The Joy of a Forgiven Heart
Psalm 32
Psalm 32 sings out the “Joys of a Forgiven Heart.” King David wrote the psalm as an expression of his thankfulness for God’s grace in providing the gift of forgiveness. Both Psalm 32 and 51 reflect on King David moral failure. The background for the Psalm 32 and 51 is found in 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12.
2 Samuel chapter 1l starts off as if a wonderful story is going to be told – “In the spring at the time when kings go off to way…” But the story quickly turns to lust, deception, and murder.
King David did not go to war. He stayed in Jerusalem. One evening while taking a walk on the roof of his palace, he looked out and saw a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath and lusted after her. As King he could do anything he wanted so he sent for her to come to his palace and slept with her. Bathsheba became pregnant and notified the king. In an attempt to hid his sin of adultery he requested that her husband Uriah come home from battle for a few days. King David wanted the public to think Uriah was the father of the baby.
Uriah a Hittite, a mercenary fighting for Israel, was more faithful and loyal then King David and would not go home but stayed and slept at the palace entrance with some of the king’s servants. He would not sleep with his wife while his commander Joab and his officers were in the thick of battle. The next night when King David got Uriah drunk he still remained faithful. Then King David wrote a letter and had Uriah deliver it to Joab. The letter instructed Joab to lead Uriah to the front lines of the battle and leave him alone so he would die in battle. Uriah was killed in battle and so King David felt justified in taking Bathsheba as his own wife. She gave birth of her son as David’s wife.
2 Samuel 11:27 “…But the Lord was very displeased with what David had done.”
Almost a year had passed before the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to confront David with his sins of lust, deception, and adultery. 2 Samuel 12 Nathan confronts David with his sin and told David that God has blessed his life and anointed him King over Israel. He had wealth and power and God was willing to give him much more. God speaks through Nathan and says (2 Samuel 12:9) “Why, then, have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah and stolen his wife.”
Psalm 32 is David’s reflection on the grace of God in forgiving his sins.
I. Covering – Psalm 32: 1-2
Psalm 32 begins by rejoicing and declaring the joy of a forgiven heart. “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” Another translation says: “whose sin is put out of sight.”
A person experiences joy when sin is covered and put out of sight. Joy is much deeper than happiness. Happiness depends on right happenings, but even when things go wrong you can have joy.
Happiness is external - Joy is internal
Happiness is based on chance – Joy is based on choice
Happiness is based on circumstance – Joy is based on
Christ
You experience Joy when your sins are forgiven, covered by the shed blood of Jesus on the Cross, and your sins are put out of sight. You become a new person in Christ. Without that covering there is no inner peace and joy.
Psalm 32:1-2 describes the joy of a forgiven heart and God Covering. Psalm 32: verses 3-11 describe the process of receiving God’s blessing.
II. Conviction - Psalm 32:3-4
King David for almost a year had hidden his sins. He had lived with skeletons in the closet of his heart. Hidden and secret sins result in personal and inner anguish. A guilty heart does not experience inner peace and joy. A person with a guilty heart experiences:
Sleepless nights,
Constant nagging of the heart and soul, and a
Miserable life.
When you are miserable you are irritated by little things and do all you can to make other people miserable.
Hidden and secret sins are some of the marks of a dysfunctional family or a dysfunctional personal life.
King David had all the luxuries of life, but sin took away his joy and inner peace. You may not have committed adultery or murder, but other sins may have blocked God’s blessing.
God has created us with an emptiness of soul that only He can fill. That emptiness is like a black hole in the human soul. You may try to fill the emptiness in every conceivable way. You may throw money in, sex, power, status symbols, but nothing plugs the hole in your soul but GOD.
Conviction is that sense of guilt that you feel when you rebel against God’s law. When you willfully sin your conscious makes you feel guilty, and guilt is a heavy burden.
