Sunday Sermon - The Dangers Of Minimizing Sin | Psalm 32 explores confession as the vital path to restoring communion with God, warning that hiding sin mimics Christian's misery in Pilgrim's Progress. The speaker critiques "critical church theory," which shifts blame for personal failures onto others or abusive leaders, citing Mike Stone's Southern Baptist election loss as proof of culture following rather than leading. By redefining sin's severity, believers effectively make God a liar; thus, immediate full confession is essential to avoid wasting away under divine displeasure and to align with biblical truth. [Automatically generated summary]
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Praying for Biblical Knowledge00:06:12
Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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Thanks.
And today I'm going to be preaching Psalm 32.
It's very likely, so don't get nervous, it's very likely that I'm going to break this up into two parts because the first five verses deal entirely, exclusively with confession.
And so, I want to make sure that we're thorough in understanding confession from the Word of God and the blessings that ensue from confessing our sin to the Lord with truthfulness.
So, I'll read our text in its entirety and then I'll go ahead and begin preaching the sermon.
Would you join me in standing now for the reading of God's Word?
When I finish reading the text, I'll say, This is the Word of the Lord, at which point I would like very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
Once more, our text for today is Psalm chapter 32.
The Bible says this.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.
My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Selah, 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.
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.
You are a hiding place for me.
You preserve me from trouble.
You surround me with shouts of deliverance, Selah.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
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.
Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated and join me as I pray.
Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for the gift that it is to us.
And Father, we recognize in agreement with the testimony of your word, namely the book of Romans that says that all have sinned and fallen short of your glory.
And Father, we agree with the testimony of your word that we indeed have sinned and fallen short of your glory.
Not only have we sinned before you were so merciful to save us, but we have all sinned this week.
We have sinned likely even this morning.
We have fallen short of your glory.
We are not entitled or deserving of any gift of grace from you.
And that's precisely what your word is.
We're not entitled to a revelation of your truth.
Your word reveals to us who you are, what you've done, and what it is you require.
And all of this is a gift.
By our own willful rebellion, by our own sin, by our own falling short of your glory, we have forfeited whatever right we may have previously possessed in order to be entitled to a revelation of your truth.
We don't deserve to know you.
We don't.
We don't deserve to know who you are or what you've done or what you even require.
We don't deserve to know your commandments.
Even your law comes to us as grace.
And so, Father, we recognize your word today for what it truly is.
It's a gift.
It's unmerited favor.
It's an undeserved act of love.
The revelation of your truth to fallen humanity is a gift that none of us deserve.
And so, that's our prayer.
We pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would cause us this morning to be good stewards of this gift, good stewards of this grace.
Father, we pray that you would equip us now with spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear.
Softened hearts that are malleable and receptive to your truth.
Father, I pray that indeed through the preaching of your word, we would arrive at a more faithful and accurate and biblical knowledge of who you are, of what you've done, and what it is that you require from us as a proper and right response.
And Father, we pray that all this would take place not merely that knowledge would be an end in itself, but so that this knowledge would serve as the necessary means propelling us into not only right knowledge of you, but right love for you.
The hearts cannot love what the mind does not know.
So, would you fill our minds with your truth today and propel our hearts by your power and grace to love you like never before?
And, Father, we also recognize that your Son Jesus himself said that those who love you obey you.
And so, Father, we pray that this knowledge would provoke love and that that love would be demonstrated in visible, tangible, practical ways through obedience to all your commands.
We pray this ultimately that you might be glorified in all the earth, but we also pray this for the good of those people that you're saving across the globe, in our city, and perhaps if you would be so kind, even in this very room, especially among our children.
We pray these things in the name of your Son Jesus.
Amen.
There was a time in our nation where the sermon of the day, the voice of God for that hour was stop being self righteous, stop being a Pharisee, stop being judgmental.
That was the need of the hour.
Confessing to Find God Today00:14:51
It's not today.
It's not.
And if you think it is, you're fooling yourself.
It's not.
There are a few people in that corner and they just make all the news headlines to make it seem like it's the majority.
It's not.
We know it's not.
That's the minority.
Once upon a time, perhaps the majority.
And that message needed to be preached.
