INTRO
ƒ{ In this award winning film called "The Mission", Robert DeNiro plays a mercenary who after killing his brother in a fit of jealous rage takes shelter in a local church.
ƒ{ He eventually leaves the church and heads to a mission post located above the waterfalls in a South American jungle.
ƒ{ Because of what he has done, and how bad he feels, he ties himself to a several-hundred pound net of items that represent his sinful life
ƒ{ He feels compelled to drag this sack of sin around with him as a way to do penance for what he has done.
ƒ{ As you watch this clip you'll see him slip under the burden of his past, with the rope choking the very life out of him.
ƒ{ He feels terrible and yet doesn't know what to do with his sin and the shame that comes with it.
VIDEO The Mission - Scene _______
ƒ{ Have you ever felt this way?
o Tethered to transgressions
o Gasping under guilt
o Bound by bitterness
o Mixed up by a mess up?
ƒ{ The devil would love nothing more than to destroy us with the guilt of what we:
„X Should have
„X Could have
„X Might have
o DONE
ƒ{ You will never be a survivor if you don't get rid of guilt and condemnation.
GUILT DESTROYS OUR SURVIVAL BY:
1. Guilt Destroys our Confidence
* Guilt and condemnation will make us feel insecure
* Because we are always worried that someone will find out
o What we've done
o What we struggle with
o What we've gone through
* Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, played a prank on five of the most prominent men in England.
* He sent an anonymous note to each one that simply said this, "All is found out, flee at once."
* Within 24 hours all five men had left the country.
Proverbs 28:1
The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
* Is guilt destroying your conscience today?
2. Guilt Damages Relationships
* When we live in un-confessed sin we can respond to people in wrong ways
* Get mad...but mad at yourself
3. Guilt Keeps us Stuck in the Past
* Continually playing your failure over and over
* Guilt can't change the past just like...
o Worry can't change the future
* But both can make you miserable today!
Psalms 32
ƒ{ Background
ƒ{ David is the author
ƒ{ While he was a great king and walked with God for much of his life
ƒ{ We also know that he committed adultery and murder.
ƒ{ When David speaks, he does so as a sinner who has been forgiven
ƒ{ The particular sin that David refers to is not important because there are plenty to choose from.
ƒ{ He wrote this Psalm to help us know that we can be fully restored and completely forgiven no matter what we've done.
ƒ{ This Psalm is one of the seven Psalms of forgiveness, which include:
o 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143
ƒ{ Psalm 32 has also been referred to as one of Paul's Psalms because it is quoted extensively in Romans 4:6-8
ƒ{ Establishing that we are declared righteous not because of what we've done
ƒ{ But because of what Christ has done on the cross.
ƒ{ If you look at the very beginning of Psalm 32, right before verse 1, you'll see the phrase,
o "A maskil"
ƒ{ This was a literary or musical term to indicate that the words to follow are very important.
ƒ{ In other words, this is a 'preaching Psalm" given to us so that we can learn from the experience of another.
ƒ{ David wants us to pay particular attention to this inspired instruction so that we'll understand and embrace our need for forgiveness.
LET ME BREAK THIS CHAPTER DOWN LIKE THIS:
1. The Happiness of Forgiveness verse 1-2
2. The Heaviness of Sin verse 3-5
3. The Help of God verse 6-11
1. The Happiness of Forgiveness
Blessed = How happy (verse 1)
Congratulations
Good for you
What wonderful bliss
* Blessed is a plural word
* We could say:
o "Many blessings"
o "Bundles of blessings"
* Whose transgressions are forgiven
* Imagine how happy you would be if you were to spend life in prison and someone set you free.
* Only one other Psalm starts with the word blessed.
Psalms 1:1
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
* We are blessed when we avoid sin
* Or have our sins forgiven because they are the same
* It's much better to avoid sin and experience the blessings that come from making right choices.
* But when we blow it, we can still be called blessed if we ask for forgiveness.
* Three-fold description of sin
Transgression = defiant disobedience toward God
Sin = miss the mark of God's perfection either
through acts you did do or failed to do
Iniquity = crookedness, deformity, perversion
* The point of using these three different words is to remind us that all types of sin and wrongdoing can be forgiven
* No matter what we've done, we can be restored (perhaps Overhaulin' reference here)
* David also uses these three types of wrongdoing to express the fullness of our forgiveness.
