“Track 32: The Joy of Forgiveness (Psalm 32)", Austin Gooch | 8/3/25
Psalm 32 | 8/3/25 | Austin Gooch
THE nature and effects of that unhappy and disgraceful branch of
commerce, which has long been maintained on the Coast of Africa, with the
sole, and professed design of purchasing our fellow-creatures, in order to
supply our West-India islands and the American colonies, when they were
ours, with Slaves; [that nature and effect of that branch of commerce] is
now generally understood.
If my testimony should not be necessary, or serviceable, yet, perhaps, I am
bound, in conscience, to take shame to myself by a public confession,
which, however sincere, comes too late to prevent, or repair, the misery
and mischief to which I have, formerly, been accessory.
I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was,
once, an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.
I was in effect, though without the name, a Captive and a Slave myself; and
was depressed to the lowest degree of human wretchedness.”
These words were written in 1788 by the Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth
Church some 30 years after participating in the Triangular Slave Trade
between the West Indies and the American Colonies. He experienced such
agony by participating in and concealing such a horrible wrongdoing that he
was completely robbed of joy. He needed God’s forgiveness.
In fact, nothing short of the grace of God’s forgiveness could remove such
spiritual misery. This man’s name was John Newton. He is the author of
perhaps the most well-known Hymn of history, Amazing Grace.
What we see in John Newton’s story and what we see in Psalm 32, a
Psalm of David, is the misery of hiding our sin and the joy that comes from
God’s forgiveness.
Let’s turn our attention to that Psalm, I invite you to stand as you are able
out of respect for the reading of God’s Word.
If you do not have a Bible, we want to give you the gift of God’s Word at the
information bar when you leave. In the meantime, the words will be on the
screen.
READ
THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD.
THANKS BE TO GOD
This morning, we will see 6 reasons for rejoicing. The first.
Point number 1, We rejoice because God saves the sinful.
[Explanation] Look with me in verse 1:
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.” The word, “blessed”
could be translated, “happy”, “joyous”, or “of good fortune.” We saw this in
the opening verse of the Psalms in Psalm 1:1: “Blessed is the man who
walks NOT in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners.”
This is the first time since Psalm 1 that “blessed” has been used, yet it’s
being used here to talk about a very different. In Psalm 1, the man who is
blessed, happy, joyous or of good fortune walks in the way of the Lord,
delights in His law and meditates on it day and night. Here in Psalm 32,
how is the man described? Well, he’s described as a man who is forgiven.
But forgiven for what, we might ask? Verses 1-2 use three words to
describe wrongdoing: transgression, sin and iniquity. They are all related
but somewhat distinct.
Transgression has the sense of rebellion. It refers to the intentional
breaking of God’s rules described in his law. Biblical scholars consider it
likely that David’s occasion for writing Psalm 32 was a later reflection and
instruction to God’s people after the incident of Bathsheba and Uriah.
The story is given in 2 Samuel 10-12. King David sees Bathsheba bathing
from his roof and instructs his messengers to take her so that he may lay
with her, and Bathsheba gets pregnant.
While it’s possible that David’s adultery with Bathsheba was consensual,
John Piper notes that there are no indications in the text that Bathsheba
was willing and there are at least two indications in the text that David
abused his power and raped Bathsheba.
The messengers “took” her (2 Sam. 11:3) and Nathan, the prophet who
later confronts David exposing him of sexual exploitation and, by the way,
the premeditated and outsourced murder of her husband Uriah, that
prophet Nathan illustrates David as a rich man who TOOK the single lamb
from a poor man and prepared it as food.
David used his power and wealth to sexually violate the weak and
vulnerable.
This is transgression: the blatant disregard for God’s law: you shall not
commit adultery and you shall not murder. “Well thank goodness,” you
might think, “I am guilty of neither adultery nor murder.” Not so fast.
Matthew 5-7 is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, his stump speech of his
kingdom in which he brings clarity to the law:
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder;
and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that
everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever
insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’
will be liable to the hell of fire.” Matthew 5:21-22. While murder – to destroy
a human life – is far more damaging than anger, anger itself is enough
transgression enough rebellion in the eyes of God to be liable for
damnation. Jesus goes on:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I
say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has
already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Advance slide (FirstLight)
[Application] I was disheartened in May when FirstLight ministries, one of
our local partners dedicated to ministering to those seeking help from
unwanted sexual behaviors, shared some recent statistics on pornography
in the church. Presently, 54% of Christians (not men, Christians in general)
regularly use pornography. That’s more than half. Even more disheartening
to the point of being shocking is that half of all Christians are not bothered
by the usage of pornography.