But today, that's not the majority.
The majority problem within conservatives and Christians in our nation is not self righteous, pharisaical, judgmental behavior.
No, it's complacency, cowardice, affirming, bowing the knee.
That's the majority problem.
We know that's the majority problem.
And I believe it's the majority problem because of bad doctrine and guilty consciences.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, not the one whose transgression continues to hang above their head.
That's not blessing, that's cursing.
Think of Deuteronomy, what the Lord says if you don't be careful to obey all my commands, cursed will you be when you go out, cursed when you come in.
You'll be the tail and not the head.
You'll be cursed in your doing and cursed in this.
Cursing, just following you around like a shadow, like a dark cloud.
The one who does not confess his transgression and is not forgiven is cursed everywhere they go, in everything they do.
They're cursed, cursed, cursed.
But by direct contrast, our text says blessed, not cursed, blessed.
And one translation of the word blessed, blessed, it contains much more than this.
But this is one portion, one sector of what it means to be blessed.
Happy.
Happy.
Light.
Have you ever just been so weighed down by your conscience, by guilt, you just can't enjoy anything any longer?
I think of Pilgrim's Progress when the law, the book of the law, comes to Christian, the main protagonist in the story.
He's working in the field, he finds the book of God's law, God's word is revealed to him, he reads it, and he's miserable.
Immediately, a burden appears upon his back guilt, right?
Because there's a revelation of sin that comes from the reading of the law.
We do this every Lord's day in our liturgy.
He realizes, I'm a sinner, but he has not yet received the salve of the gospel, right?
He's had the scalpel of the law, you need both, but then the gospel salve that heals the wound has not yet been applied, and so he's burdened and he's weary and he's heavy.
Look at our text, chapter 32, verses. 3 and 4.
Look at how David describes how he felt when he was hiding his sin.
Have you ever felt this?
For when I kept silent, when I was hiding, concealing my sin, when I did not confess, to confess is to open your mouth, it's to speak.
But when I was silent, what was it like?
What did it feel like?
It felt like my very bones, he's saying, my core, the core of my being was corroding.
Deconstructing, wasting away.
I felt my strength failing me.
It was dried up like a plant that withers in the heat of summer.
I was groaning and moaning in pain and agony and misery all day.
And all day and even at night, your hand laid heavily upon me.
Not the hand of a father that rests gently on the shoulder of his son, affirming him, encouraging him, displaying, conveying a pleasure and pride, but no, the hand that presses down, the pressure, a weight.
I felt crushed.
I felt like I was dying.
I felt dried up, parched, lifeless, crushed by the Lord.
That was Christian's experiment.
John Bunyan's book, Pilgrim's Progress, it said that everything that he used to love, that he used to derive a sense of pleasure and enjoyment from, lost all of its joy.
It said that it's not just that he was miserable, but then he was able to distract himself with other things.
No, no, the book says, Pilgrim's Progress says, that he no longer could get any joy from his own children, that he couldn't get joy when he would eat meals or drink.
He lost his appetite.
Have you ever been there because of sin, concealed sin?
You can't even eat.
I've been there.
I've been there where I've lost my appetite.
I'm not hungry.
I don't want to be around people.
I'm miserable under the hand of God, day and night, heavy upon me.
I'm dry.
I'm exhausted.
My bones are weary.
It's hard to get out of bed.
I feel sick.
It's guilt.
It's guilt.
It's a guilty conscience.
And there's a cure.
An immediate cure.
Not a treatment.
Not a treatment.
Not something that has to be applied over the course of years and that may lengthen your days for a bit, maybe add a few more years to your life, like King Hezekiah cried out to the Lord and he granted him 15 more years, but eventually Hezekiah still died.
No, it's not a treatment, it's a cure.
It's not applied over months or years to extend your life.
No, it is a cure that happens immediately the moment that we obey that extends not only your life but grants to you eternal life.
A joyous life.
It removes the weight off of your chest.
And the hand of the Lord that was pressing now begins to wrap around you and hold you close.
No longer pressing with conviction and weight and pressure, but rather holding you softly, lovingly, affirming and encouraging you.
