Two weeks ago at our first preview service I began the sermon with a couple questions: What is one thing you lack that you believe would make you truly happy if you had it? A better job? More money? More freedom? A husband or wife? A house full of obedient children? Children? A house? And on the flip side, I asked, “What is one thing that you have which you believe if it were taken away would make you truly happy?” Pain? Illness? That challenging relationship? The point I was making was not that outward circumstances don’t matter, but that the secret to true happiness and contentment is not found merely by change in our circumstances. Instead, delight even in the midst of great distress is to be found in God’s people, God’s providence, God’s instruction, God’s deliverance, and ultimately in God’s presence.
Psalm 32 gives us a complementary, yet helpfully distinct perspective on true happiness and specifically, how it becomes ours. Both verses 1 and 2 begin with the word “blessed,” a word which can quite accurately be translated as “happy.” Now, it means something more than a mere fleeting emotional state that comes and goes like the wind. This is a soul-deep satisfaction and delight that is a great, eternal gift of God.
These two verses give us a brief beatitude, a statement of blessedness toward certain people. You could think of the beatitudes of Matthew 5 where Jesus said,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Much in Jesus’ list of those who are blessed is counterintuitive to our natural minds. It is the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry, even the persecuted, who are blessed—who possess God’s happiness—who are glad and rejoice. Who does the world around you say are the happy ones? The things you envy in others likely show you what you believe makes someone blessed. But the blessed according to God are not always those you would expect. This is the case as well in Psalm 32 in the brief beatitude of verses 1 and 2. Who are the blessed? Blessed are the forgiven sinners.
Blessed Are the Forgiven Sinners
Perhaps what is counterintuitive initially in Psalm 32 is that the blessed are in fact sinners! This comes out in the wide range of words used to describe sin in these verses. There is the word “transgression”. This word describes going past a boundary or directly crossing a line that you were explicitly told not to cross. This is walking right past that “no trespassing” sign. This is your mom saying, “Don’t touch that,” and you proceed to “touch that.” This is God saying, “You shall not covet,” and you covet. There is also the word “sin”. Perhaps you’ve heard this described as “missing the mark.” You could also call it “coming up short.” I’ve seen this compared to a high jumper coming up short and knocking over the bar. We could maybe compare this to your attempt to jump over a puddle but you come up short, hit the water, slip, and fall on your back in the mud. This is God saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but instead we love ourselves and neglect our neighbor. Then lastly there is the word “iniquity”. This word can be translated as “guilt” but also can carry the idea of something being “twisted,” referring to how our nature has been twisted by sin. All three of these terms are used together to give a broad, encompassing picture of the nature of what we generally just refer to as “sin.” They are used together in this way in other places like in Psalm 51, which we sang for our confession of sin, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”
But considering this broad, encompassing picture of sin, notice what verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 32 do NOT say. They do not say, “Blessed is the one with no transgressions, who have no sin to cover. Blessed is the man in whom the Lord finds no iniquity.” Though that would certainly be true, it is not a statement that can be made of any of us because we are, in fact, sinners, transgressors, and those full of iniquity. And yet, Psalm 32 says that it is to sinners that God’s blessing comes, but not just to sinners—to forgiven sinners.
Paired with the three words describing sin are three words bringing clarity to the forgiveness that these sinners receive. The first is “forgiven”. This word refers to something being “lifted up” or “carried away.” This is sin being removed. The second is “covered”. This, as you might guess, is sin being hidden out of sight. Then there is the word “counts”. This word could also be translated “credits” or “imputes”. This is God not “counting” our sin against us—declaring us legally innocent and treating us as if we had not sinned. The broadly encompassing nature of sin is dealt with by the breadth of God’s grace! It is those who both know depth of their sin, but then also know the even greater breadth of God’s grace who know true blessedness.
Forgiven Sinners Are Those Who Confess
But Psalm 32 has much more to teach us. The blessed are forgiven sinners and forgiven sinners are those who confess. The end of verse 2 tells us that the forgiven sinner is the one “in whose spirit there is no deceit.” This isn’t telling us that the forgiven sinner is one who has never lied (because lying is sin). What the end of verse 2 is referring to is a sinner who is honest with God about being a sinner—a sinner who confesses to God his or her sin. You cannot find the forgiveness of God apart from honest confession of your sin to God.
