Would you turn in your Bibles, please, to the Psalter, to the Old Testament, and to Psalm 32? We look at one of the penitential or penitent or confession Psalms of the Psalter. The second of the penitential Psalms in particular, Psalm 32. It is an amazing thing when you think of it that we continue to use prayers that are very very old. I sometimes wonder if we stop and think just how old the Psalms are, and yet how how new and how relevant they are each time we pray them. One commentator, a man named Peter Wall, said that it is amazing that Christians pray as they do using Psalms that were composed largely in the period of the Iron Age. The life and the thought of that period are distinct from our own experience in modern America. Yet if the Psalms have a compelling grip on us, for we find in them an expression of our own feelings of joy and grief, of fear and anger, and which we seem to identify with. We seem to find in them a reflection of our own aspirations and complaints, our own gratitude, and even a sense of our own shame. Christians always have instinctively prayed the Psalms as metaphors of their own experience. That is an amazing thing. The oldest Psalm in the Psalter would be Psalm 90 written by Moses, which means it's close to 3,400 years old. The newest of the Psalms, the youngest of them, so to speak, towards the end of the Psalter would be at least 2,500 years old. And yet these Psalms continue to resonate with us in the modern world, and it's not difficult to understand why, because in spite of the differences of the Iron Age and the modern age, two things remain the same. And one is the character of God that God is immutable. As a little catacism says, he is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. And we, despite all of our sophistications, remain basically in nature the same as the people some three or 4,000 years ago. We have inherited the original sin of Adam, and because of that, our sinful condition continues to manifest itself as it always has. And therefore, to bring us into a situation where repeatedly, daily, we need to go to God and confess our sins, and we use the Psalter as a great aid in that endeavor. John Calvin said, I've been accustomed to call this book that is the Psalter. I think not inappropriately, the anatomy of all the parts of the soul. There is not an emotion in which anyone can be conscious. It is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, I might say that the Holy Spirit here has drawn to life all of the griefs and sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, and perplexities, insured all of the distracting emotions of life, with which the mind of men are want to be agitated. It's a unique book. It's a book of human thoughts, of human prayers, human words born out of the experience of David and Solomon, Moses, Ethan, the Ezraite, and hemen, his brother. A man named ASAP, and a group of Levites, unknown to us, except by the general name of the sons of Korah. But it's also an inspired book. It's the thoughts and words of God, the Spirit, moving through human authors, so that what Peter says is true of the Psalter, certainly if anywhere in the scripture, that men move by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. So we have here a human prayer book inspired by God and written by man to be prayed back to God. It's the Word of God, prayed back to the Lord, so that Augustine rightly says that in all the Psalms, Christ is the primary singer. And nowhere is this more important to keep in mind than when we come to the penitential Psalms. There are seven of them. Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. They're not listed that way. That's not the title of them in the Psalter, but that is what they are. And liturgically, they've been designated by the church as the seven Psalms of confession used. In historically, the church during Ash Wednesday in the time of Lent, taking one of these Psalms, seven of them, and praying it weekly during the times of confession of sin and penitence looking forward to the Holy season of Easter. Five of them were written by David. One is anonymous, afflicted soul, Psalm 102, and then Psalm 130 appears to be a corporate song written by the sons of Korah, or someone, one of the pilgrim songs of the sent used in liturgy. Allow me to put these in context if I can briefly. They were most of them, at least five of them, or four of them, at the very least, born out of the experience of David and Bathsheba. And if we had time tonight, it might be good for us to turn to 1 Samuel 11 and 12, but I'll leave you to do that at another time, but that's the famous story of David. When he should have been off to war, was at home, and he became restless. He became indolent, and he looked down one day and saw all the wife of one of his neighbors and friends, one of his mighty men, he arrived to Hittite, a beautiful woman named Bathsheba. And he desired her, and took her, he forced himself upon her, he raped her. And she became pregnant. And so, with the machinations and schemes, with the help of his general, he tried to cover up the fact that he had impregnated this woman. And when it didn't work, he had, you ride the Hittite, conveniently killed in battle, and covered that send up for the better part of a year, for nine months, at least, until the prophet Nathan came to him and confronted him. And in that moment, David comes clean in the right Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blow out my transgressions, and wash me thoroughly from my niquity, cleanse me from all my sins. For I know my transgressions, and my sin has ever before me against you, and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So that you may be justified with your words and blameless in your judgments. Behold, I was brought forth in niquity and in sin, my mother conceived me, but you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret place of my heart. Later on, when David had time to reflect about this sin, and he realized that the, the Lord had forgiven him, but the ramifications, the repercussions of his sin would unfold for generations in his family and in his kingdom. He had time to reflect about that, and out of that reflection emerges the Psalm this before us tonight, Psalm 32. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is found 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. Wouldn't be long until the prophecies of Nathan would take place, and one of his own children, the absolute rebel against him, would murder one of the members of his own house, hold another son, and take the kingdom from him, and as he fled from Jerusalem, he would write, Psalm 6, O Lord, discipline me not in your wrath. Be gracious to me for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled, but you, O Lord, how long? Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea, and the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be ashamed, and greatly troubled, they shall be turned back, and put to shame in a moment. In that time, in the thick of the civil war, he writes, Psalm 38, O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down upon me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sins. For my niceties have gone over my head like a heavy burden. There are two great for me. He realizes that his sin has caused such a tsunami of sorrow that's overwhelmed him. One commentator, H.C. Loupold, said that it's often the case, especially in grievous sins, for people to go back, and to confess again the sins they once confess before. Somewhat troubled, although strong and faith that other times they are weak in their belief that God really has forgiven them when they see all of the terrible repercussions of their sinful actions. That's what David does, and these Psalms 51 and 6 and 32 and 38. Psalm 102 is an anonymous Psalm written by man who fears that his misfortune may well be God's judgment upon his sins. Psalm 130 is a pilgrim Psalm. It's written out of an assurance that the people of God as they go up to the temple during the time of the Holy Feast can enter into their presence of God forgiven. Out of the depths, I cried to you, O Lord, Lord him, my voice, let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas from mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord who can stand, but with you there is forgiveness that you may be revered. Finally, Psalm 43, also written by David, is a Psalm we have a difficult time placing in the life of David, but it could well be that lateness life when David sinned again in taking a census of the people. When he counted the people to find out that he was strong enough to go out to the war, and he received the choice of whether not to fall into the hands of the enemy or be judged by the Lord or experienced pestilence upon his land. He chose the third, and there he writes in Psalm 143, hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my pleas for mercy in your faithfulness, answer me in your righteousness and are not in the judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. Now, my point in all of this is to illustrate that prayer indeed arises out of our own experiences, just like they did in David and Solomon and others, and no experience that we have is so urgent and so troubling and at the same time so tender as when we sin greatly and we go to the Lord and confess that sin. Alexander McClureen makes the very point that that's why this story of David is so belabored in the Old Testament and why there are several songs that rehearse it. He says, why should we dwell on this wretched story? Because it teaches us as no other page in the history of God's church, how the alchemy of divine love can be extracted from the ugliness of sin and how the sweet perfumes of penitence and praise can come out of the filth of our wrongdoing. Therefore, though we turn with loathing from David and we have to bless God for the record of it and for the lessons of hope that come from David's pardon. David considers himself a blessed man. Look how he begins in Psalm 32. 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 his spirit there is no deceit. He's praying in the same way that he began the Psalter. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is on the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. What we're going to find in Psalm 32, which I think is the richest of all of the penitential Psalms is a theology of repentance. How repentance actually works. How God takes our sins. Something that put a separation between us and God and turns that sin around to actually use it to bring us closer and more intimately related to Him. It is a classic example how what men intended for evil God will use for good. So let's do what we've done every night as we look through these Psalms. Let's understand what the Psalm was saying and then try to understand how we can use it in our prayer life. First of all, David says three things in the Psalm. He acknowledges the forgiveness of God. He talks about his experience with the heavy hand of God and finally he acknowledges that there is instruction from God even in the time of our sin. He says first of all that God desires to forgive us. Look at the first two verses. This first little stanza. 