The very Spirit of God testifying within you, reminding you, bearing witness Abba, Father.
See, even for the Christian, although it's impossible to lose your salvation, for God to revert back from father to judge, that can never happen for the Christian.
But there is, as the Puritans used to preach, something called fatherly displeasure.
A Christian can, in fact, by impenitent and unconfessed sin, fall underneath the fatherly displeasure of God.
That's what David's describing.
I don't believe this is a description of David pre conversion.
No, this is a description of David as he's concealing his sin.
As a Christian, as a lover of God, but concealing his sin underneath fatherly displeasure.
Bones beginning to crack, exhausted by heat.
No water, no life, no refreshment from the Lord.
You look to the Lord to see in His countenance blessing and encouragement and approval, and there's none to be found.
And not because you're not saved, not because you lost your salvation, not because He's no longer your Father, but He's displeased.
But see, as a Father, everything He does is ultimately for His glory and the good of His children, even His displeasure.
It's to drive you to the cure, it's to drive you to confession.
It's to press upon your conscience so heavy that eventually, in the Father's displeasure, His hand squeezes out a confession.
I love, we'll get to this next week, but I love later on, David, it's as though the first commandment that He gives is found in verse 6 of our text.
There's really only two commandments, the whole text is descriptive, but there is a couple prescriptive prescriptions, commandments given in the text.
It's verse 6, and then again in verse 9.
Verse 6 gives the commandment in the positive sense.
It says, Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time that you may be found.
What David is saying is this every Christian, those who actually are Christians, don't just sit there underneath the weight of the fatherly displeasure of God as his hand presses you.
Don't stay out in the heat, being parched and thirsty.
Don't let your bones rot any further.
Don't do it.
Cry out to the Lord.
If you're a Christian, if you've been adopted, if you're godly, adopted as a child of the Lord, let all the sons of God go to him quickly.
Don't delay, don't procrastinate.
Go to him quickly, immediately, and cry out to the Lord.
Pray.
And what's conveyed in prayer in this sense, because of the context, the overarching context of Psalm 32 is let them go, let the godly go to the Lord and pray while he can be found.
Go and pray a prayer of confession.
Go to the Lord and confess your sin to him.
Go now.
Go quickly.
Don't delay and don't reserve.
Right?
It's immediate obedience.
But it's also full obedience.
What do we say to our kids?
Obey all the way and right away with a cheerful heart or cheerful attitude.
All the way and right away.
So go to the Lord quickly.
Don't delay.
But also lay it out all on the field, lay it bare.
Leave no stone unturned.
Confess all your sin to the Lord.
And again, confessing to the Lord is not informing him.
See, the better way that we could describe it is this to confess your sin to the Lord is to agree with Him.
It's not to inform Him, He already knows.
And if confession in our minds doctrinally becomes synonymous with informing, then we see no need to confess to the Lord.
So erase that from your minds.
Don't think of confession in terms of informing.
Think that when I confess, I'm not informing God.
When I confess, I'm agreeing with God.
I'm agreeing with God.
In regards to the sin that he already sees, he already knows, but what I'm doing is I'm agreeing with what he says about the severity of my sin.
I'm not minimizing it.
See, our confessions are often late and little.
We confess long after the fact, and we only confess a portion.
We downplay, we minimize, which means that in a very real sense, we're not agreeing with God.
Because what does God say about our sin?
He doesn't say it's small.
He doesn't.
Anytime we minimize our sin, we know that we are actually disagreeing with God.
We're actually contradicting God.
And by doing so, we're actually offending God.
Because every time we disagree with God, we contradict God, do you know one of the things that we're doing?
We're calling him a liar, we make him out to be a liar.
See, that's what 1 John 1, 9, and 10, we see the beauty of verse 9, but then we feel the weight and the conviction of verse 10.
It says this If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
But, but, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar.
If we say we have not sinned, we're not just disagreeing with God, but by disagreeing with God, we make him a liar.
We're calling him a liar.
And this is a sure tell sign.
That his word is not in us, it's not the word of God is not dwelling within us.
Why, because the word of God is true, and when we disagree with God, we're harboring lies.
What fellowship does light have with darkness, truth with lies and deception?
