Sermon Cloud

Forgiven

Psalm 32

By Joshua Krohse

Psalm 24:7-10

Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle!
Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!

Psalm 29:1-10

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

Psalm 33:6-9

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
he puts the deeps in storehouses.

Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

Psalm 97:1b-6

Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around.
His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.

Who is God? That’s God! What’s He like? That’s what He’s like! Is He a force? Is He "the man upstairs"? Is He one option among many? Is He our heavenly grandfather who gives us whatever we want if we can just figure out the right way to ask? Is He something we believe in just to help us get by? Is He weak? Can we pull one over on Him? Will He ignore sin and focus on making us happy? Does He exist just for us?

No! He is the King of Glory! He is the Lord strong and mighty! He is glorious and holy. He created the world. His voice is powerful, and with it He can shake the world and destroy it. He is king forever! All the earth should fear Him. All the inhabitants of the earth should stand in awe of Him. That’s who God is.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. God is righteous. There is no evil in Him. He is completely good. He defines good. He makes the rules, because He is the great King. This righteous God will not ignore evil.

God is just. He judges fairly. He does not take bribes. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" Deuteronomy 10:17 says, "The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe." We should expect, then, that this God will give you and give me exactly what we deserve.

But what do we deserve?

God, who is perfect demands that we also be perfect. He commands you to love Him. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." He requires our complete allegiance. No one and nothing is allowed to come between us and Him. He demands to be our number one priority 100% of the time.

And as you focus on Him, "He commands you to love your neighbor as yourself." You, if you are to obey God, must love others as much as you love yourself. You must consider them as valuable as you consider yourself. Their happiness, safety, and wellbeing must be as important to you as your own.

Jesus said that every other command of God was summed up in these two. All the "don’ts": Don’t commit adultery. Don’t worship idols. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t murder. Don’t misuse God’s name. All the "do’s": Do honor your father and your mother. Do teach these commands to your children. Do remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Do rejoice in the Lord! Do glory in His holy name. All the "do’s" and "don’ts" are covered by the command to love God most and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So, what do we deserve? Do you love God more than yourself? Do you love God more than anything? Do you love Him at all times? Always? What about your neighbor? Do you love him or her the way you love yourself? Or is there envy in your heart? Do you look down on anyone? Have you hated anyone or even injured someone? Have you ever lied about or lusted after or disobeyed or dishonored or stolen from or gossiped about or humiliated or misled anyone? Do you meet God’s requirement that you be perfect as He is perfect?

In the book of Psalms, King David said to God, "Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you." Romans 3:10-18 says, "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 vipers 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."

Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. The just and fair reward for anything less than perfect obedience to God’s perfect laws is death. And not just physical death. God has prepared a place of eternal torment for those who break His law by putting anything before Him and failing to love others as themselves. Hell is a very real place prepared for those who disobey God, those who by their disobedience have become God’s enemies. "Fire goes before Him and burns up his adversaries all around."

So ask yourself, what do I deserve? In light of God’s law and His standard of perfection, do I deserve Heaven or do I deserve Hell? If you are willing to be honest, you will have to admit that based on God’s standard and His law you and I and everyone else deserves to go to Hell.

And so, as sinners condemned by the righteous King of glory, you and I have no hope in and of ourselves. We cannot be perfect, and we cannot pay God back for the sins we have already committed. God is a fair and just God who cannot be bribed. When we realize the seriousness of our situation, we have only one option open to us. We must come to God empty-handed, realizing that we bring nothing to the bargaining table and cry out desperately, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"

Turn with me to Psalm 32, a Psalm written by David, a man who, like us, sinned greatly and deserved death and Hell for his sin.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? All have sinned. The wages of sin is death. Who then can be saved? With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. As far as it depends on you or on I, there is nothing we can do to earn salvation. With man this is impossible, Jesus said.

But, did you catch that next part? With God, all things are possible. You can do nothing to earn salvation. You cannot pay the price for your sin. And, you do not have to. God has made the impossible possible. For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

2000 years ago, God sent His perfect, sinless son Jesus into the world. Jesus took the form of a servant, being born as a man. Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus was fully God, and He became fully man. And still today in heaven, He is fully God and fully man. Jesus was tempted in every respect as we are, yet He was without sin.

Jesus always completely obeyed His Father’s command to love God and neighbor. He never sinned, not even once. And when the religious leaders conspired to kill Him and succeeded in convincing the Roman government to execute Him on a cross, they murdered an innocent man.

But something more happened on that cross than just an unjust execution. God was carrying out a plan that He had made before He created the world, a plan to save sinful, undeserving people from death and Hell through the death of His Son Jesus on the cross.

Jesus was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like wandering sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned away from God to follow our own way; and the LORD has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all.