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 his spirit there is no deceit. Now how do we understand that well? It helps us that the New Testament quotes the stanza. In the Gospel of Romans in chapter four when Paul's talking about how Abraham was justified by faith, he quotes the Septuagint or the Greek version of this. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. And here is our first stop on this road of the theology of repentance, that God forgives the sins of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ. This is what we call the analogy of Scripture, that Scripture interprets Scripture. And here's where this verse out of Psalm 32 verses 1 and 2 is used in the New Testament in a Gospel format. Romans chapter 4. What shall we say was gained then by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to brag about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say, that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness? Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of, in the blessing of one whom God counts as righteous apart from his works when he says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Now we know that reference that Paul's making here comes from Genesis 15. When God went to Abraham and he said, Abraham, you don't need to take Aliezer and make him your son. I'm going to give you and your wife in her old age, a son from your own loins. He took him outside and he said, I want you to look at these stars. See how many they are. You can't count them all and you will not be able to count your spiritual descendants. And it says that Abraham believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. For on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, in your offspring, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Theologically here's what happened. God took away the unbelief of Abraham and gave him faith. And when Abraham exercised that faith, which was a gift of God, sovereign mercy, God took his righteousness and credited it to Abraham and took Abraham's sin upon himself. He made with him a covenant of grace. And of course Paul goes on to say, this is how all men are justified and ultimately the basis of all their forgiveness. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction. For all who sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but they are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God put forward as the perpetuation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forebearance, he has passed over the former sins. David's language expresses a parallelism. He doesn't rhyme his words, he rhymes his thoughts. And he mentions his sin under three terms, he calls it transgression, sin and iniquity. Three dimensions of what we do when we violate God's standards. Transgression is the word Peshaw. It means to rebel, to go off the path, to depart from the good way. And Alexander McLaren says, one does not understand the gravity of the most trivial wrong act when he thinks of it as a sin against the order of nature, or against the law written on the human heart, or even as a breach of the constitution of our own nature as a crime against your fellow men. You have not gotten to the bottom of the blackness of sin until you see it as a flat out rebellion against God himself. This is the true devilish element in all of our transgression. And this element is on all of us. He also calls it sin, shata, which means a falling short. It's literally the imagery of an archer who aims at a target and shoots, but the arrow always misses the mark. He falls short of the glory of God, he falls short of a bull's eye, or havan, iniquity, something twisted or crooked, something corrupt or distorted, something that is grotesque. It's the twisting of right and wrong, so that in the moment that we sin, we actually believe that what God has forbidden is okay, what God says, and what hurt us is for our good. We see it in our culture in the fact that today, homosexuality is seen as a good and acceptable way of life, and those who object to it are seen as evil. That is iniquity, the twisting of things, but God does three things to take care of these horrible facets of sin. First of all, he forgives our transgressions. Literally in the Hebrew, he lifts off our transgression. It's perceived to be a load that weighs us down and the Lord, like a great atlas, puts your shoulder under this sin that covers the whole world and lifts it up that this burden might be off us. He covers our sins. This is the language of the tabernacle. There was a thing called the Ark of the Covenant, it was a box, and in the box was the Ten Commandments, the Stone Tablets that Moses got on Mount Sinai. God's covenant with mankind, and they were broken. And so there was a covering over that box. It was called the Mercy Seat. And once a year, the high priest would take the blood of the sacrifices and sprinkle the blood on the seed of propitiation or the seed of covering because it shielded the broken law and the sinner from God's judgment. God covers our sins in the blood of Jesus Christ so that this third thing happens. He does not count our iniquity against us. He does not credit us with what is wrong, but rather what is right in his own righteousness. Blessed are those who lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. The grand forgiveness, this propitiation, this covering and justification is based upon two acts. Our faith in the promises of God that he will indeed out of his own mercy and grace give us righteousness in place of our sins and confession. From the Latin word, I agree, doesn't do us any good to go before God and say that we made a mistake. It really doesn't save the reputation of you, your children. When you ride out on a prayer card, we were making bad decisions. We don't make bad decisions or mistakes. We don't confess human failures. We transgress. We sin. We twist things horribly. And when we say, Lord, I agree. That's what I did. And I did so willingly. The devil didn't make me do it. He just encouraged me along the line of what I wanted to do anyway. It's when we confess like that and say, but I claim in its place the righteousness of Christ you offer me that we are justified and forgiven. David has done this already in Psalm 51. And now again, here in Psalm 32, but now he realizes that there's more to sin and the results of sin than just forgiveness. He acknowledges that God has laid the heavy hand of holiness upon him. Look what he says in these next verses. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For night and day, your heavy hand was upon me. My strength was dried up as with the heat of summer. He says that there were three things that he was pretending that he now has to face. Three things about his pretending. Remember for the better part of a year he pretended that he was a kind man who'd taken the widow of a friend and married her and they had suddenly become with child. He was lying and everyone was fooled by it except God. And as he in those nine months that Vashible was pregnant refused to come forward with the truth. He said, I was absolutely miserable. God's heavy hand was upon me. And when I kept silent, my bones waste away. I was physically sick at times because of the burden of guilt that was crushing me. For night and day, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. The truth is that we may think that things can go on and we can just let bygones be bygones, but God says I don't think that's true. Things to be dealt with. And I'm going to lay my hand on you, the sinner, and press down until you're so uncomfortable. You finally say, Lord, can we talk about this? It's called conviction. And it's the healthy dimension of constructive guilt because it drives us to God for help. In other words, if we won't come to him willingly out of love, he'll just make us so miserable that we'll have to. Notice the little word say-law. Notice that at the end of verse four, say-law, which means pause. David says, I want you to pause and think about this. You'll be miserable if you refuse to confess and to bring your sins before God. Secondly, he said, I went to God and told him everything and I found instant relief. I acknowledged my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Say-law. Here's the second thing to stop and meditate upon it. Fear makes us run from God when we sin. Satan lies to us and says, now you're really in trouble. God will destroy you. Isn't that amazing? On the one hand he sang to Adam and Eve, oh no, if you eat that fruit, you will not die. Just as he says to you and you can do this and no one will know and who would care. And then as soon as we do it, he said, oh, now God's coming to get you. And it works day in and day out. We go for the same sucker punch every single time. Fear makes us run from God but David says not so. I can tell you from my experience brothers and sisters, he says, I fessed up and told God about my adultery, about the murder plot, about my charade and my sinful marriage. And all that God did was forgive me. I acknowledged my sin to you. I did not cover my nicotine. I said it will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. David says, I found out that when I sinned, I had no greater love than the Father, no greater friend of sinners than Jesus, no greater helper than the Holy Spirit. I found out again what I had known as a child but forgotten that God has made a business out of forgiving sins and redeeming sinners. He would write later on another psalm, if you all Lord should mark with dignity, a Lord who could stand but with you that is forgiveness that you may be revered. What's more, God can actually bring good out of our sins and that's what David turns to later on in the psalm. But he says a third thing here, before he moves on to that point, he says, don't wait until it's too late to come and confess to God as I almost did. This I think is, I want you to notice, this is the heart of this psalm. This is why this psalm is written, this is what this psalm is after for you and me, verses six and seven, these middle verses. Therefore let everyone who has God the offer prayer to you in a time when they 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. In other words, David says we need to come to God and confess our sins before the fall out of sin has thrown us into a panic of life and misery. Let everyone who was Godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found, now listen to this warning, surely in the rush of great waters they shall not reach him. You know, I was thinking about this, this very psalm this weekend as I watched the weather channel. And first the governor of South Carolina, then the governor of North Carolina pleaded with people and said, please evacuate these areas. And they said again and again, especially