In verses 3-5, David uses himself as an example of this. In verses 3-4 he gives us a picture of his own turmoil that resulted from being silent about his sin before God. When he kept silent his bones wasted away, he groaned all day, his strength was dried up. He’s probably speaking quite literally about being physically ill resulting from his inner guilt and his troubled conscience. We’re not told what situation David is writing about, but we probably all know to some extent this feeling from trying to hide sin. It sinks to the pit of your stomach. It keeps you up at night. It can literally be to the point that it causes physical distress. There are few things more distressing than a guilty conscience. But David says that this distress was actually the hand of God being heavy upon him. God was not letting David be comfortable in his sin.
Do you know that it is God’s grace to you when he doesn’t let you be comfortable in your sin? That it is a sign of God’s love to you when he disciplines you? It would be grievously wrong to say that our suffering is always a result of our sin, but it would also be deeply mistaken to not see that God does often use suffering to discipline and sanctify us, to reveal to us our sin and draw us to himself. You’ve probably sensed already how heavy of a passage this is, but it is only heavy so that we would know the joy of that heaviness being lifted.
That is what happened for David. Look at verse 5, “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.” Note first how many of the terms I highlighted in verses 1 and 2 are present in verse 5 – sin, iniquity, transgression, cover, forgave.
Covering his own sin brought incredible turmoil, confessing his sin brough the joy of forgiveness. There is a fear that keeps us from confession when we believe the one we confess our sins to will then hold that sin against us. We don’t tell people our darkest secrets because we believe that they wouldn’t love us if they knew the worst of us. But here’s what you need to know: God already knows the worst of you. He already knows every thought, word, and deed. In confessing our sin to God, we will never tell him something that he doesn’t already know. And yet it is the humble who are forgiven because it is those who acknowledge their sin to God who then throw themselves helplessly at his feet to receive his grace. It is the humble, penitent heart that understands the very basic truth that our salvation must be completely of the grace of God.
There is a seeming paradox in these verses: the only way to have your sin covered is to uncover it. But this paradox reveals exactly the main point that David wants us to understand. This is the key to Psalm 32! The only way to have your sin covered is to uncover it. This is true because you can’t actually cover your sin, only God can! We can go to incredible lengths to try to deal with our sin by our own effort because, in our self-sufficient pride and our desire to look good to others, we think we can make it all better. So we try to fix our guilty conscience in any number of ways. We try to assuage our guilt—to make it feel less intense. We see our sin and feel bad, so we try to fix it by trying better next time and making resolution after resolution, by finding someone we consider worse than us to convince ourselves we’re good people, by hiding our sin and trying to forget it exists, by doing a really good deed that we think will offset the bad we do. But none of these work! They all leave us silent about our sin and our bones waste away. Only God can cover your sin, so stop trying to cover it or deal with it yourself! The only way to have your sin covered is to uncover it to God and have HIM cover it!
This is why repentance and faith are often called two sides of the same coin. It is when we repent of our sin and confess it to God with honesty and humility that we by faith rest in him alone to save us. There is no true repentance without faith and no true faith without repentance. This simultaneous confessing of sin and fleeing to God is so perfectly captured in the hymn we sang to end our last service, “Rock of Ages.” “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.” Brothers and sisters, uncover your sin to God that he may cover it! Confess and run to him and he will forgive!
The Hard Way and the Easy Way
This is a hard lesson to learn—a lesson that we often have to learn the hard way that David learned it. But as a wise teacher, David wants us to learn from his example. Mark Futato helpfully points out that David is essentially saying, “I learned the hard way. Learn from my mistake. That’s a much easier way.” David suffered severely when he kept silent and only later found the joy of forgiveness through honest confession. In verses 6-9 we are given the application of David’s personal example—don’t wait! Call out to God!
There is an urgency in verses 6 and 7, “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.” David waited and only later called out to God. Don’t wait! There is no guarantee of opportunity in the future, but there is now because there is safety to be found in God from great danger.
