The Peace That Comes from Coming Clean

• The Gospel as a Daily Walk [02:00:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the gospel is not just a one-time event for freedom, but a daily reality to be reminded of and walked in, especially when facing daily failures.
• The Weight of Masculinity and Fatherhood [02:02:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explores the specific burdens men carry (responsibility, provision, leadership) and the cultural pressure to hide weakness, contrasting this with the need for honest reliance on God.
• Hidden Sin vs. Forgiven Sin [02:04:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the weakness and spiritual drought caused by hiding sin (like Adam) with the strength and peace found in the forgiveness described in Psalm 32.
• Justification by Faith [02:11:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that righteousness is not earned by works but is credited to believers through faith, citing Paul's use of Psalm 32 in Romans 4 to illustrate justification.
• Justification by Faith [02:11:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that righteousness is not earned by works but is credited to believers through faith, citing Romans 4 and Psalm 32 to show that God does not count iniquity against the forgiven.
• The Misery of Unconfessed Sin [02:15:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the physical and spiritual toll of hiding sin, using David's experience of 'bones wasting away' and 'strength drying up' to illustrate that concealment leads to exhaustion and heaviness.
• The Nature of Confession [02:23:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines confession not as informing God of unknown sins, but as agreeing with God about known sins, removing masks, and stopping the defense of one's behavior to receive mercy.
• Grace vs. Performance [02:13:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the exhaustion of trying to cover sin with the rest found in God's covering, arguing that repentance is an act of strength and honesty that deepens leadership rather than weakening it.
• Confession vs. Hiding [02:26:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts David's misery when hiding iniquity with the peace found in confession, asserting that confession is returning to the Father, not walking into condemnation.
• Leadership and Honesty [02:27:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that repentance is not weakness but courage, and that families need honest, repentant fathers rather than perfect ones.
• The Freedom of Walking with God [02:28:50 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that forgiveness is the beginning of a restored relationship where God instructs and guides, contrasting this with the sorrow of the wicked who hide.
• Steadfast Love and Joy [02:32:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines steadfast love as covenant loyalty and concludes that forgiven people rejoice because they are surrounded by God's faithful mercy.
• The Pathway of Peace [02:33:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor summarizes the flow of Psalm 32 into five steps: forgiveness, confession, refuge, instruction, and joy.

• Sermon Illustration [02:01:02 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about 'Daniel Goober moments' (a play on 'Google moment'), describing how he frequently stumps his toe or messes up, illustrating the inevitability of daily failure and the need for the gospel.
• Sermon Illustration [02:05:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts the biblical history of King David's sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, detailing how David tried to cover it up, was confronted by a prophet, and subsequently wrote Psalm 32 after a year of lament, illustrating that even great men of faith struggle with hidden sin.
• Sermon Illustration [02:18:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his parents using his full name to stop him from playing near a dangerous road, illustrating that God's 'heavy hand' is often a merciful intervention for safety rather than pure punishment.
• Sermon Illustration [02:26:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the biblical account of Adam and Eve trying to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, only for God to provide a better covering through the sacrifice of an animal, paralleling how God covers our sins when we confess.
• Sermon Illustration [02:26:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references David trying to cover his iniquity for a year and becoming miserable, only finding peace after confessing.
• Sermon Illustration [02:27:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the example of Adam hiding in the garden to illustrate that it takes no courage to hide, whereas grace makes people honest.
• Sermon Illustration [02:30:31 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor lists various ways people hide (work, anger, entertainment, control, silence, achievement, withdrawal) to show that none preserve the soul like God does.
• Sermon Illustration [02:29:40 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of a horse or mule that must be curbed with a bit and bridle to illustrate resisting God's instruction.

• Pastoral Charge [02:07:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > Pray for men who are hiding internal struggles and 'hurricanes' behind a calm exterior.
• Pastoral Charge [02:19:28 ▶️ 📄]
  > Confess sin to God and bring it into the light.