# I haven’t seen the film “The Mission” but I read about the film staring Robert DeNiro. DeNiro plays a mercenary who has taken asylum in a local church after killing his brother in a fit of jealous rage. He eventually leaves the church and heads to a mission post located above the waterfalls in a South American jungle. Because of what he had done, and how bad he feels, he ties himself to a several-pound net of items that represents his sinful life. He feels compelled to drag this sack of sin around with him as a way to do penance for what he has done.
When you try to carry around your burdens of guilt of the past the rope can choke the very life out of you. The guilt and shame of sin needs
to be dealt with.
#One summer at age 12 I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle in Kansas City, MO. They owned a restaurant and I helped with small joys of cleaning at the restaurant. They had a money bag where they kept money for deposit. There was lots of money in the bag so I didn’t think they would miss a roll of 16 half dollars. I hid the money and from time to time would take some to buy candy. I didn’t’ think they would miss the money but they did. They asked me if I knew anything about the missing money. I said I didn’t.
For years I often thought about my stealing and lie. Finally while in college the Lord talked to me about my theft and I wrote my Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Ed Reed a letter telling them of my conversion and my desire to live for Jesus. I told them of my theft and send them a check to cover the amount taken.
Sometimes we are slow learners. For three summers I worked on a combine crew harvesting wheat traveling from Texas to Montana. My boss pulled a small mobile home and his wife cooked for us on the road. They had four small children. The youngest was in diapers. One night when they were gone I went into the travel trailer for a snack. I had some cookies and a glass of milk – the last milk in the carton.
The next morning at breakfast the wife asked if anyone had drank the last amount of milk. She needed the milk for a bottle for the baby during the night. I said, “No I didn’t know anything about the milk.” It seemed like such a small lie. What difference would it make?
Well it did! Many times when I prayed during the following years I would often think of the lie. I finished college and seminary and in my first church in Kansas City, Kansas God convicted my heart of my sin. I sent a letter of confession to my boss and his wife and told them of my lie and asked their forgiveness. They wrote back a letter of appreciation of my honesty and wished me well in the ministry.
Secret and hidden sins don’t give you any rest. The guilt makes you feel insecure because you worry someone will find you out. Years ago, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock homes novels, played a prank on five of the most prominent men in England. He sent an anonymous note to each one that simply said, “All is found out, flee at once.” Within 24 hours all five men had left the country.
All of us from time to time need a prophet like Nathan to confront our hidden sins. The purpose of conviction is to bring a response.
III. Confession - Psalm 32:5
Confession is the response God is looking for.
To make confession is to agree with God. When King David was confronted with his sin he did not side step his guilt. He didn’t deny his sin. He didn’t minimize his sin. He didn’t shift the blame for his sin. He said, “I have sinned against the Lord.” (2 Samuel 12:13)
True confession results in repentance. It is often painful to make confession and repent. But there is even greater pain to hang on to guilt. David said in Psalm 38:3-8 – “Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my heath is broken because of my sins. My guilt overwhelms me – it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. My days are filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart.”
Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their
sins were forgiven, 75% of them could walk out the next day.
Confession of sins brings freedom from guilt. Confession brings a clear conscience, spiritual and mental health.
David said: “Finally I confessed all my sins to you and s topped trying to hide them, I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me? All my guilt is gone.”
Whatever our sin we can claim 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness.” Without confession there is no forgiveness of sin. God wants us to come to him in humility and in brokenness and a repentant heart.
In John Grisham’s novel, “The Testament,” the main character is a lawyer, Nate O’Reilly. Nate has been in and out of drug and alcohol rehab and several marriages. He is on assignment to find the lost heiress to a family fortune. The heiress is serving as a missionary in the jungles of Brazil. Nate cannot understand why she is not anxious to claim her fortune. While in Brazil the missionary tells Nate about the love of Christ and prays for him when he is near death with a tropical fever. He recovers from his illness and begins to search for God.
He goes into a church and with his hands clenched to the back of a pew confessed his additions and weaknesses to the Lord. He whispers to God, “I’m sorry, please help me.”
As quickly as the fever had left his body, so all his sins secret and known leave his soul. He feels forgiven of his sins.