The word of God can't be richly dwelling within you if you are actively fostering and harboring the indwelling of lies.
Relieve yourself.
Unburden yourself.
You can do it today.
The Lord is not far.
Do it.
Let all the godly go to the Lord and pray, confess their sins in a time when he may be found.
Brothers and sisters, there is no better time.
I promise you, he can be found right now.
He can be found.
The implication of when can he be found?
The implication is this.
You know what David means by that?
When he can be found, he means now.
Because that's the only short time that he can be found.
Did you know that?
Because you may not see tomorrow.
James chapter 5 says, Do not say that tomorrow we will go to such and such a place and trade for a profit, for you do not know what tomorrow may bring.
You can't even control the number of hairs on your head or keep one black from turning gray.
Rather, you should say, if the Lord wills.
See, we don't know.
We don't know if the Lord can be found tomorrow.
We don't.
We don't know if we'll be found tomorrow.
We don't know if the Lord can be found tomorrow because we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow.
But we know that he can be found today.
So go, confess, go quickly, don't delay, and confess everything.
Don't minimize because at every level that we minimize our sin when we confess to the Lord, what we're doing is not just minimizing our sin.
We have to see it for what it is.
It's calling God a liar.
When we minimize our sin, does God make light of sin?
No, we know He doesn't.
He's holy, holy, holy.
So to make light of sin is to disagree with God and what He says about sin.
God says sin is serious.
Living Within the Lord's Will00:14:57
When we say it's not, we disagree.
When you disagree with God, what do you do?
You contradict Him.
And by contradicting, you're saying, my testimony is true, and yours, which contradicts my testimony, is false.
False.
We make him out to be a liar.
And when we make him out to be a liar by harboring lies, how can we expect to harbor lies and at the very same time to have the truth of his word dwelling within us?
We can't.
We may still know the word in that moment, just as Satan knew the word and twisted it to use it against the Savior.
We may still know the word, but it's not richly dwelling in us.
It's not living and thriving in us.
It's not bearing fruit within us, it's not growing in us.
It's not.
It may still be there present in the technical sense in our minds.
It may still be something that we can quote upon our lips, but it's not living in us.
We're killing the word within us by feeding lies.
It would be like going in your backyard with your grass.
I've been talking to Stacy about grass.
We're excited about grass.
That's how you know you moved to Texas and you're not in California.
There is no grass in California.
It's all different, zero landscaping.
There's going to be rocks, or there's going to be dirt, or there's going to be clay, or there's like.
Grass is not an option.
There's going to be succulents, a million succulents, because nothing grows.
But here, we get excited about grass because it's a place where there's plants and there's life and there's growth.
And I mean that in a literal plant sense.
I also mean in a political and cultural and religious sense and all this.
There's life.
There's life.
Now, in terms of grass, it would be ridiculous to go in your backyard with some kind of spray that kills the grass and then fertilize the weeds.
That would be entirely backwards.
That's not what you do.
You want to somehow sustain the grass and kill the weeds.
But what we do when we don't confess our sins to the Lord is precisely the opposite.
We're feeding the lies, our disagreement with God, making him out to be a liar, our minimization of sin, our hiding of sin, concealing of sin, while feeding that, nourishing that, fertilizing lies, falsehoods, and then we spray the weed killer that's meant for the lies on the word, on the truth.
And I think that's what David's describing when he says, I was wasting away.
Because the very thing that inwardly sustains him and gives him so much joy in life is the Word of God.
Think about this.
Think about how many times so far as we've been preaching through the Psalms that we've dealt with David's delight in the law of God.
It's not just something he sees as right, it's something that brings him joy.
And the law of God, it works as a guide that keeps him on the path of life.
And by ultimately spraying weed killer on the law of God, disdain for the law of God, disagreeing with the law of God, and condemning and making God himself out to be a liar, what is David doing?
He is killing the very thing that sustains him.
And so, of course, naturally, the result would be that his bones begin to become brittle, that his mouth begins to be parched, that he's weighted down, that he's heavy, that he's exhausted.
He's dying.
That's the picture.
What David is describing is this he's dying.
It's death.
He is dying.
So long as we harbor and sustain lies.