• Pastoral Charge [02:22:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > Stop pretending and remove social masks before God.
• Pastoral Charge [02:28:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > Choose to confess, repent, and receive grace instead of hiding, blaming, or getting defensive when failing.
• Pastoral Charge [02:35:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > To approach God, confess specific sins, accept Christ's atonement, and rest in divine peace.

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:01] We live for you. We live for you.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:07:02] be changed out. But I was reminded of mission trips I used to do in Dominica. When the power went off there, they just went out back, started the generator and just kept on going. And
[00:07:12] so that's what we're planning on doing, just keep on going. We're so glad you're here today.
[00:07:16] We hope that you have a good fellowship as you rub elbows with other like-minded people in this room. Today we're talking about steps with peace, steps to peace with God. And we're going to be going in Psalm 32 and talking more about the gospel and how it forms us
[00:07:30] and how we should be walking in that peace and not under a burden and not under guilt and not under shame. We're so glad you're here today. We're going to join with the worship team
[00:07:39] here and we're going to lift our voices and our hearts to praise our King of Kings. So let's all stand together at this time as we set our hearts and minds in motion to be able to worship the
[00:07:50] King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to be here to celebrate you, to celebrate one another, to celebrate forgiveness, to celebrate peace in our hearts with you. So hear our hearts as we sing praises
[00:08:06] to you today, realizing that no matter what we've done, your mercy is more. So just be praised, be honored, and glorified as we lift our voices to you. First, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[00:08:19] Well, good morning.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:08:44] We're going to go through Psalm 32, and before we do that, though, there's a couple things

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:23:28] I want to talk about.
[00:23:29] This past week, we had wind-shaped camps here.
[00:23:33] We had close to 350 children attend wind-shaped camps.
[00:23:38] We had 142 volunteers serving throughout the week.
[00:23:43] And the fact that this room smells normal is a miracle.
[00:23:48] It was amazing.
[00:23:50] The weather cooperated.
[00:23:51] The volunteers were making the windshield.
[00:23:53] Staff that came from all over the country to help serve in this capacity did a phenomenal job.
[00:24:01] The gospel was clearly presented.
[00:24:03] And listen to this.
[00:24:04] We had 20 decisions for Christ this week.
[00:24:08] In addition to that, we had another 48 gospel conversations with children that want more information.
[00:24:19] They want to follow up.
[00:24:20] They've got questions.
[00:24:22] And so we're very excited about that.
[00:24:24] So our part now begins in following up with those families and making sure that questions have been answered and if there are other things that they may need to know about that.
[00:24:33] It was a blessing of a week.
[00:24:35] And there are a lot of volunteers that are just completely just wiped out.
[00:24:39] but when you put that kind of energy and effort and time and sweat into a week like this and then it makes a difference for someone's eternity it makes it all worthwhile so praise and honor and
[00:24:53] glory to god for the excitement we were able to experience this past week and so that is just something i wanted to share with you guys i know you're excited about if you know anybody that
[00:25:02] served in wind shape camps be sure to thank them and give them a pat on the back for a job well done. Well, today is Father's Day, so happy Father's Day. I cannot allow Father's Day to go
[00:25:17] by without a list of Father's Day jokes, because that's kind of how I roll. E-Y-E, roll. Okay, sorry. That's just kind of the way the father jokes. I remember the first father joke I ever did
[00:25:33] that I didn't realize a father's joke. I don't even think father's jokes were called dad jokes back in the day, but I just remember the first one I did. My oldest daughter, who's in her 30s now, she came walking into my room one morning trying to get ready, and she had a shirt
[00:25:48] on, and it was unbuttoned, and she said, Dad, can you do this? And so I went, no, no, on me, and so I went like that. So that's how it all starts in my family, and then it was just more
[00:26:00] and more there. This is a list of the ones that were sent to me just this week. Some of them you'll remember, but I thought I would just go with the ones that were sent me this week. They said, hey,
[00:26:09] hope you tell father, dad jokes because it's Father's Day and here's one that you could probably use. And so after some filtering, I came up with this list. All right. My neighbor roofed my house for free. He said it was on the house. Did you hear the joke about paper? It's terrible.