I know from my own experience the spiritual, emotional, relational and even
physical damage that pornography causes. It is dangerous, and it will harm
your soul. Do whatever it takes to break free. Jesus goes on to say in
Matthew 5, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it
away.”
If your smartphone causes you to sin, get a flip phone. If working from
home causes you to sin, ask to go back to the office. If not addressing the
hurt in your heart that you are using sexual sins to seek to soothe is
causing you to sin – been there – find healing.
This is far more important than just minimizing temptations. Please come
speak to me or one of our other elders so we can help you. Even more, Get
involved with FirstLight by visiting firstlightstlouis.org.
The second way that wrongdoing is described in verses 1-2 is “sin”, that is,
blessed, happy, joyous, of good fortune is the one whose sin is covered.
The word Hebrew word for “sin” here חֲטָאָה has the sense of “missing the
mark.” In his law, God requires 100%, we don’t come close.
“But Christ fulfilled the law” you may object “we no longer have to follow the
law.” And it is true that Jesus of Nazareth, the word of God made flesh,
lived a life of perfect obedience that we failed to live and he did so in our
place. Yet that does not mean that God’s law no longer has an ongoing role
in lives of Christians. God’s law provides instruction for how to live
according to our creational design.
Living your life apart from God’s law is like using a whisk for a boat paddle.
It’s senseless, and you won’t get very far.
-
The third way that wrongdoing is described here is “iniquity.” This is not a word we use regularly in our contemporary culture. The usage here has to do with the twisting or distortion of every aspect of a person because of our sinful condition.
[Apologetic Moment]
Several years ago, a friend and I were talking about children and their poor
behavior. My friend commented that when he was raising his kids, a
popular phrase was that, “there are no bad children, just bad choices.” This
is the overwhelming view of our Western Culture: People are basically good.
And yet, as Tim Keller comments in The Reason for God, “It is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world.” [including the people in].
Christianity, of course, believes that this problem is sin. And here specifically, it is the notion that every part of us – our emotional states, our social relationships, our physical bodies, our intellect, and our spiritual tendency – has been twisted to one degree or another and it needs to be untwisted back into its proper shape.
The Lord as one who is flawless in His love, His moral uprightness, the purity of His Character and His perfect concern for justice should count our twistedness against us. And yet, we see here in Psalm 32:2 the LORD granting forgiveness – not counting David’s twisted nature against him. We are blessed, joyful, of good fortune because God forgives, covers and does not count sin.
Let’s look more closely at the nature of God’s forgiveness.
It is significant that the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans chooses these two verses from this Psalm of David [of all of David’s Psalms] when he argues that sinners are saved by God by his act of free grace which we receive by faith.
A misreading of this passage in Romans 4 and a misreading of these verses in Psalm 32 would be to infer that confessing sin earns God's forgiveness. This would be to treat confession of sin as a work of righteousness. Instead, God’s forgiveness IS totally an act of His free grace. We receive such forgiveness.
Let’s see how the free gift of grace is depicted in verses 1-2:
Verse 1, Blessed is the one whose Transgression is forgiven; whose sin is covered. The first word translated “forgiven” is used throughout scripture with the sense of “lifting” or “picking up” or “bearing a burden” or removing.
Both “forgiven” and “covered” are passive verbs, meaning that David is receiving forgiveness, he is receiving the covering of his sin from God’s sight.
How is it possible that OUR sins can be forgiven and covered?
1 Pet. 2:24 “He [Christ Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” The penalty of our rebellion is lifted, removed, and paid in full. What about covering our sins? 1 Jn. 2:2,
“He [Christ Jesus] is the propitiation [that is, he is the covering over] our sins.”
Blessed, joyful, happy, of good fortune are those whose sins are forgiven.
But there is a disclaimer. David is not talking about so-called “cheap grace”here. He is not saying we confess our sins to receive forgiveness so that we can then just do whatever we want.