We are, by virtue of doing the one, we are necessarily doing the other, which is suppressing the truth.
And this is not just the experience or the picture, the image of the non Christian.
We see that in Romans 1 suppressing the truth and deeds of unrighteousness.
The non Christian can do nothing but that, but the Christian can do it too.
But the beauty of the Christian is that he will not do it forever.
Not because he's good at following Jesus, but because Jesus is good at leading his people.
Not because he clings so fiercely to Christ, but because Christ clings to us.
That even when we forsake him, he has promised never to leave or forsake us.
Even if we deny him, he will not deny us, for he cannot deny himself, is what the word says.
It's his faithfulness that brings the Christian out of the valley of the shadow of death, that brings the Christian out of the heat.
And that's precisely what we see in verse 9.
So I may just preach it all.
But that's what we see in verse 9.
See, verse 6 is the positive command.
There's only two times we see a command, right?
Prescription.
Everything else is descriptive.
But there's two prescriptions, commands.
Verse 6 stated in the positive Go to the Lord now.
Go and confess.
Giving us something positive to do.
You go and confess to the Lord.
Do it quick and do it all.
Fully and quickly.
Verse 9 is actually not another command.
There's not two commands in this text.
It's all about confession.
So keep that theme in mind.
Verse 9 is the same command now stated in the negative.
It's now stated in the other direction.
So verse 6 this is the positive thing that you should do.
Go to the Lord quickly and confess your sins.
Verse 9.
This is the thing that is very stupid that you should not do.
Don't be like a mule.
I had a great joke with this, but then I realized that a mule and a donkey are actually two different types of animals.
So I can't say the zinger that I had.
Don't be a.
But it's just scientifically incorrect, and I've got to follow the science.
So don't be a mule, which is not a donkey, but there are some similarities.
Don't be a horse.
But notice what verse 9 says.
Here's the beauty of it.
See, this is the Christian again.
It's the Christian.
Don't be like a mule or a horse without understanding.
But look at this, which must be curbed.
It doesn't say that stays out in the heat away from the master, away from the stable and the shelter and the food and the nourishment and the love and the care.
Don't be like a mule that stays out there and dies.
No, what does it say?
That eventually does come in.
How?
Because it's forced, it's curbed by bit and bridle.
Apart from that, apart from the bitten bridle, apart from the master taking ownership over the horse, over the mule, exerting his will upon the will of the mule and winning that battle of wills, apart from the master overriding the will of the mule and forcing him by bitten bridle to come inside, it would have what it intended to do, what it meant to do is stay away.
See, it says, or it will not come near to you.
Don't, Christian, this is a description of the Christian.
Underneath, The fatherly displeasure of God in moments of concealing sin, in moments of not confessing.
That's what a Christian's like.
He's wasting away.
He's dying.
God's hand is heavy upon him.
And he's like a mule.
He is choosing to show disdain for every ounce of wisdom and understanding.
And he is stubborn.
He's stubborn.
He's dense.
He's foolish.
He's stubborn.
And he's arrogant.
And he's staying outside in accordance with his will as he wastes away from thirst, from hunger, as he's tired from standing all day, as he's beaten down by the heat of the sun and longing for water.
But the master, see, for the Christian, the master, what he'll do is he doesn't just leave you.
See, part of God's judgment is a handing over.
See, this completely contradicts, it's a complete perfect contrast to Romans 1.
Romans 1 is that God hands.
The unbeliever over further and further to their sin.
And that's not God not judging a person.
That is his judgment.
His judgment is progressively handing people over further to their sin.
But the mule, that is the unconfessing Christian, truly has been born again, but right now is actively choosing not to confess their sin.
For the Christian, notice God doesn't hand them over further to their sin because he owns them.
The Christian belongs to God.
You're his inheritance, you're his asset.
He's not going to let you perish, even if that's what you want.
Tough luck.
Too bad.
You're not your own.
You were bought with a price.
You belong to the master.
You're not your mule.
You're his.
And so he puts a bit and bridle in your mouth and he yanks you into the stable, whether you like it or not.
And he causes you to drink water and he causes you to be fed and he causes you to lie down like sheep.