We often don’t perceive the true danger of sin because if we did, we would never be as slow as we often are to run to God. Have you seen the images and videos of the absolute devastation of the two recent hurricanes? I have been to a number of the towns affected by Helene and it is hard for me to wrap my head around what it would have been like to be there when the river rose twenty to thirty feet, flooding streets, homes, and hospitals. In that moment, your one priority is to get yourself and others to safety. There is no stubborn sitting in your home pretending the water won’t harm you. God has given us sure guarantee of safety from the rush of great waters. He has given us a secure hiding place to preserve us from trouble. Don’t wait! Run to God!
In verse 8, the speaker changes from David to God (of course the whole psalm is God’s word, but verses 8 and 9 are given here as a direct address form God to the audience). God tells us that he will instruct us and teach us in the way we should go. That he will counsel us with his eye upon us. So he then tells us specifically to be teachable. He drives this home with the image of a horse or mule bucking against its owner who needs to be guided with a bit and bridle. It needs to be reigned in.
David was like that stubborn mule in verses 3 and 4 and the bit and bridle that God used was the wasting away of his bones, his groaning, and the unrest that came from a guilty conscience as God’s hand pressed heavily upon him, not letting him be comfortable in his sin. As I said earlier, God’s discipline is a sign of his grace and love to his children. But better than to be disciplined in that uncomfortable way is to be teachable from the outset—to be humble and honest in your confession of sin and to wisely seek God’s instruction and counsel instead of trying to do things your way. Your way doesn’t work! Don’t be a mule that kicks against God’s instruction. As you are humble and confess your sins, then seek after God’s way in God’s Word. Give up your paths to walk in his. The wise Christian is a humble and therefore teachable Christian.
The Happiness of the Forgiven
David brings this psalm to a conclusion with a picture of the happiness of the forgiven sinner in verses 10 and 11, “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 really a call to worship packed with imperatives (commands)! Be glad! Rejoice! Shout for joy! There is a joy that only the forgiven will ever know!
David distinguishes in these last two verses between the righteous and the wicked and between what those two groups of people possess. Sorrow is the possession of the wicked whereas the righteous possess the Lord’s steadfast love, gladness, and joy! But when we view this in light of the whole psalm, we see that what distinguishes the righteous and the wicked in these verses is not that one is a sinner and the other is not, but that one confesses sin and trusts God while the other does not! Of course, there is then a difference in how the righteous and the wicked live as the wicked stubbornly continue to go their own way while the righteous seek God’s instruction. But what makes the righteous “righteous” is not their own sinless perfection or that they are inherently better than the wicked, but that God has forgiven them and declared them to be righteous!
You won’t grasp the wonder of the gospel until you’ve grasped the wonder of God calling a sinner “righteous!” To bare the depths of your sin and grime before the perfect, just, all knowing God and to have him then address you as “righteous” and then invite you to the eternal gladness of worshipping him is the greatest thing a sinner can ever hear and experience!
The Apostle Paul, in Romans 4, quotes from Psalm 32 and says that Psalm 32 is speaking of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Psalm 32 is about justification—being declared righteous by God. It is about a righteousness that comes not by works but a righteousness that is counted to repentant sinners through faith—to the one who David says in verse 10, “…trusts in the Lord.”
This wonder of wonders is only possible through Jesus Christ. The way our transgressions are carried away is that they were carried by Christ. They way our sin is covered is by being covered by the blood of Christ. The only way our iniquity is not counted to us is that it was counted to him and in turn his righteousness was counted to us. It is only through the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ that true blessedness—true happiness—can be known. It is a blessedness that not only knows the joy of the burden of sin being lifted from our weary shoulders but is a blessedness that comes from being welcomed as a sinner declared righteous into the fellowship of the happy God who is happy in himself and delights to share his happiness with his creatures! The forgiveness found in Jesus is the one and only door to the place where real and eternal happiness is known. As Scott Swain has written, “In Jesus Christ, eternal, unchanging, and unsurpassable beatitude shines upon us and welcomes us into its all-satisfying presence. For now we enjoy a taste of this happiness on the pilgrim path of faith and repentance. One day we will drink fully and deeply from the infinite ocean of beatitude when we behold the triune God in the unmediated splendor of his personal presence, ‘face to face.’” Sinner, fly to Jesus and know true blessedness!