[00:26:34] come on why did the orange stop halfway up the hill he ran out of juice in my career as a lumberjack I've cut exactly 2,325 trees every time I chop one I keep a log sorry dad will you hand me my
[00:27:04] sunglasses sure son as soon as you hand me my dad glasses dad did you get a haircut no I got them All cut. Yeah, that's it. That's a good one. What did the drummer call his twin daughters?
[00:27:23] Anna one, Anna two. What do sprinters eat before a race? Nothing. They fast. Which bear is most condescending? A panda. To whoever stole my copy of Microsoft Office, I will find you. You have my
[00:27:50] word. If you boil a funny bone, it becomes a laughingstock. That's humorous. All right. All right. Good. We'll end on that one. We'll end on that one. Today, we want to talk about, out of
[00:28:13] Psalm 32, the pathway to peace. And I think that although this message is somewhat geared toward the men in the room, the dads in the room, it is a word for everyone. So I don't want you to think
[00:28:25] I'm just speaking to the men about things so when it comes to those pointed statements you don't have to elbow the the man sitting beside you because this is for everyone but I do want to
[00:28:35] call out some things that I think we men face in the world that we don't always get to talk about we don't always point it out we've been talking about through the summer the gospel that forms us
[00:28:46] and psalm 32 helps us see that the gospel is not merely to forgive us and leave us unchanged the gospel is to to bring forgiveness and then to change us so that we can be different father's
[00:29:01] day can be a joyful day for many many are or have a day of gratitude honor laughter memories things that kind of go along with it and celebration but for some father's day is complicated some are
[00:29:15] thankful for their father some are grieving their father some are missing a father who has gone some are carrying wounds from a father who was present physically but absent emotionally and spiritually.
[00:29:29] Some men in the room are dads who feel encouraged today. Others feel like you are barely holding things together. And if we're honest, there is a particular kind of weight that many men carry quietly. Some of it comes from just who we are in our sinful nature. Some of it comes
[00:29:50] from the culture, but there's the weight of responsibility, the weight of provision, the weight of leadership, the weight of decisions, the weight of failures that we know that we've done, the weight of not knowing if we're doing enough, being enough, becoming enough, leading
[00:30:07] well enough, loving well enough. And most men are not trained to say, I'm not okay.
[00:30:15] We're brought up to keep moving, get up, get to work, take care of it, fix the problem.
[00:30:21] pay the bill handle the pressure be strong don't complain don't fall apart and now some of this is good responsibility is not a curse work is not evil strength is not wrong and leadership is not
[00:30:35] a burden to resent God created men with a purpose with a calling he called Adam to work and keep the garden before sin entered the world. But sin, it changed the soil that we toil.
[00:30:58] After the fall, work started fighting back. It became painful. Responsibility became heavy.