Sheep have to be forced.
Lie down.
Here's still water.
And that's what God does with his own.
That's what the Father does with His own.
He doesn't leave us.
He doesn't forsake us.
He doesn't give up on us.
But, brothers and sisters, the message of Psalm 32 is this don't force His hand.
Will He do that for you if you are His child?
Yes.
But He should never have to.
Come to Him quickly when He can be found.
Don't be the mule staying out in the heat, forcing Him to come and get you with bit and bridle and pulling you in.
No, come to Him.
Come quickly, come holy.
W H O. Don't come holy without the W because you're not holy.
Come fully holy, come fully to Him to make you holy, to forgive you of all your sin.
The last thing I want to say is this in a technical, theological sense for the Christian.
For the Christian.
In our text, it's very clear.
Verse 6 and verse 5, especially, David says, So I confessed my sin to the Lord and He forgave my transgression.
If we're not careful, 1 John 1, verse 9, seems to convey the same message.
And if we're not careful, what we'll read from that at a quick glance without being thorough is this I need to confess, then God will forgive.
And that is not biblical.
Not for the Christian.
For the Christian, all forgiveness of sin, complete and perfect pardon for all past, present, and future sins, is accomplished by Christ on the cross and fully applied to the Christian at the moment of conversion, at the moment of salvation.
So, we don't need to confess our sin as Christians to the Lord in order to receive forgiveness in an objective sense.
What we need to do is confess our sin to the Lord to receive His forgiveness in the subjective sense, meaning we are forgiven even before we confess.
But the problem is when we don't confess, we don't feel forgiven.
You don't.
You fall underneath fatherly displeasure.
He's still your dad.
You're still atoned for, you're still forgiven.
Right?
What's the problem?
Objectively, theologically, everything's good.
But subjectively, everything is out of line.
Everything is falling apart.
Instead of fatherly pleasure, it's fatherly displeasure.
Instead of a sense of peace and joy and forgiveness and a lightness of conscience and heart, there's a heaviness and a weight and a feeling as though the Father doesn't love you.
And you make yourself a target.
You become so vulnerable in times where we conceal our sin, you make yourself vulnerable.
To the enemy's condemnation.
And not only the enemy's.
According to 1 John elsewhere, you make yourself vulnerable to your own heart's condemnation.
1 John talks about when your own heart condemns us.
In my experience, the chief times where my heart condemns me are the times when I have not yet confessed my sin.
So, all that being said, confess your sin fully and quickly to the Lord when he can be found.
When can he be found?
Now.
Whatever moment it is, do it then.
Don't delay.
Don't wait.
Don't put it off.
He may not be found later because you may not be found later.
But he can be found now.
Go quickly and go fully.
Don't reserve.
Don't minimize because by minimizing, you are disagreeing with what God says about sin.
He says it's serious.
If you minimize, you're saying it's not serious, meaning you're saying, God, you're wrong, aka you're a liar.
And the Word of God is not in you, according to 1 John, meaning it's not thriving within you.
It's not living within you because you're suppressing the truth of God's word and fostering lies.
And what happens when you do that?
The very word of God within you is the source of what gives you life and peace and joy.
And so your experience is precisely the image that David gives us in verse 3 and 4.
You begin to waste away, to wither, heavy, miserable underneath the conviction of the Lord.
Still your father, objectively.
Still forgiven objectively, still atoned for objectively.
But in every sense that you can feel and experience, it's precisely the opposite.
He doesn't feel like your father because you've displeased him and you won't go to him.
You don't feel forgiven because you haven't asked for forgiveness and confessed your sin.
You don't feel peace because you're not at peace, his hand is heavy upon you.
So let me conclude by just reading a little bit of this first paragraph of my notes because it was the best part that I wrote and I haven't used any of it.
So I'll just use this part.
The focus of Psalm 32, verses 1 through 5, is confession, forgiveness, and communion, it's the restoration of relationship.
Get that, brothers and sisters.
You confess your sins, what?
To be forgiven.
In an objective sense, nope.
You're forgiven from the moment of salvation.
But to sense and experience the forgiveness of God in the subjective sense.
And here's the other thing forgiveness is not the end, it's a means to an end.
