Sermon Tone Analysis

Happiness is an intriguing concept.

Most of the time when “happiness” is discussed, it’s as a fleeting emotion, a feeling based on whatever is going on in the moment.

The next time hear someone advise another to “Just do what makes you happy”, I will likely barf.

You don’t want everyone to do what makes them happy.

Trust me.

That has ‘disaster’ written all over it.

And it’s certainly not the prescription for a life lived well by any biblical standard.

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is found in the Declaration of Independence, not the Bible.

One is a fallible, man-made document; the other is inspired, God-breathed, perfect.

The Bible is not opposed to happiness, but the Biblical understanding of happiness is often worlds apart from ours.

The Bible’s idea of happiness is never “doing whatever you feel like doing”, but rather being “in close accord with God,” having a relationship with Him and living to honor Him with our lives.

Psalm 32 starts like this:

“Blessed” is a very churchy word, isn’t it?

Especially when you say “bless-ed”, giving it two syllables instead of one.

This word “blessed” is found all over the Bible, throughout the Psalms, we hear it from the mouth of Jesus in the beatitudes, the roadside worshippers ascribe it to Jesus as He rides a donkey into Jerusalem.

It’s an important, significant word: “blessed.”

According to the Oxford Annotated Bible, “Blessed” is the conventional translation of a Hebrew expression meaning literally (wait for it): “O, how happy!”

“O, how happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

O, how happy are those whose sin the LORD does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.”

According to Psalm 32, those who are happy are happy because what?

Who are the happy?

David, king of Old Testament Israel, the author of this psalm, tells us that the happy, the blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, those whose sins are covered, those whose sin the Lord does not count against them.

David knows some people who are truly happy.

He is among them; they are blessed, they are happy because their sins have been forgiven.

In the Living Bible, verses 1 and 2 read like this: What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven!

What joys when sins are covered over!

What relief for those who have confessed their sins and God has cleared their record.

Psalm 32 gives us three different words for sin, three different pictures of forgiveness, and at least three ways in which forgiven sinners should respond.

So, for the next three hours, we are going to talk about sin, forgiveness, and our response.

Unfortunately for you, bad preacher jokes make me happy.

Psalm 32 uses three different words for sin; most English Bibles translate these words as transgressions, sins, and sin.

The first of these words, translated transgressions is that deliberate disobedience to God’s known will.

The second word, sins, is a general term which means moral failure, missing the mark.

The third, sin or iniquity, refers to crooked and perverse qualities.

None of these are good; and what’s worse: we are, all of us, guilty of each.

We are transgressors of God’s revealed will, of His Holy standard;

We are sinners, we miss the mark;

We are a crooked and perverse people, we tend toward sin and evil.

This is our natural state.

The apostle Paul, who would call himself the chief of sinners, reminds us that Jews and Gentiles alike are under the power of sin…there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who does good, no not one.”

It’s stated very clearly for us in Romans 3: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

This is the bad news.

I’m getting to the Good News, trust me.

But for the Good News to be truly good, we have to understand our sinful inclination and sinful state.

One now deceased preacher, speaking of his own sinfulness, would say: “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got me a bag of trash.”

If we’re honest, we, too, could say that we have a bag of trash; our transgressions and sins and iniquity, if they could be bagged up, would result in several bags of trash—in my own case, I’d need my own landfill.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got me a bag of trash.”

The Good News is this: God has dealt with our sin decisively, once and for all time.

Psalm 32 is prophetic, it’s looking forward to Jesus and the perfect, ultimate forgiveness He will grant to those who belong to Him by faith—to those who are happy in Him:

Happy are Those Whose Transgressions Have Been Carried Away

The word here—forgiven—is another one of those churchy words, one of those words you expect to hear the preacher preach about.

But this word—forgiven—is a really interesting word.

Here in Psalm 32, verse 1, it’s the word nasaw and it means: to carry off.

It’s the word that’s used in Genesis 50, after Jacob, the patriarch of Israel, dies.

Jacob dies and we read:

So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them; they carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah…

So, then, Psalm 32 tells us: Happy are those whose transgressions are carried off, carried away to a far off place.

There’s this great picture in the Old Testament book of Leviticus; it’s one of my very favorite parts of the Bible (I’m pretty strange).

Under the Old Covenant, there was one day a year when the sins of the people were taken care of.

It’s called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (this year, Yom Kippur will be observed by the Jewish community on October 4-5).

On this day—the Day of Atonement—the high priest would take with him two goats (I really wanted a couple of goats up here with me today, but I thought better of it.

Jackie deals with enough as it is).

On this day—the Day of Atonement—the high priest would take two goats; one he would sacrifice and sprinkle its blood on the altar.

And with the other, the high priest would place his hands on the goat, symbolically transferring the sins of all the people to the head of this goat, making it a scapegoat for the people.

And then, with the sins of the people upon its head, the goat would be led out through the gathering of people, and the people would see a visible representation of their sins being carried away right in front of them…pretty powerful stuff…out of town and into the wilderness.

That’s the picture of forgiveness—our transgressions carried away; God taking our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west.

Friends, so it is for all who belong to Jesus Christ—the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who takes away our sins, carrying them off, bearing their weight on Calvary’s cross.

For those who believe in Jesus, for those who put their faith in Him—our transgressions are no longer with us; they have been carried away by God’s own Son.

Our transgressions have been carried away—let us be happy!

Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven.

Happy are Those Whose Sins are Covered

Happy are those…whose sins are covered.

Of course we understand what it means that something is covered.

But I want us to think about this the way the Bible would have us think about this.

Sins are covered—that is, concealed from sight.

In Genesis 38, we find the story of Judah and Tamar.

This is not exactly G-rated.

It’s not even PG-13.

It’s clearly R-rated.

So, I’ll edit it and bleep out some of the content; I’ll keep it appropriate.

Suffice it to say, Judah got into some serious trouble with his own daughter-in-law because he didn’t recognize her.

Genesis 38:15—When Judah saw [Tamar, his daughter-in-law], he thought she was a prostitute[someone else], because she had covered her face.

This covering meant that Tamar was unrecognizable; her identity was concealed from Judah’s sight.

This has the idea of hiding—covered over completely, to conceal, to hide from sight.

For our sins to be covered means that all our trash—all our moral failure and falling short, all this imperfection and dirt and scum—no longer appears as it once did.

It’s covered, it’s hidden.

It’s unrecognizable.

I think this might be part of the reason David sings these words to God in verse 7: You are my hiding place.

David knows that God has covered over his sins; that they’re hidden and hidden forever.

That’s the picture of forgiveness—our transgressions covered over.

God atoning for, God covering our sins so that they are completely concealed, completely unrecognizable.

God covers our sins; He doesn’t see them any longer.

Friends, so it is for all who belong to Jesus Christ—the eternally-existing Son of God who covers our sins, washing the scarlet white as snow with His precious, sin-covering blood.

For those who believe in Jesus, for those who put their faith in Him—our sins are no longer seen; they have been hidden, atoned for, covered by the Savior of the world.

Our sins have been covered—let us be happy!

Happy are those whose sins are covered.

Happy are Those Whose Sin is Not Counted Against Them

This is, for me, the most incredible, most beautiful part of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 32:2 says this: Happy are those whose sin the Lord does not count against them.

We can call this imputation or reckoning or crediting.