[00:31:07] Relationships became strained. Shame entered the human heart. And ever since then, men have been tempted to respond the same way that Adam responded in the garden. Hide, cover, blame, keep distance from God. And what Psalm 32 shows us is that hidden sin does not make us stronger,
[00:31:32] it makes us weaker. It drains the soul. It drains our strength. It turns the inner life into a summer drought but then this psalm also gives us a pathway to peace this is why i always tell
[00:31:51] myself the gospel every morning when i wake up because i know during the day i am going to stump my toe figuratively speaking and sometimes literally speaking on something i am going to do something during the day i just know it that i'm going to go oh if i could replay the last
[00:32:11] 10 seconds of my life that wouldn't have happened it's just the way we walk in the world the heaviness of what we have and men you know what i'm talking about and society does not play
[00:32:26] nice to us if we don't play like society but god has a different story he has a different plan he wants us to move in a different way psalm 32 shows us that hidden sin doesn't make us stronger
[00:32:40] but it brings peace if we confess it not peace because life gets easy not peace because responsibility disappears from what we have to do not peace because every problem is solved not peace because we have finally become impressive enough peace because sin is forgiven
[00:33:00] peace because guilt is removed peace because god is no longer our enemy peace because we stop hiding from the only one who can actually restore us so here's the big idea of where we're going today
[00:33:18] this is the big idea of the whole entire message the peace people are searching for is not found by caring more hiding better or performing harder but by becoming clean before god and resting in
[00:33:32] the forgiveness secured through christ that's what this whole entire message is and so if you're like I'm going to tune out. Don't tune that out because as we walk through Psalm 32, you're going to be
[00:33:44] able to rest in the steps to find peace with God. That's where he wants us to live. He wants us to live in peace with him, not in constant, oh man, I've messed up again. So Psalm 32 is a psalm about
[00:34:02] David. Many scholars will say this particular psalm was written by King David after his great sin. If you don't know what that is, I want to kind of give you a very quick story of what
[00:34:12] happened. David was, his nation was at war. David, for the first time, had decided to stay back in his castle, so to speak. He stayed there, and as he was there, he saw another woman, another man's
[00:34:26] wife. He liked what he saw. He invited her into his home. She got pregnant, and then he asked for the husband to come home to try to hide his sin and the husband came home and was so loyal to
[00:34:42] David that he said I am not going to be with my wife when all my men are out at battle I'm going to sleep on the steps and so then it took a whole entire year for David to come to the realization
[00:34:54] that he was hiding that sin that's just complete transparency of what we're looking at here in Psalm 32. And I wanted you to know that context so when we get into it, you understand just how
[00:35:06] important what we're reading today is. But here's a key thing. The blessed life is not the life of the sinless man, but the life of the forgiven man. This is what the gospel's for. We should be
[00:35:24] shouting hallelujah every day when we wake up and we realize what forgiveness in God actually means through the gospel. So we're going to look at three things. The peace of being forgiven, the misery of staying hidden, and the freedom of walking with God. Number one, the peace of
[00:35:45] being forgiven. David begins with a word that may surprise us. The first word that he uses in this psalm is blessed. That word means more than happy in a shallow emotional sense. It means favored.
[00:35:59] it means secure, it means well off before God. It describes the condition of a person who is living under the goodness of God. So let's look at Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2. This is what it says.
[00:36:13] 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. David says, blessed. He does not say blessed is the one who never failed. He doesn't say blessed is the man
[00:36:39] who has a perfect record. He does not say blessed is the father who never lost his temper, never neglected prayer, or never made a selfish decision, never wounded his family, never hid behind work, never wasted time, never carried a secret sin. That's not what he's saying. He says blessed is
[00:36:59] the one whose transgression is forgiven. That means the blessed man is not the man with nothing to confess. The blessed man is the man whose sin has been dealt with by God. David uses three words
[00:37:18] for sin in these opening verses. He uses transgression, sin, and iniquity. He says transgression, and that transgression means the rebellion, crossing the line with God. He says sin, that means missing the mark, falling short of God's holy design. He says iniquity, and iniquity
[00:37:39] is just the crookedness. It's a distortion. It's the bentness of our nature and our action, but then he's not trying to minimize sin. He's not saying everyone makes a mistake, so don't worry about it.
[00:37:51] he's not giving us some kind of therapeutic way to to expose ourselves he's telling the truth our problem is real all of us not just men our problem is real we have rebelled we have fallen
[00:38:06] short and we are bent inward but then david uses three beautiful descriptions of forgiveness he says transgression is forgiven the word carries the idea of being lifted carried away and removed. He says sin is covered, not covered in the sense of being hidden by us, but covered
[00:38:30] by God, atoned for, dealt with, in other words. He says the Lord does not count iniquity against the forgiven person. This is accounting language. The debt is not credited to our account.
[00:38:50] This is where Paul picks up Psalm 32 in Romans 4.