See, this is one area where reformers, we constantly get it wrong.
Right?
Justification, justification, right?
We're always talking about the gospel, justification, salvation, grace alone, you know, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Yes, yes, yes.
But all that's a means to an end.
One of the people who reminded me of this, Recently, it was actually Stacy.
Stacy actually does a really good job of reminding me that it's not just justification, the doctrine of justification.
It's being justified so that we might commune with Christ.
It's not just forgiveness.
So, our text doesn't end with forgiveness.
It's not step one, confess.
Step two, feel a sense of forgiveness.
Justification as Communion Means00:08:28
No, step one, confess.
Step two, feel forgiveness so that sweetness of communion, sweetness of intimacy, sweetness of relationship.
Is restored through Father and Son.
That's what we're going for.
That's the goal.
In Psalm 32, verses 1 through 2, we see that the forgiven man is a blessed man.
He's a happy man.
Blesses the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blesses the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, meaning he's not holding your sin against you, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
You're not hiding and minimizing.
In Psalm 32, verse 5, we're provided with the method, the remedy, the cure.
For attaining forgiveness, this sense, subjective sense of forgiveness and restored relationship, communion.
It's this I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity.
To confess our sin is not merely to inform God of our sin.
He's omniscient, He knows all things, He doesn't need any information.
Therefore, to confess our sin is to acknowledge, that is, agree with what God says about the severity of our sin.
It's to accept responsibility for our sin and earnestly desire the necessary grace required to turn from it.
Tragically, There are many, even in the church, who have attempted to redefine, this is the opposite of what we should do, redefine their own failures in such a way that they are absolved of any real sense of moral responsibility.
See, these individuals will go to great lengths in order to reconstruct narratives in the minds of all those around them so that someone else is always at fault.
Instead of acknowledging their sin, they claim that their only true fault was allowing toxic people into their lives.
Usually, insert as an example of toxic person, an abusive leader.
An abusive leader.
Ah, this leader was abusive.
I think he might have been abusive, an abusive leader.
Why is that so popular right now?
Because the churches, for the first time, really began to take seriously the biblical qualifications for elders to not be domineering.
Nope.
Nope, that's not why.
It's not the church leading the way through scripture, it's the church following the culture that's being led by Me Too, that's being led by critical race theory.
Critical race theory.
Just take away the R, right?
It ultimately comes from critical theory.
Somebody needs to write a book one day, and maybe I'll do it, critical church theory.
Because critical race theory is just as it pertains to ethnicity, subdividing people into intersections, into groups of oppressors and oppressed.
And who's the oppressor?
Always whoever is seen in society at that time to have power.
So now I'll take it away from race and apply it to the church.
Not critical race theory, critical church theory.
Not CRT, CCT.
What would be the group that has power?
In a church that's becoming more and more like the culture that's accepting these false narratives?
Who, if they begin to apply those kinds of categories to their community, their church setting, who's the group with power?
It's the church leaders.
It's the elders.
It's especially the lead pastor.
That's got to be the oppressor.
And no, that wasn't conviction and courage.
That was abusive and domineering.
And now all the things that I did that were actually wrong, that I was corrected for, I'm off the hook.
I didn't actually do those things, I was forced to do it.
Really, my only failure is we should have confronted him.
That was our failure, is that over years we let him get away with his sin, and that's our sin.
See, that's not confession.
See, nobody, see 1 John 1, verse 10 but if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Listen, it's not that simple.
That's the principle.
But you have to be discerning.
No one says, no one says, we have not sinned in such plain terms.
No one.
Because it's an impossible narrative to sustain.
So, what do you do instead?
What that actually means, 1 John 1 10, what it actually means is this.
It's not that someone literally says, We have not sinned.
Who could say that with a straight face without bursting out laughing?
It's a joke.
It's a joke.
So, what is actually said?
What line is actually used?
I've never really sinned.
Pitiful preacher.
Chief of sinners.
Chief of sinners.
Chief of sinners must be a lot of sin.
Could you give me an example?
Just chief of sinners.
And man, we really feel convicted.
We feel bad.
We feel guilty.
We really, for years, we sinned in this community by what?