Look at the end of verse 2, “in whose spirit there is no deceit.” God knows the heart, and God will not be mocked.
[Illustration of a toddler saying sorry].I have 2 small children. They often do bad things. They are often told by me and Catherine to say they’re sorry.
They often say they’re sorry. It is not often that they mean it.
What David is NOT instructing is that we confess like a toddler who is trying to get off the hook.
If verses 1-2 teach us that we have joy because God graciously forgives sin, we see in verses 3-4, Point #2, we rejoice because God convicts the sinful:
3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah.
We see examples in scripture of people experience physical sickness that has nothing to do with their sin. In Job 2 we see Satan going out from the presence the LORD and striking Job, a blameless and upright man, with loathsome sores. In John 9, we see Jesus’ disciples when passing by a blind man ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
However, this does not preclude the possibility that sin that is hidden, sin that is kept in the dark, sin this is not made known and acknowledged, this does not preclude the possibility that such sin can produce physical illness.
[Illustration] You ever get a pit in your stomach when you know you’ve done something wrong, and you’re trying to hide it?
[Explanation] Almost a year passed from the time David raped Bathsheba and murdered Uriah to the time that Nathan the prophet confronted him.
During that time when David kept silent, he was physically ill. He describes it like the heat of summer – probably not unlike the past two weeks of triple-digit heat index we just suffered through here in St. Louis.
Furthermore, the sense of guilt was constant: “day and night your hand was heavy upon me.”
So why is this cause for joy? Guilt is painful. A miserable conscience weighs heavily. It causes us to toss and turn and can make us physically ill.
[Illustration] Ashlyn Blocker is a young woman from Georgia with a rare genetic disorder called CIPA. She is insensitive to pain. As a baby, she would chew her lips in her sleep until they would bleed, bite through her tongue when she ate, and once stuck her finger in her mouth bit flesh off it.
Guilt is like pain. It helps us know when we are harming ourselves, and when we are harming others. Guilt is not a design feature of God’s creation, but it is an act of his mercy so that unlike Ashlyn Blocker who can’t help but harm herself physically because she doesn’t feel pain, we are helped from harming ourselves spiritually by feeling guilt.
This is one of the many roles of the Holy Spirit, the 3 rd person of the Trinity, in the on-going lives of believers. He is our παρακλητος / paraclete, sometimes translated comforter, but that word, which shows up in John 15 when Jesus tells his disciples that He will send the Spirit, that word ALSO has a judicial sense.
In fact, I believe that “advocate” is a more precise translation in John 15 than “comforter.” Put another way, the Holy Spirit convicts us in the courtroom of our hearts.
Jesus says in John 16:8 “And when he comes [that is, the Holy Spirit], he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement.”
The prophet Ezekiel through whom the LORD promised to send the Spirit writes,
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” – Ezek. 36:26-27.
Let us rejoice that God does NOT leave us with hardened hearts, but gives us softer, kinder, gentler, more loving hearts.
But we must make our sin known to the Lord, which leads us to point number 3, We rejoice because God forgives the sinful.
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
David couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t bear the weight day and night of a guilty conscience. He couldn’t bear the broken relationship in which Almighty God was his enemy. So what did he do?
He brought his sin into the light. He got it all out on the table. He no longer covered any of it up. He made it known the Lord.
1 Jn. 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
To be sure, the relationship that is most damaged when we hide our sin is our relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Sin is first and foremost a breaking of God’s heart, so that relationship is the first to be damaged and the first that must be repaired. The central burden in Psalm 32 is making known our sin to the Lord, but the New Testament exhorts us to not only make known our sin to the Lord but to make known our sin to one another. James writes in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
[Illustration] About a year ago, the Lord really convicted me of a sin that had been besetting for a long time, and it had to do with the self. Our modern culture assumes and encourages us to create the best version of ourselves as possible, because the self and self-actualization is one of the highest goods.
I already knew that this was a sin I had struggled with, and I had even grown a lot in it, yet the many ways that I had bought into this lie became a lot clearer. Feeling convicted over this sin, I called Mike Pijut, our elder who led us in the pastoral prayer this morning asking if I could confess a sin to him. I told him what I just told all of you.