[00:38:53] Remember, we're going through the gospel that forms us to prepare our minds and our hearts for what we're going to be reading when we go through the book of Romans.
[00:39:00] Romans chapter 4, Paul is actually talking about what's happening in Psalm 32.
[00:39:07] He starts with Abraham, that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
[00:39:13] Then Paul brings David into the argument and quotes Psalm 32.
[00:39:17] blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Paul says David was describing justification by faith before we ever used the language. This is the gospel. God does not simply ignore sin. God does not pretend that sin doesn't matter. God does not lower his holiness so that
[00:39:44] we can feel better. Instead, God provides sinners with righteousness through Jesus Christ. That's why peace with God is not something that we build by performance. It's something we receive by faith.
[00:40:06] And men, hear this clearly. Your deepest peace will never come from proving you're enough.
[00:40:15] the deepest peace a man can have is knowing God knows the truth about me and in Christ I am forgiven in fact let's all read that out loud together you ready God knows the truth about me
[00:40:35] and in Christ I am forgiven this does not make men passive it makes men whole a forgiven man can begin to become a faithful man. A forgiven father can stop parenting out of insecurity and start leading out of grace. A forgiven husband can stop defending himself long enough
[00:40:59] to repent. A forgiven believer can stop living under the constant fear of being exposed because he has already brought his sin into the light before God. David begins with blessing because forgiveness restores the soul hallelujah and i'm sure that some came in here today
[00:41:26] exhausted not merely because life is hard but because guilt is heavy there is guilt from what you did guilt from what you did not do guilt from what you said guilt from what you've become
[00:41:42] guilt from what you are hiding guilt from what you fear would happen if people knew the whole story and psalm 32 says there is blessedness available to the guilty person but it is not found in denial it is found in forgiveness so number one the peace of being forgiven
[00:42:02] are you walking in that number two the misery of staying hidden the misery of staying hidden Let's look at verses 3 through 5.
[00:42:15] David begins now to tell his own story.
[00:42:18] For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
[00:42:25] For day and night your hand was heavy upon me.
[00:42:29] My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
[00:42:34] Selah.
[00:42:34] Selah just simply means pause and let that sink in.
[00:42:38] i acknowledge 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 let that sink in he says for when i kept
[00:42:59] silent my bones wasted away that's a powerful phrase keeping silent david did not think about quietness before god in worship this is not what he's talking about he's talking about the silence of concealment, trying to hide what's really going on in here. The silence of refusal,
[00:43:21] the silence of a man who will not confess. He kept silent. He did not bring it into the light. He did not name it before God. He did not repent. He did not stop hiding. And notice what happened. His bones
[00:43:34] wasted away. It says he groaned all day long. This is not just spiritual language. David is describing how unconfessed sin affects the whole person. It affects the soul. It affects the body.
[00:43:50] It affects the mind. It affects our emotions, our relationship. It affects our sleep. It affects our worship. It affects how we lead. Men often assume that hiding sin preserves strength. But what David is saying here, that hiding sin actually drains strength. And verse 4 says,
[00:44:07] God's hand was heavy upon him that's severe mercy it's not punishment I want you to understand something if you're living in a hidden sin and you're feeling the heaviness of God's hand on you that's not punishment because you're living in sin that's him calling you back to himself
[00:44:28] he's not trying to be heavy and squish you down and say you've sinned therefore squish it's I'm putting my hand on you and you feel that guilt and I want you to understand that it's going
[00:44:40] to get really heavy, and the only way out of it is to repent and confess to me what you've been doing. That's what David is saying needs to happen. God loved David too much to let him be comfortable
[00:44:55] in hidden sin. A father may let a child run in the yard and play in the yard, but if that child runs toward the street, the father's hand gets heavy. It's not because he hates the child, but
[00:45:10] there is danger near see the difference of what we think about god the picture we paint of god oh i sin therefore i'm just kind of down underneath it's just him saying what are you doing
[00:45:22] have you ever had to yell at a child that was running toward danger i mean it goes from you're saying their name hey so-and-so so-and-so and then suddenly it turns into full name first middle
[00:45:39] last. I remember when my parents would say my full name, I was like, oh, I'm dead. I'm dead.