We deserve God’s full wrath. For our sinful disobedience, we deserve death and eternal suffering. Jesus deserved all glory and honor and praise. But God placed our sin, our iniquity, on Jesus and punished Him in our place. It was the Lord's will to crush Jesus and cause him to suffer, to make his life an offering to take away sin.

Jesus lived a perfect life and died for sinners. He took the punishment I deserved. He took the punishment you deserved. And in doing so, He satisfied God’s wrath. He paid the price for our sins and so defeated sin and death. Therefore God raised Him up on the third day. He was really dead, and now He is really alive.

And here’s the great news. If you come to the point where you understand that you need to be saved from the consequences of your sin, and if you believe that Jesus experienced God’s wrath in your place. If you will admit your sinfulness and helplessness to God, reject your sin, and follow Jesus as your master, you will be forgiven. God will forgive your sin and you will not undergo the eternal punishment you deserve. Not only that, God will adopt you and give you an inheritance. Because Jesus defeated death, if you trust Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you will inherit eternal life in God’s presence, with eternal purity and eternal pleasure.

In Psalm 32, David tells us: "32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity."

"Blessed" means truly happy. It means to be in a good situation. There is no greater happiness than that of a condemned man who is set free and cleared of all charges. There is no better situation than the situation of being completely forgiven, of having all the charges against you dropped and your slate wiped clean.

There is only one way to experience true happiness: to be forgiven by God.

We see in these verses that when a person trusts in Jesus Christ for salvation, God forgives completely. God forgives this person’s transgressions, covers his sin, and does not count his iniquity. David describes sin using three different words: "transgression", "sin", and "iniquity." This is a poetic way of saying that we are talking about all kinds of sin, and even the desire and tendency to sin.

God’s forgiveness is described in three different ways, too. He forgives (literally, He lifts away our sin). He covers. God covered sin in the death of His Son. God does not count sins against those who trust in Christ. They have already been counted against Jesus. By using these three different descriptions of God’s forgiveness, David is emphasizing that God forgives all of the believer’s sins completely.

David describes what brought him to this humble attitude:

If you are not a believer, if you have not confessed your sin to the Lord and received His forgiveness, this should describe you. Guilt is destructive. Hiding sin, refusing to admit it, stubbornly pursuing it—these attitudes and actions will burden you down spiritually, emotionally, and even physically.

The main purpose of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. When you refuse to glorify Him, this psalm says that His hand is heavy on you. The hand of the God who created the universe is pressing you down. No wonder there is so much hopelessness in the world! No wonder there is so much despair and depression and sickness and lethargy! We are a world of sinners, and many of us refuse to confess our sins to God and be forgiven.

And God forgave the iniquity—the guilt—of his sin! David was looking forward to Christ’s work on the cross. We are looking back on it. We know how God could forgive David, and we know that God can and will forgive anyone who confesses his or her sin and trusts Jesus as Savior and Lord.

If you realize the darkness, deepness, and hopelessness of your sin and if you are starting to understand the danger you are in. If God’s Holy Spirit is working in your heart and causing you to want to turn away from sin and trust Jesus Christ, offer prayer to God while He may be found! You are in a very precious window of opportunity. The apostle Paul wrote, "we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

You have only this lifetime to turn from your sins to God. If you knew how long your life was going to be, maybe you could time your repentance to whenever was most convenient for you. But, you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Then you will die and after that comes judgment. And at that point, there are no more chances. God, in His mercy, has allowed you to hear His gracious offer of salvation. If you believe that this is true, offer prayer to God at this time when He may be found.

At the moment of salvation, God’s hand, which presses heavily on the unrepentant sinner scoops up that new believer and holds him or her safe from all harm. Jesus said of His flock, his followers, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.’ "

Those who have been saved from sin do not need to fear anything else. God will protect them in the rush of great waters. This refers to a flash flood, common in valleys of the Holy Land. Dangerous floods came quickly and without warning, trapping and destroying even whole armies. Nothing takes God by surprise. When the storms of life rage around you and tragedy takes you by surprise, if you have trusted Christ, you do not need to be afraid. God will protect you from or protect you through those times of trouble.

Even death loses its sting for the believer! Have you ever had a dream that you were trapped underwater? I have. I was under a raft, and for some reason only able to swim verrry slowly. I was holding my breath and I was certain that I was going to drown. Finally, I had to breathe. I took a big breath of water, expecting it to be my last. But I didn’t drown! In fact, I realized that I could still breath underwater. After all, I wasn’t really dying but only asleep. For the person who trusts Jesus Christ, death must be like that. The Bible describes it as falling asleep. Dying Christians throughout the centuries have shown joy in the midst of suffering and even dying. God preserves and protects His children even then. "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

So God protects those He forgives. He not only protects them, but He gives them a new family. If you confess your sin to God and trust Jesus as Savior and Lord, you become part of the Church, God’s people. What a wonderful God! He does not leave you alone in this world but surrounds you with shouts of deliverance! When God takes you out of your sin and the ways of the world and adopts you as His son, you become part of a delivered people, a people saved from sin and death and destined to spend eternity together in God’s presence. You can join with them, singing and shouting the praises of the God who had mercy on you all and delivered you from your sin.