governor Hayley down in South Carolina. She said again and again, listen, there's going to come a point when we won't be able to get to you where the emergency rescue people, the first responders will not be able to leave that island and come to these and you know what people didn't and they died. They decided to stay on Folly Island or stay in their coastal home or be out on the island palms and the wind and the rain and the floods took their lives and they called for help but it was too late. The flood of many waters that come. Let me paraphrase this for you. David said I have watched many a man hide in the list of the fair. Even almost repeatedly exposed as I was and then fall to pieces when he gets caught, when his wife leaves, when the other husband sews him, when his kids are devastated and alienated for life, when his job is in jeopardy and the church is poised for discipline, then these men have difficulty finding true repentance because the flood of many waters has come over them like a tsunami of misery and they're struggling just to survive. They have no energy or focus or ability to reconcile themselves to God and the people they've wronged. They waited too long until the wages of sin brought death. So he turns finally to this point. God intends to instruct us through our sins versus 8 through 11. This is God speaking to David. 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 the horse or the mule without understanding which must be curved with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast loves surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous and shout for joy, you upright and heart. Allow me to paraphrase what God is saying here. I will help you learn both about yourself and your sin and about me and forgiveness. Your sinfulness will be our lesson in godliness, what to do, where to go and what to avoid. When you do such things, but most of all, don't be stubborn or willful or proud like a lusty, stang or a stupid mule. Don't make me have to muzzle you and drag you towards the heavenly kingdom. Allow me to point you in the way and walk along with you and give you advice and counsel as your travel guide. That's what God is promising here. Not punishment, but counsel. Not an enslavement. God never says you know I'm Michael. How many times have we talked about this? How many times you confess this? This is it. You're forgiven, but I don't really want you around anymore because you're quite annoying. It's not like that. It's the opposite. Draw near to God. James says it. He will draw near to you. You cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded. God is a marvelous friend and a perfect father, and you know as well as I do that the children, you usually get closest to are the ones who are in the most trouble. You move into them, and God comes into us and says, I want you to learn from this, a life lesson. Joe had trouble with this, be honest with you. Joe became bitter at God, and here's what he said. What is man that you make so much of him that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning, test him every moment? How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit? If I sin, what do I have to do with you, oh, you watcher of mankind? David says, no, don't be like that. The best thing that could ever happen to us is that God is watching us carefully to govern and guide us. He's saying, don't run from me. I've already punished your sins in Christ. You're not only forgiven in Christ, but righteous in him. Come here and let's talk about your sin. Come, let us reason together, he says. I've watched your life for a long time, and then I have some insights into your character and your conduct. I know how you think, even when you don't know how you reason, and I want to help you, come safely through the challenges of your own sinful nature and come to me for grace. For you are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You're surrounded with shouts of deliverance. Say la. God closes the circle. He says, sin brings many sorrows, but God's covenant-loving loyalty surrounds those who trust in Christ. And the forgiven man is upright in heart and will be glad. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. David's soul, I think, can be compressed into two proverbs that he passed on to his son, Solomon. Here they are. Whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity. American people are proud. I guess human beings are proud. And pride is never so devastating as when it keeps us from going to God and saying, I have sinned and I need your help. I was at a meaning of evangelicals lately, and I had to participate in the presentation, and the speaker before me told the people, be proud, work hard, and trust Jesus. And I said, oh, Lord, I wish he hadn't said that. Because it's the opposite of going to tell the people in my devotion. I'm going to tell them to be humble and trust in Christ and look for what God is doing in the world. The last thing we need to do is be proud. Let me summarize what David's saying in five statements. Pray this prayer when it's appropriate. Not at the moment that we've sinned, that's Psalm 51, but when we're reflecting about the sin and what it's done for us and other people, begin to this prayer. Secondly, if you sense the fear of God or the stubbornness of your own pride is keeping you from owning up to some transgression, then quickly turn to Psalm 32 and read it that it might soften your heart. Thirdly, ask God to help you see why you sin in