Forgive = to lift a heavy burden and carry it away
Covered = concealed
o In other words, what is offensive to God is put out of sight.
o The idea that our sins are so covered that they will never appear again
Not count against = reckon or impute
God does not count our sins against us, in their place He sees the righteousness of Christ
* The key to the Christian life is not our personal holiness,
o but our repentance
* It's not a matter of trying to be perfect,
o but recognizing that we are not.
2. The Heaviness of Sin
* In verse 3-5 David is describing how keeping quiet about his sin,
o is causing his bones to feel like they are decaying
Groaning = word used to describe the roar of a wounded animal
Job used it to describe his agony
* When we don't own our sins our bodies revolt
* Instead of happiness, we experience heartache, anxiety
* When we keep our mouth shut, our conscience screams
* When we bottle up evil, our bones waste away
Proverbs 28:13
He who conceals his sins does not prosper
* Another way to put it is that we are only as sick as our secrets
* When you hide your sins you will be unhealthy
* And when you share your secret with God and with someone else you'll stop feeling sick
* You see, the rest of Proverbs 28:13 says:
"But whoever confesses them finds mercy"
* Romans 10:910, 1 John 1:9
o Confess and be saved
o Confess and be purified
Heavy = grievously afflict
o While God loves us just the way we are, he loves us too much to let us keep living the way we are.
o Hebrews 12:10
„X God disciplines us for our good
* If we don't fully confess we will experience emotional and physical distress
* Anger and bitterness can come as a result of un-confessed sin and will eat your insides out
* Ulcers, high blood pressure, migraine headaches can come from concealing our sins.
* Karl Menninger, a famous psychiatrist, once said:
o "That if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day."
* Only confession will bring restoration
* It's easy for us to get upset with those who sin differently than us,
* But it's much tougher when the Holy Spirit starts meddling in our lives
* By-the-way, we can't expect God to cover what we aren't willing to uncover.
Confess = to say the same thing
that God says about your sin
o Until we can say, "God you're right, it's wrong." We haven't really confessed.
o If you're not ready to confess, maybe you need a little more distress in your life.
ƒ{ John Piper puts it this way:
"Until we fear sin and its consequences more keenly, we will not prize our pardon very highly."
ƒ{ There's a solution for sin...it's called forgiveness
ƒ{ Until we acknowledge what we've done is sinful, we won't experience freedom and restoration.
ƒ{ Confession is more than informing God that we have sinned...
„X It also involves turning away
ƒ{ We don't have to:
„X Beg
„X Bargain
„X Or bribe
„o God to forgive us
„o Because HE wants to forgive us
„o More than we want forgiven
3. The Help of God
* We see God's help in three ways:
A. His Protection -- verse 7
ƒ{ The 'godly' should pray (verse 6)
ƒ{ Not those who are perfect, but those who are inclined to be godly
ƒ{ It's not someone who is holy, but someone who belongs to a holy God
ƒ{ He is our hiding place
ƒ{ It is interesting that David was first hiding his sins from God
ƒ{ But then he is hiding himself in God
ƒ{ Whenever we confess our sins and find forgiveness
ƒ{ We will want to seek shelter under his wings.
B. His Instruction -- verse 8
ƒ{ God promises to instruct us and teach us in the way we should go
ƒ{ The blessing of protection while wonderful, in incomplete without His direction
ƒ{ Don't be stubborn and stupid when it comes to following God
ƒ{ Most of us by nature are wild and unwilling to obey
ƒ{ If God is humbling you right now
ƒ{ He is only doing it so you can see your need to come back to Him
C. His Joy -- verse11
ƒ{ When we stay close to the Lord by cultivating a spirit of surrender and submission
ƒ{ And we practice regular confession
ƒ{ We can't help but break out into joy!
Rejoice = spin around with glee
Be Glad = brighten up
ƒ{ Those who have been forgiven must love much
ƒ{ If you don't have much joy in your life
ƒ{ Maybe it's because you have been carrying around a burden of guilt.
ƒ{ Sin may be sucking the life out of you.
ƒ{ It may be strangling your joy.
ƒ{ It you truly want to be happy without distress...
„X Learn to confess
CONCLUSION
ƒ{ Some of you have asked for forgiveness but are still pulling a suitcase of sin with you.
VIDEO The Mission
Someone cuts DeNiro's rope and his bag of iniquity goes tumbling.
Instead of being thankful, he pushes the man out of the way to pick up the bundle again
And try to carry it back up the mountain on his back.
ƒ{ If you've confessed and repented, God has forgiven you.
ƒ{ Can you forgive yourself?
ƒ{ Remember, God not only covers our sins, He makes us new people:
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone the new has come!"
(CEV) "Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new."