In verses 8-9, God promises that once you turn from your sin to Him, you are not on your own to figure out how you should live: 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Don’t be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.

The forgiven believer has a teacher. God Himself will teach his children. He will make you understand where you should be going (that’s what "instruct" means), and He will show you how to live and what to do while you are going (that’s what "teach you in the way you should go" means). He will counsel you with His eye upon you. He’s paying special attention to you and looking out for you.

God has given believers three very precious gifts to teach, instruct, and counsel us. First, He has given us His perfect Word, the Bible. Everything necessary to live a God-glorifying life is in the Bible, waiting there for us to discover it. We can be taught by God through His Word by reading it, thinking about it, memorizing it, and listening to it being preached.

The second gift, given to all who truly trust Christ when they trust Him, is the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father and God the Son to live in us, to comfort us, to intercede for us, and to open our eyes so that we can understand and apply God’s Word. Without the help of the Holy Spirit, Christians would see the words of the Bible but not really see what they meant. They could hear God’s Word, but they could not understand it.

The third gift is the Church. God often teaches and instructs us through others who are filled with the Holy Spirit and who can therefore explain the Bible to us, encourage us, and hold us accountable.

So, when you are forgiven and become a child of God, you have God’s instruction and teaching readily available to you. God warns you, Don’t be like a horse or a mule that has to be forced to obey through pain and restraint. Always remember God’s kindness and His mercy! Obey Him willingly. Put His teaching into practice with a thankful heart. Never forget or take God’s forgiveness for granted.

You know this is true. If you have not turned from your sin, if you have not trusted Christ and been forgiven, you know the sorrows of the wicked. Life is bleak in a Godless world. Selfishness and pride are the principles that guides your life more than any other if you do not know Christ. Pain and suffering are unexplainable, and the only sensible way to cope with them is to delude yourself into believing that in the long run nothing really matters after all.

Life is all about you, and if you are honest you have to admit that you aren’t really "all that" after all. You seek pleasure but instead find disappointment and emptiness. You seek power, but even if you obtain it, it only leaves you wanting more power and loving other people less. You seek love, but you seek it from the wrong people and in the wrong ways and you wind up feeling unloved and unlovable.

You try to invent a god who will work with you and give you whatever you want, who thinks sin is not really that big of deal and doesn’t punish sin because he knows you can’t really help it. You want a god you can manipulate and control, a god who gives big pay-outs for minimal effort. You want a god who will leave you alone most of the time but always be there when you need help.

But, the God before whom the mountains melt like wax, the one true God whom you are rejecting, the King of glory has His heavy hand on you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked!

Do not continue to reject your Creator. Do not continue to try to hide your sin from Him. Acknowledge your sin to God, and do not cover your iniquity. Make up your mind to confess your transgressions to the Lord! Trust in Jesus Christ, in His perfect life, in His death on the cross for the sins of those who trust Him, and in His resurrection life. Turn from your sin to God through faith in Jesus Christ, and God will forgive the iniquity of your sin.

Steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Think about that picture: the God who made the universe, and who is able destroy it with a word will surround you with His steadfast love. His love, which will not falter or fail, surrounds you on all sides. Nothing is going to get in that He does not allow in. God is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him.

Anything that He lets in, He is letting in for your good. It might hurt in the present, but God is using it to mature you, to train you, to make you like Jesus. The Apostle Paul said, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"

Humble yourself before God by confessing your sinfulness and your need of forgiveness, put your trust in the Son of God, and God will lift you up and surround you with His steadfast love.

And can it be that I should gain

an interest in the Savior's blood!

Died he for me? who caused his pain!

For me? who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be

that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in him, is mine;

alive in him, my living Head,

and clothed in righteousness divine,

bold I approach th' eternal throne,

and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Amazing love! How can it be

that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

If you have come to the end of your pride and selfishness and confessed your sinfulness and helplessness to the Lord. If you have trusted Jesus Christ to save you by His perfect obedience to the Father, by His death on the cross, suffering God’s wrath which you deserved, and by His resurrection life. If your sins have been lifted off you, covered up, and will not be counted against you, then be glad in the Lord! Rejoice, O righteous! Shout for joy, you upright in heart. This is good news! The greatest news! News like this is not meant to be covered up and kept hidden. Don’t hold it in. Joyfully and enthusiastically spread the good news of God’s amazing love!