I’ll tell you how he responded in just a minute, but first let me tell you why. If we, West Hill Church, want to stand any chance in dying to sin and growing in Christ, we need to confess our sin to one another. I love groups. I love life groups, I love our discipleship groups, I love the community and the discussion and the ways we get to pray for one another.
And we need to keep praying for things like time management. Stress at work. Decisions about kid’s school enrollment. These are good and important matters to continually come to the Lord to in prayer.
But if we never use those spaces confess sin and to ask for prayer, there’s a problem. And I suspect that the root cause of that problem is two-fold: number 1) we are afraid to confess to sin to others and number 2) we don’t know how to respond when we hear someone else confess sin. Would anyone like to know what in the world to say or do in that moment?
Let’s go back to me and Mike. Here’s how the conversation progressed.
First, Mike told me how honored he was that I came to him. This is step 1.
He treated me with dignity. He did not count my sin against me. He did not shame me.
Second, Mike spoke the gospel into my life. This is step 2. What does the gospel mean when it comes to self-actualization? If you’ve lived in the United States for more than a year, you need to hear this: the gospel frees us from self-actualization. It frees us from becoming the best and most awesome version of ourselves.
Third, Mike prayed for me right then on the phone.
Fourth, Mike followed up with me later.
Friends, I love my brother Mike, but lest I make him out to be my savior, he’s not. He was just following the pattern established by Jesus.
Step 1 – being incarnational. Meeting me where I was with honor and dignity.
Step 2 – proclaiming the gospel. That’s what Jesus did.
Step 3 – prayer. That’s what Jesus is doing as we speak at the right hand of the Father.
Step 4 – accountability. That’s what he sent the Holy Spirit to do in our hearts.
Brothers and Sisters, all of us need to confess our sin to the Lord. But some of you – maybe all of you – need the relief and the joy of confessing a sin or sins to another human being who loves you.
It doesn’t have to be me. It doesn’t have to be Pastor Will. But it needs to be somebody. Because as long as we keep that sin secret inside, we miss out on one of the greatest things there is. We miss out on love. How?
Because when we hide ourselves form others, we are actively lying about who we really are.
Several of us had the opportunity to visit The Gospel Coalition conference back in April. One of the keynote sermons was delivered by Ryan Kwon, who told us what he would say to his kids when they were young and he caught them in a lie. This is Kwon:
“Son, if you lie, then you live out of a false identity. And that makes it impossible for you to be known and loved. And that starts to erode the very thing that your soul needs, which is to be known and to be loved. And you’ll always believe that people won’t love you for who you really are because of your lies. And that ultimately will distort you and eventually bleed into the reality that maybe maybe maybe ‘God can’t love the real me.’ And that builds a resistance to the gospel. And like it if we lie to one another, we are subtly believing that we cannot be loved for who we really are.”
Do you doubt that West Hills Church can love the real you?
Do you think our comprehension of God’s grace is too small to hear:
-that you can’t stop buying things you don’t need.
-that you’re a smiling and friendly face at church, but at home you tear down your family with your speech.
-that you’ve started having feeling of same-sex attraction out of nowhere and don’t know who to talk to.
-that you’re experiencing gender dysphoria.
-that you doubt this whole Christianity thing and you’re losing your faith.
Do you doubt that God can love the real you?
Maybe you believe that God will forgive your sins, but he’s going to wait a while to decide if He loves you or not. He’s going to wait and see how you do. If enough time goes by and you’ve shown that you really are going to stick with it, then He’ll start loving you again.
This Psalm includes several breaks. Our Bible show the word Selah. Notice where it doesn’t occur. Right between David’s confession and the LORD’s forgiveness. SNAP It’s immediate. He forgives instantaneously. It’s you and I that are slow to forgive. It’s you and I whose wounded hearts are slow to open back up to those who have wronged us. It’s you and I who “wait and see how this whole thing goes.” It’s him who – like the Father to the Prodigal Son – Sees his returning Son who has ruined his life – and has compassion and RUNS to him and EMBRACES and KISSES Him. THAT is the Heart of the Father towards ruined sons and daughters like you and me. We can rejoice because God forgives the sinful.
Furthermore, we can rejoice because point #4, God protects the godly. Let’s return to verses 6-7.