King David in Psalm 32 experienced
Covering – God blessing and joy of a forgiven heart
Conviction – His hidden sins were confronted with truth
Confession – admitted his need of forgiveness
IV. Confidence -- Psalm 32:6-7
David experienced confidence from the Lord. His prayer of confession brought deliverance. He was forgiven and set free. King David experienced a complete make over.
When we make confession and repent we have the confidence and assurance that our sins are forgiven. Isaiah 1:18 God declares through the prophet Isaiah “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
We have the promise that when we invite Jesus into our hearts he transformed our life and gives us a new start.
#There’s a story about a family from a very rural area in Arkansas who made their first trip into the big city of Little Rock many years ago. They walked into Hotel and the Father took his son inside to look around while the mother stayed in the car.
When the father and son walked into the lobby of the hotel, they were amazed at the beauty of the place – marble floors and columns, rich carpets, uniformed staff everywhere. Then they heard a chime sounding over and over again. They walked in the direction of the sound. They walked in the direction of the sound. They rounded the corner just in time to see a set of steel doors come together. In a moment, the chime sounded and the doors opened to reveal a little room. An old lady walked into the little room and the doors shut behind her. The father and son looked at each other puzzled, and then they heard the chime sound again. The doors opened and out stepped a gorgeous blond woman in a red dress and high heels.
They stared at the lady for a moment and then the father said to his son, “Quick Son, go get Mother.”
Experiencing an extreme make over is not always that easy. But the make over is worth surrendering to the hand of the Lord. God gives the promise “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25)
Whatever your past, whatever sins you have committed you can have the confidence that when you confess and turn from sin the Lord Jesus forgives your sin and remembers them no more.
V. Counsel – Psalm 32:8-11
God also promises to give you counsel and guidance. He promises to surround you with His unfailing love.
Psalm 32 begins with a note of joy and ends in joy. “So rejoice and be glad all you who obey him! Shout for joy, all whose hearts are pure.”
There is joy in a heart that is forgiven. You can sing a new song because all is well with your soul.
Some of you may have had a mother like the mother I read about. Her son had dropped her off at the beauty shop while he met some friends at a shopping Mall. As he was hanging out with his friends he looked at his watch and realized he had promised to pick his mother up three hours ago. Plus his Dad’s boss was coming over for dinner that evening and his mother had said “don’ be late, because I need to get home to clean the house and cook dinner.”
He runs to the nearest phone and calls the beauty shop. “This is Todd, is my mom still there?” “No, Todd, she waited around for awhile and then left. She said she was going to walk home, but shortly after she left it started to rain.” Todd thought, “Oh, no, she’s going to kill me!” You call home and your little brother says, “Yes Mom is here. Is she upset? Just keep on running, don’t come home!”
As Todd drives home he is thinking: “What will I tell mom, terrorists high jacked the mall. I fell and hit my head and lost my memory. I ran out of gas. I got lost.” Or, “Mom I forgot all about picking you up, I’m sorry.”
Pulling to the driveway Todd has a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. He walks into the house and his mother is standing there. Her new Perm is totally soaked flat. Her shoes are off and you can see wrinkled feet from walking in the rain. She’s got a butcher knife in one hand and a stew fork in the other. She says, “I waited over two hours and then had to walk home three miles and it rained.” Todd thinks this is it. His end is near.
Then his mom puts down the knife and fork and says, “Your dad’s boss will be here in a few minutes. Get cleaned up for dinner. And by the way, I made your favorite dessert – strawberry short cake. Give me a kiss and we’ll forget the whole thing. Todd thinks, “Rain must have given her a fever. She’s delirious. She has actually forgiven me.”
A new love swells up in Todd’s heart for his mother. He deserved to be punished and instead she showed love and forgiveness.
Although we deserve God’s punishment for our sins, he forgives us and gives us the Joy of the Lord.
Have you experienced what King David is talking about?
Covering – joy of a forgiven heart
Conviction – guilt and inner turmoil
Confession – broken and contrite heart
Confidence – forgiven and clean heart
Counsel – loving guidance from the Lord