[00:45:46] But sometimes it wasn't. It was protecting me from something. That is what he is saying is going on here. God is saying, do not try to make peace with what is actually destroying you. We try to
[00:46:05] justify our life. We try to justify what we're doing. We try to make amends with it. We try to make peace with it and say, well, that's just who I am. And God's saying, no, no, no, no. Don't make
[00:46:14] peace with that because it'll never bring peace. It'll never be a lasting peace. And some of the heaviness we feel is simply the reality of living in a broken world for sure. Life is hard. Work is
[00:46:27] hard. Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard. Aging is hard. My dad is 91 and he said, growing old is not for sissies. Grief is hard, but some heaviness is different. Some heaviness is the weight of
[00:46:43] unconfessed sin before the Lord. It is the heaviness of knowing we are not walking honestly before God. David says, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. That is what hidden sin
[00:46:59] does. It dries a man up on the inside. He may still function, show up, provide, smile, serve.
[00:47:07] He may still know the right words, but inside there's a drought.
[00:47:11] And if that's you today, it doesn't have to stay that way.
[00:47:18] Men are often tempted to manage appearances rather than deal with the heart.
[00:47:24] It's kind of what society teaches.
[00:47:26] Somewhere along the way, we have been taught that we're supposed to squish it down because if you let somebody else know the thing that you've been grappling with that doesn't honor god that suddenly you're less of a person and so somewhere along the way we've
[00:47:42] learned to do this does that look anything like me at all we've learned to wear a mask somewhere along the way in the christian walk in the christian journey we're told that oh if you're
[00:48:15] with the christian people you got to put on a mask don't let them know exactly what you're dealing with because they will judge you well that's not a lie we shouldn't but we do because if i can judge
[00:48:31] your transgression i don't have to think about my transgression you know i'm not bad because look at that guy what do you think god and he's like it's not who i created you to be we are not supposed to
[00:48:51] hide before God because it dries up who we are on the inside. We can look responsible while being spiritually distant. We can look strong while being prayerless. We can look successful while being angry. We can look composed while being ashamed. We can look present while being emotionally
[00:49:16] absent. We can look moral while hiding sin. But God is not after the appearance of a man.
[00:49:23] God is after the heart of a man He wants us to change from the inside out And the pathway to peace is not pretending The pathway to peace is confession Look at verse 5 I acknowledge my sin to you
[00:49:44] 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 Notice the movement David says, I acknowledged, I did not cover, I will confess.
[00:50:00] He stops hiding, he stops covering, he stops pretending, and what does God do?
[00:50:05] It says, you forgave.
[00:50:08] That's kind of stunning, actually.
[00:50:10] David does not say, I confessed, and God said, well, suffer for about six more months before we do anything about it.
[00:50:19] He does not say, I confessed, and God reluctantly considered forgiving me.
[00:50:24] He does not say, I confessed, and God said, try harder, and we'll see.
[00:50:29] He says, I confessed, and you forgave.
[00:50:33] Why do we make that so incredibly difficult?
[00:50:37] Like it's some kind of algebraic equation.
[00:50:42] I did wrong before God.
[00:50:44] I tell God what I did wrong, and I confess it before him, and he forgives me.
[00:50:50] That's how we should be rolling.
[00:50:54] Confession is not informing God about something that he doesn't already know about us.
[00:50:59] Confession is agreeing with God about what he already sees.
[00:51:03] Confession is this, Lord, I am done defending this.
[00:51:09] I am done minimizing this.
[00:51:12] I am done renaming this.
[00:51:14] I am done hiding this.
[00:51:16] You are right, and I need mercy.
[00:51:22] That's what confession is.