By not confronting and correcting the real sinner, the real oppressor, the one who had the power.
The one who had the power, the one who was in charge, the leader.
That's critical church theory.
Alive and well.
Alive and well.
I mean, one of the big reasons why Mike Stone didn't win the presidency for the SBC is because of a Twitter.
A Twitter ploy engaged against him because he talked to a woman who approached him and he was busy in between different things.
He needed to get to other things.
In between the sessions, she came up to him.
She was an abuse survivor.
And I believe that's probably true, but I have to say alleged because I don't know all the facts.
But it's probably true.
She wasn't abused by him, but she went and talked to him.
He was there.
His wife was right next to him talking to some other people.
She overheard the whole thing.
He was kind, he was gentle by every eyewitness testimony.
By his own wife, and people were nearby.
But then he moved on to go talk to someone, and quickly afterwards, she started crying.
And if there's anything that I've learned, especially as a man in our egalitarian, feministic world, I learned very early on.
My dad taught me this actually.
I remember one time confronting a girl, and I probably didn't do it exactly right, but she cried, and multiple people in the church were upset with me.
And I remember my dad said, When it comes to women, when they cry, they win.
And you just have to learn that lesson.
He was right.
When they cry, they win.
So this woman cried.
And Mike Stone got plastered as he's not like Christ.
He doesn't care for the woman caught in adultery.
Do we really want.
See, he's not.
What is it?
He's not empathetic.
He may be really conservative and courageous, but what the SBC needs is an empathetic leader.
Right?
That's the church, largest Protestant denomination, leading the culture.
No, that's the church literally one year after following the culture.
That's literally what, literally exactly what happened, down to even the percentages of who won the vote.
Exactly what happened with pagans in our nation in 2020 was mirrored precisely to the T by the SBC a year later in 2021.
No difference.
What's the difference?
Right?
It's like, how many people does it take to screw on a light bulb?
Here's a joke for you What's the difference between the Southern Baptist Convention and America as a whole?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Not a thing.
We need an empathetic leader.
An empathetic leader.
And that's what happens.
And I want you to see this in real terms.
Critical race theory, critical church theory.
Either way, this is how it plays out.
This is how the enemy deceives.
And people believe it.
People believe it because here's the deal the person who gets scapegoated.
The person who gets blamed, they're usually sent away.
Somehow, some way.
Maybe they choose to go.
You never know the full story, but they're sent away.
And so their narrative isn't heard.
It's only the people who won.
History is written by the victors.
That's the whole left's, you know, that's their whole ploy with America is like, well, American history makes America look really good, but that's just because America is an oppressive, colonizing, you know, dominant, imperialistic force that, you know, wins all of its battles, you know, and so they get to write the history books.
But there is a sense of truth in that.
The people who win, the people who stay, they're the ones who get to select the narrative.
And if you repeat it enough times, and there's no one, right?
One is thought wise, Proverbs 18, one is thought wise until another cross examines him.
But if there is no one else to cross examine, if every eyewitness who actually could, they actually have the information to cross examine, are gone, then your narrative reigns supreme.
Cross Examining Thoughtful Wisdom00:01:48
And ultimately, the result is this I'm a pitiful preacher, I'm the chief of sinners, and I have sinned.
And the one example of sin that I'll ever give is.
My failure to correct this other guy's sin, who's a lot more sinful than me, is to conceal sin.
That is to make God out to be a liar.
His bones will be broken.
A man like that, his bones will begin to break within.
He is heavy underneath God's hand, parched.
Don't be that man.
That's a mule.
That man is a mule.
He's a donkey, he's a horse.
But if he belongs to Jesus, because God is so merciful, God will by force take that man with bit and bridle and bring him in to fellowship.
But it will hurt.
Don't confess to the Lord because He squeezes it out of you.
It's painful.
It's long.
It's miserable.
Go to the Lord in prayer, specifically a prayer of confession of sin, when He can be found.
Today, Today is the day of salvation, that sense of forgiveness, and all that to the chief end, which is communion.
To be seated back at the Father's table, eating of his banquet, laughing with him, enjoying him in restored relationship with your God.
Thanks so much for listening.
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