’s confessing people
David Knows through personal Experience
David Knows through personal Experience
How David knows: Negative Experience
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. Selah
While we don’t know whether David is referencing a particular set of circumstances or the results of sin in general, we do know that he certainly has experience regarding feeling the effects of sin and delayed confession.
We know that David felt the effects of sin as he married many wives. We know that he felt the effects of sin as he did not correct the sin in his family nor act as a just king when his family members raped and murdered. We know that David felt the effects of sin when he numbered the people in an act of pride. We know that David felt the effects of sin as he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband.
David is well-acquainted with sin and its consequences, so he tells us that the forgiven person is blessed because he has lived the consequences of sin - particularly unconfessed sin.
He says, “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away.”
He is using a clear Action and result pair. Silence, or hiding sin, causes a kind of wasting away. And what he describes is essentially the weight of guilt and conviction in our lives when we hide it.
Let’s think of an example in our lives. All of us are human, we make mistakes, even in our work. And sometimes we catch it after the fact. Maybe you catch it even in a presentation to a client or your boss. When you see it, you get a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, you begin to sweat and stress out. You’re distracted. You’re hoping they don’t notice or that you can fix the issue before it’s caught so you can save face.
This feeling of anxiety, the situation inducing physical sickness is exactly the kind of thing David is talking about. Perhaps you’ve experienced this when you’ve told a lie or committed some other sin you don’t want to be found out. Then we begin to live a lie and the weight of fear and the consequences of being found out weighs heavy on our souls, it makes us physically sick and we can be tempted to dive deeper into sin.
David also says that the heavy hand of the Lord was on him. This gives us a clue into the fact that what the believer in particular will experience when living in unconfessed sin is from the Lord. That can come in the form of conviction, but it can also come in the form of suffering, as David says “my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
Now, it can get pretty hot out here during the summer, but have any of you ever been to Phoenix, Arizona, or perhaps Palm Springs or Death Valley, California. Well, in the summer those places are an OVEN. My wife and I lived in Phoenix for a few years and the friends we made quickly warned us about the dangers of hiking and going out into the wilderness from the months of May through September in particular. Signs are posted on popular hiking trails warning hikers to turn back if they only have half of their water left. And yet, people still die. In fact, I can’t remember whether it was April or a different month, but Sarah and I got out late hiking one day, on a popular trail, and it proved to be a hotter day than expected. We began to run low on water on our way back as the heat increased. Feeling of exhaustion and being out of breath set in. Weakness, dizziness, desperation to reach the bathrooms to find shade, water, and the opportunity to cool down. It is this analogy that David uses to explain the heavy hand of the Lord upon those who do not confess their sin.
But the heaviness of the Lord’s hand is not something that only David discusses. In the book of Acts we see that a couple, Ananias and Saphira were seeking notoriety in the church and lied about their giving. God struck them dead. Later in the book of Acts, King Herod was accepting honor and flattery, his pride growing and the Lord struck him dead by way of worms eating him. And when Paul gives the Corinthian Church instructions about the Lord’s Supper, he tells them that eating the Supper without examining themselves and confessing sin has led to some being sick and others dying. Indeed, the hand of the Lord is heavy against unconfessed sin, even those within the church.
And David experienced these things in his adultery with Bathsheba.
David first watched Bathsheba while she was bathing, lusting after her. Then he committed adultery with her. Finding out she was pregnant, he attempted to cover up his sin by getting Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to come home from the battlefield and sleep with her to cover-up the adultery through a lie. When that didn’t work, he arranged Uriah’s death on the battlefield, committing murder. All of this guilt, this cover-up could have been weighing heavily on David, especially because he confessed when confronted by the prophet, Nathan. But even then, the hand of the Lord was heavy upon David because of his sin and the child conceived in adultery perished.
But these negative experiences that David describes are not purposeless. They are very purposeful. They are often the very things that drive God’s people to repentance.
How David Knows: Positive Experience:
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. Selah
Again, we have another Action and Result pair:
Instead of hiding his sin, denying sinfulness, David says that he acknowledged his sin to God. He refused to cover it any longer. And what is the result? God forgave David.
Selah as the pause: Let us pause and let that sink in. Confession to God, laying bare our sins before God leads to forgiveness. You mean, the Heavy Hand of the Lord does not have to completely destroy or end in judgment? You mean that the punishment of sin can be lifted, even when your body and spirit groan under the weight of conviction, guilt, shame, fear of being caught, and even divine discipline due to sin? YES.
True, honest, and repentant confession of sin before God is pleasing to him. Now that does not mean that we are free from all the discipline or natural consequences of our sin, but the relationship of God and his people is restored and the wrath that was due does not fall on us but fell on Jesus at the cross.