[6] 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.
7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah.
[Explanation] David turns here from describing his experience of confession and forgiveness and love and moves towards instructing the congregation.
Therefore, some scholars believe that this Psalm was written long enough after his confession so that he has had time to reflect upon the experience.
A few things are worth pointing out.
First, he invites the godly to offer prayer at a time when the Lord may be found. Friends there is neither a better nor a more urgent time to come to the Lord. He will not wait forever. If you have never come to God broken and convicted over your sin to confess them to God and to receive his salvation, don’t wait another day. None of us are promised tomorrow. Today is a great day to give your life to Jesus.
If you are a Christian and you are living in unrepentant sin, I urge you to come to Christ before your heart is so hardened that you walk away.
[Illustration]
Returning to John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, for a moment. As he reflected upon his participation in the slave trade, hear his experience of a hardened heart: “Treating the [slaves] with rigor gradually brings a numbness upon the heart and renders most of those who are engaged in it too indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow creatures.”
[Application] What’s he saying here? What Newton is saying is that our participation in sin has a way of hardening of hearts. So long as you go on in unrepentant sin, or sin that you have not made known, your heart is at risk to get harder and harder and harder. But confession has just the opposite effect. It softens our hearts. It gives you more of a heart, one that is humble and loving and caring and kind.
And hearts that are loving and caring and kind will find their safety in the Lord, which we see exhibited here in verse 7:
You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
For those who do, they have the Lord as their refuge.
Psalm Key Verse (ESV)
Psalm 16 "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge." (v.1)
Psalm 18 "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer..." (v.2)
Psalm 23
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..." (v.4)
Psalm 27
"The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?"
(v.1)
Psalm 31 "In you, O LORD, do I take refuge..." (v.1)
Psalm 46 "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
(v.1)
Psalm 57 "In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge..." (v.1)
Psalm 62 "He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress..." (v.2)
Psalm 91 "I will say to the LORD, 'My refuge and my fortress...'" (v.2)
Psalm 142 "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living." (v.5)
Who are the ones in verse 7 that are surrounding David with shouts of deliverance? It’s the congregation. Who is it for us? It’s the church.
If you are here this morning and you’re hiding in sin that you need to make known, we are here to surround YOU with shouts of deliverance. We are not here to surround you with shouts of shame and condemnation – “there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” Let us cheer for you. Let us pray for you. Let us encourage you as you seek to flee from sin.
We can rejoice because God protects the godly.
We also rejoice because, point 5, God instructs the godly.
Let’s reread verses 8-9 but first notice how the subject changes:
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 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.
[Explanation] Who is the “I” in verse 8? It is the Lord. Yahweh himself promises to instruct, to teach and to counsel. Specifically, he promises to teach in the “way we should go.” This is a common refrain throughout the Old Testament referring to following God’s law. The Old Testament saints were given the law so that they would know how to live holy and upright lives in loving relationship with the LORD and fellowship with one another.
We have the benefit of the ministry of the Holy Spirit who, through the reading of God’s Word but especially the preaching of God’s Word, instructs us in the way we should go. He instructs both personally and corporately:
Jesus, speaking to his disciples says, John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
Later in John 16:13 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”
Romans 8:14 “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
In Acts 15 in which the issue of including Gentiles into the people of God was raising all manner of questions the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, we read in Acts 15:28, “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” that is, the Jerusalem Council. The Holy Spirit continues to instruct the church in the way that she should go.
[Illustration] You ever find yourself in a situation where you realize you really don’t know what you’re doing? I did very recently.
Like all suburban men with a ¼ acre lot, I had an aching desire to replace our push mower with a riding lawn mower. Combined with the fact that our 2 year old son, John Mark, literally sleeps in his John Deere hat, I legitimated buying a used beat-up Husqvarna mower through Facebook Marketplace. After foolishly running over a hose because I had the bright idea to use the lawn mower only a few days after sustaining a concussion, I damaged the electrical circuit resulting in the lawn mower not starting.
No worries, I’ll just use ChatGPT to help me troubleshoot the mower, which led to swapping out the starter motor. Still won’t start. The battery might be dead. No worries, I’ll just jump start it with my Ford Explorer. Now it’s at this point in the story that I should have gotten help. I should have found an instructor, hired an expert, and not done what I did next.