[00:51:23] And here's the grace of God. When a sinner stops covering his sin, God covers it. Why are we doing what God's going to do for us anyway? Why are we making it a work thing when God says,
[00:51:38] I'll cover it. Just confess it to me. When David covered his sin, he was miserable.
[00:51:44] When David confessed his sin, God covered it with forgiveness. That is the gospel pattern.
[00:51:51] we either try to cover ourselves or we let god cover us adam and eve tried to cover themselves with fig leaves god covered them with garments david tried to cover his iniquity and become he became miserable then he confessed and god covered his sin and ultimately christ went to
[00:52:14] the cross so that our sin would not merely be hidden but atoned for jesus was exposed in shame so sinners could be covered in grace that means confession is not walking into condemnation if i let god know what i've been doing by the way he already knows if i let god know what i've been
[00:52:38] doing then he's going to punish me more for the believer confession is returning to the father who has already provided mercy in christ and that matters deeply especially for us men because many men fear that repentance will make them look weak, but in scripture, repentance is not weakness.
[00:53:04] Repentance is the first act of a man who has stopped lying to himself. It takes no courage to hide. Adam did that in the garden, but grace makes a man honest. A restored man can say,
[00:53:21] I was wrong. A restored father can say, please forgive me. A restored husband can say, I have not led well. A restored believer can say, Lord, I need you. That kind of humility does not destroy
[00:53:38] leadership. It actually deepens it. Some dads need to hear this. Your family does not need you to be perfect. They need you to be honest, repentant before the Lord, and anchored in grace.
[00:53:55] Your children do not need a father who pretends he never fails. They need to see what a man does when he does fail. Do you hide? Do you blame? Do you get defensive? Do you excuse? Or do you
[00:54:11] confess, repent, receive grace, and walk forward. Oh, how many of us need to be walking in peace right now, and we're not because of the way we've designed our lives. So we've got the peace of
[00:54:27] being forgiven, the misery of staying hidden, and number three, the freedom of walking with God.
[00:54:35] After David experiences forgiveness, he turns outward. He begins teaching others about what he's learned in his walk with God. He says, therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer. So let's look at that. He's saying, don't wait, don't delay, don't assume. This is Psalm 32
[00:54:52] starting at verse 6. 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
[00:55:06] from me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Let that sink in. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and with my
[00:55:22] eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which may be curbed with a bit and a bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love
[00:55:36] 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. It says, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a
[00:55:51] time that you may be found. Now, he's saying that the waters would rush in. David is not saying waters will never rise. What he's saying is, is that it will not finally destroy the one who takes
[00:56:05] refuge in God. Verse 7 says, you are a hiding place. And that's beautiful because David was hiding in sin earlier. Now he is hiding in God. And that is the transformation of this psalm.
[00:56:24] There's a kind of hiding that destroys you, and then there's the kind of hiding that saves you.
[00:56:31] Hiding from God destroys the soul.
[00:56:34] Hiding in God restores the soul.
[00:56:39] David says, you are the hiding place for me.
[00:56:42] And this is where peace becomes foundational.
[00:56:47] The world beats on men.
[00:56:53] Responsibility beats on men.
[00:56:56] The curse beats on our work that we do.
[00:57:00] Sin beats on the conscience.
[00:57:01] and the expectations of others beat on our heart and if people have no refuge you will if we don't have a refuge we will eventually seek one we'll seek to hide in work we'll seek to hide in anger
[00:57:20] we'll seek to hide in entertainment we'll seek to hide in control or silence we'll seek to hide in some kind of secret sin we'll seek to hide in achievement or we will withdraw but none of those
[00:57:33] hiding places can preserve the soul david says god himself becomes the refuge of the forgiven then in verses eight and nine the voice seems to shift now we're hearing the instructions that he's given i will instruct you this is the voice of god guiding his people forgiveness is not the
[00:57:53] end of the journey it is the beginning of restored fellowship god does not forgive so that we can wander aimlessly. It's not like this blank slate that, okay, you're forgiven today. Now just go do whatever you want. It's a walk in peace with me so that I can show you the purpose that I have
[00:58:13] for your life. There's not a soul in this room that doesn't have some God-given purpose that he has fingerprinted onto you of what he wants you to step into and do. He says, I will instruct
[00:58:27] you. I will teach you. I will counsel you. My eye is upon you. That's personal. That is fatherly.