The flesh tempts us to hide our sin, just like Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. After they ate the fruit God commanded them not to eat, they covered themselves with garments made of leaves and hid from God. Not only did they try to hide and clothe themselves, they also played the blame game. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. We all can fall into this if we are honest. Are you tempted to impatience and anger toward your children? “Well they’re disobeying and talking back!” True enough, but that does not negate God’s command to be self controlled, not marked by anger, and not to exasperate our children. Should we still discipline? Yes. Should we still instruct? Yes. But in our anger, do not sin. That is God’s command. And I assume many of you are like me, fighting this battle. We are just like Adam and Eve at many times, attempting to cover our sin and blame-shift. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 tells us, there is nothing new under the sun. Paul tells us this same think in another way “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” We all feel the urge to hide, to blame-shift, but we must hear David. Uncovering our sin before God leads to forgiveness. As I have quoted many times, 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We must fight the temptation to hide our sin from God and others when it must be dealt with. So when we ourselves and the powers of darkness serve as our accusers, look to Christ, who forgives, who lifts up his exposed and confessing people and says “go and sin no more”
Exhortation: Confess while forgiveness is available!
Exhortation: Confess while forgiveness is available!
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. Selah
In Light of God’s radical forgiveness, David exhorts us to call out to God. Call out to God in confession, for now is the time that God may be found. Now, this is certainly poetic language, for God will not hide from his people, nor will he hide from the wicked like children playing hide and seek. He will not storm out and abandon. No, there will come a day when when God will no longer be patient - When he will no longer extend grace.
This time is coming, for each of us individually, and for us as a human race.
Turn with me to Luke 12:16-21
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
We see here, among other passages, that God will require the soul of every man, particularly those in rebellion against him. My final day is coming, your final day is coming.
Turn with me to Revelation 6:12-17
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
Here, we see the wrath of God poured out against his enemies in this world, a wrath so fierce, so terrifying that the people of the earth try to hide and wishing to be crushed by the rocks rather than face the white hot wrath of God toward sin. For in that day, who can stand? The answer is no one. No one can withstand the wrath of God.
This is why David pleads to us to offer prayers, prayers of confession to God while he may be found! And we find the fullness of this hope explained in Hebrews 9:24-28. Let’s turn there as well.
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
The confession of the people of God in faith, trusts what God says about us, what Kyle has been preaching for the last several months. That we, as individuals, that we as a human race, turned our backs on God. Going back to Romans 1:18-23 we read this:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
And in Romans 3:9-20
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Confession of sin is an acknowledgement of our condition, our rebellion, that our only hope to escape judgment is come before God without any excuses, without any attempt to blame-shift or justify, but only to cry out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This is the prayer, the cry, that Jesus said pleases God and leads to forgiveness.
We must uncover our sin, and keying in on this kind of clothing language, another pastor recently put it this way:
“Just as men outside of Christ will stand naked before the throne of God to be judged, so also those who want to be spared from that terrible moment need to come before Christ and stand before him naked in order to be clothed.” (Doug Wilson, “An Open Letter to President Trump About Heaven”)
A Warning against stubbornness:
A Warning against stubbornness:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way 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 curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
As David is drawing near the end of this Psalm he gives a warning against stubbornness. Like the untrained and untrained horse or mule may resist instructions will not be led, even a trained horse or mule will show stubbornness, will still need to be led, using a bit and bridle. Once trained, it will move and obey with much less force, perhaps even obey some commands without the use of force or pain to drive it. But some are more stubborn than others, and David warns us not to be like these animals. He is telling us that if we listen, if hear his words, we have understanding. Essentially if we refuse to listen to David, to heed the dire warnings, refuse to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God, we are like the stubborn, unthinking farm animal. And if you belong to God, he may use painful means to lead you to repentance and restoration because of stubbornness.
The Final Conclusion
The Final Conclusion
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!
Wickedness brings sorrow, particularly in the unrepentant. Whether it is feelings of guilt and shame on account of sin, natural consequences, consequences from civil government, or the heavy hand of God in discipline for his children and wrath for his enemies, sorrow will follow
Steadfast love is the result for those who trust in God, who uncover their sin before God, casting themselves on his mercy. Remember, God has promised that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Remember that over and over, God has reminded his people that his love is steadfast. We see this in the following passages:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
These passages barely scratch the surface about what God has told us regarding His love for his people; His dedication to his people; His mercy towards his people.
This stirs up joy in David, just as it should for us.
To sum up the call of David, Seek the Lord while he may be found. Uncover your sin before God. Admit it. Make no excuse. Reject your sin, entrust yourself to the mercy of God. Depend on the sacrifice of Jesus. Heed the call of Jesus to come to him. Let us remember this call which is echoed in Isaiah 55:1-7
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
“Seek the Lord 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 the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Let’s pray.