So, I go and connect not one but two sets of jumper cables from my car, which is in the garage, and my super manly but entirely lifeless riding lawn mower, which is in the backyard. I should have checked the design of the car’s battery against the design of the lawn mower’s battery.
I don’t know if you know this, but if the voltage of the car battery exceeds the voltage of the lawn mower battery, and you turn the key, the jumper cables will light on fire. I found this out the hard way.
[Back to the text] Friends, can we just acknowledge that in our limitation, we don’t know what we’re doing a lot of the time. We can rest assured that the Lord will instruct us in the way that we should go. Isn’t it good that the Lord himself teaches us?
Not only does God instruct the godly, but point number 6, God loves the godly.
10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.
11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
We should be clear that God loves us and sees us at godly – as righteous – not for anything in us, not for anything done by us, but entirely because of the godly status – the righteous status we are given because of the all sufficient work of Jesus Christ.
Christ’s obedience, that is, his godliness, his moral perfection, his sinless life, and Christ’s sacrifice, that is his satisfaction of the shedding of blood that is needed for the forgiveness of sins is given to us.
Have you received Jesus? Are you, as the Psalmist describes, one who trusts in the LORD? Do not be like the wicked, who David describes here as sorrowful.
Who Christ described as: “liable to hell of fire” – Matt. 5:22. Instead, receive the free gift of Jesus Christ.
For those who already have, today is a great day to rest more deeply in the grace of God. Look in verse 10 at how David describes the one who trusts in the LORD, she is described as one whom “the steadfast love of the LORD surrounds.” His love is freely available to you.
Perhaps one of the most exhaustive works on the love of God is John Owen’s Communion with God written in the mid-17 th century. I’ve included some of Owen’s quotations, which I’ll show on the screen, because his language is a bit antique.
Advance Slide (Owen 1)
“The Father himself loves you. Resolve of that, that you may hold communion with him in it and be no more troubled about it. Yea, as your great trouble is about the Father’s love, so you can no way more trouble or burden him, than by your unkindness in not believing of it.” (20-21).
And later:
Advance Slide (Owen 2)
“This is the will of God, that he may always be eyed as benign, kind, tender, loving, and unchangeable therein; and that peculiarly as the Father, as the great fountain and spring of all gracious communications and fruit of love. . . Would believers exercise themselves herein, they would find it a matter of no small spiritual improvement in their walking with God.” (23).
What is Owen saying? Because of our sin, we misunderstand God. Even though he has made his love known to us by sending Jesus to die on the cross in our place – what greater love is this – we still struggle to believe to believe it. Owen goes so far to say that we do an unkindness to him when we doubt the Father’s love.
Advance Slide (point 6)
[Illustrate] Just imagine, those of you with small children or small grandchildren. Imagine you told them you loved them. Imagine you tell them and show them through all the ways you care for them that you love them more than they’ll ever know. Now imagine that small child turns to you and says, “you know mom, you know dad. You know grandma, grandpa, I know you tell me you love me, and I know you show me you love, but I just don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’ve just done too many bad things. I’ve gotten in trouble too many times.” This is what it’s like when we doubt the love of God towards us.
So what do we do instead? Verse 11 tells:
“Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shot for joy, all you upright in heart.” That word for shout is the Hebrew verb רָנַן. Let’s all say רָנַן together, “רָנַן”.
During the course of Vacation Bible School this summer, I learned that there’s a closing song about an alligator.
It goes something like this, “Goodbye, we’ll see you later, Let me see your alligator, snap.” It’s not the most sophisticated lyric, but it is designed for children after all.
The bridge goes something like this,
“Everybody out there can you give me one snap. Everybody out there can you give me to snaps. Everybody out there can you give me three snaps.”
Then – and here’s the important part – the final line of the bridge “Everybody out there make some noise!”
At this moment, a sanctuary full of children will scream which such enthusiasm and volume that it’s an actual miracle that the glass windows didn’t shatter.
What are those kids doing? They’re רָנַןing! They’re doing what David is commanding us to do when we are forgiven – and we are!
Be glad in the LORD and shout for joy! Confess your sins to the LORD AND one another, and experience forgiveness and joy.
Let’s pray.
Prayer