repeated ways, the patterns of temptation in your life, and don't make excuses or projectors in on to someone else. Let no one say when he is being tempted, I am being tempted by God. For God can either be tempted with evil nor is he himself the tempted of anyone else, but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived to give birth to sin and sin is fully grown, it brings forth death. Fourthly, I think this is the value of meditating in the Psalm. Let God show you the arc of your life. See, this is David's problem. David didn't really know himself. David was handsome. I mean, it really was. The Bible says he was. And the women loved him. They sang songs about him. He was a rock star in his own time. And he liked the ladies. He had eight wives and many concubines. He just collected beautiful women like fine bottles of wine. He ignored Deuteronomy 17 that said that the king should write the law and read it every day, and he should not gather horses for strength or golden silver or collect wise from himself. But David ignored that. He also had a temper, a hot temper. He was redhead, we think. And he was aggressive. And he liked to be in control. And you know, all of these things he could live with and he could manage until one day, the old converts and he wanted that girl. And he took that girl. And he got frustrated that the man wouldn't get drunk and cooperate them, so we killed him. And he covered it up and he was in control. He was the king. Everything was fine. And then the whole world caved in. And David should have seen the arc of his life. He should have seen this thing coming years beforehand, but he knew not himself. That's what Psalm 32 wants to help us do. To see the regular sin patterns that make up what we are and to preserve ourselves from evil and to confess and pray to God while we still can before the many waters of our own self-destruction overtake us all and drown us in guilt and shame and misery. Fifthly and finally, this Psalm is an encouragement to reverse the temptation in order to gain solid ground. To be regularly in God's words so we can see God for who he really is, to find the cross of Jesus Christ and our situation, to know our sin patterns and to take them to the cross where they belong. To find some way to daily confess our sins, I remember a prayer was taught as a little boy, still say it every morning. Oh my God, I'm heartily sorry for having offended you. And I detest all my sins because of your just punishments, but also because they have offended you, my God, who are at all good and worthy of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to sin no more and to avoid any occasions of sin. To bring my sin and my sin patterns, not just the things I've done, but what I will do if God does not intervene. To bring those before God every day is what God wants for us and to confess quickly when we have sinned and say, Lord, I don't want to ignore this. I'd like to talk about this again. I'd like to learn about sin because what you said to Cain is true for me. My sin is crouching at the door like a beast. It wants to master me, but I must rule over it. Remember this most of all, sin only becomes an insurmountable problem when we ignore it. When we deny it's true nature and fail to take it and ourselves to the cross of Jesus Christ, Jesus dying to destroy sin, not just generally but specifically your sins and your sin patterns and he gives joy and blessing to those who trust in him and follow this theology of repentance in Psalm 32. Little children let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous and whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the very beginning. This is the reason the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. 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 self deceit. Let's pray. Father, we want to thank you for these psalms that help us to face our sins in an honest and constructive way. We are aware, more perhaps and we want to admit that our sins have found us out. Moses was right. Be sure your sins will find you out and they do. Again and again and again, these disgustingly discouraging and sickening patterns that keep circling back and rising up to bite us when we least expect, but you're not surprised that these things nor offended by them, you've destroyed the power of them in Jesus Christ. It's the lessons you want us to learn, the pattern you want to reshape in our life, the grace you want to give us that is the occasion of your drawing closer to us when we sin and asking us to draw near to you. We want to thank you for the work of Jesus Christ, for the way His blood has covered our sins, for the way His obedience has all set our transgression, and for the way His righteousness has been imputed to people who consistently missed the mark and who fall short of the glory of God except for Jesus Christ. We have no reason to fear you, every reason to love you and trust you, and to pick up this divinely inspired prayer you've given us and to come and say, Lord, I don't want to keep silent about my sin. I don't want the waters of disaster to roll over me and sweep me away in a flood of evil. I want you to instruct me and guide me and help me to avoid the near occasions of sin and define the blessings of forgiveness and righteousness. And relief from the heavy guilt of sin. And we thank you that we have all this in Jesus Christ for those who pray and those who believe in Him. We have forgiveness and forever we will praise you for this in Jesus' name. Amen.