[00:58:35] That is attentive. God does not merely pardon sinners and then leave them to figure out life on their own. He brings forgiven people under his wise and loving instruction. That's you and me.
[00:58:50] He has wisdom for our tomorrow that we can walk in. What we need to learn to do is not be stubborn.
[00:58:59] strength receives instruction david says do not be like the horse or mule do not make your life harder by resisting the god who is trying to lead you into peace says many are the sorrows of the
[00:59:17] wicked but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the lord the contrast is clear the wicked have many sorrows that does not mean believers do not suffer we don't walk in just kind of freedom and don't have difficulty. We have difficulty, but it means that sin always
[00:59:36] multiplies sorrow in the end, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
[00:59:42] Let me ask you, do you feel held by God? Do you feel His presence in your life and that comfort and that peace that only he can give, because if you don't, he is not the one stiff army.
[01:00:18] David began the psalm with blessing of forgiveness. He ends with the gladness of trust.
[01:00:26] Forgiven people can rejoice, not because life is painless, not because fatherhood is easy, not because marriage is simple, not because grief disappears, not because work is no longer a thing, or tiring, not because every relationship is restored overnight, but this, forgiven people
[01:00:47] rejoice because they are surrounded by the steadfast love of God. And this is where Romans 5 shines light on everything Psalm 32 has been teaching. This is what Roman 5, 1 says, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[01:01:14] That is the foundation.
[01:01:17] Peace with God is not some kind of vague inner calm.
[01:01:22] It's not merely a better emotional state.
[01:01:26] It is reconciliation with the holy God against whom we have sinned.
[01:01:31] We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
[01:01:34] Then he says something surprising.
[01:01:35] we even rejoice in suffering not because suffering is good in itself but because god who uses suffering to produce endurance and character and hope the gospel does not tell men come to jesus and life will stop being hard i wish it did you know how many people would be lining up out there
[01:01:59] right now kind of like uh going to dutch bros just lined up just out there just ready to come in if I get peace with God, then my life becomes easy. But in the difficulty, we can experience peace
[01:02:12] in our hearts, that peace that passes understanding. So Psalm 32 has this as steps to faith with God. Forgiveness, confession, refuge, instruction, and joy. Let me go through it again.
[01:02:34] forgiveness, confession, refuge, instruction, and joy. That's what Psalm 32 is telling us.
[01:02:46] That's the pathway. Not hiding, but confession. Not self-righteousness, but faith. Not performance, but grace. Not distance from God, but refuge in God. Not guilt as your identity, but forgiveness as your song that you sing. We all are carrying real weight in this life. Responsibility is real.
[01:03:13] The pressure is real. The failures may be real, but there is a deeper reality still in Christ.
[01:03:20] Forgiveness is real. Peace with God is real. Grace is real. Restoration is real. Hope is real.
[01:03:33] so you don't have to hide you don't have to pretend we don't have to carry guilt as though jesus did not die we do not have to build our identity identity on how well we are performing
[01:03:47] we need to come to the lord confess we need to receive christ we need to rest in peace with god walking in the instruction of god on the daily before your heavenly father today the challenge is to remove the mask and be real with him and walk in his peace let's pray
[01:04:17] father your grace and mercy are easy words to say but words that we have to grapple with because of the difficulty of this life we live in you've meant for us to walk with you in peace there is
[01:04:40] no sin, there is no problem, there is no difficulty that we face in this life that your mercy doesn't already cover if we will just confess to you and receive and hide in you. Help us to understand
[01:04:57] that the gospel teaches us we don't get ourselves right and then come to you. Father, the gospel teaches us that we come to you and you help make us right. So for those who have been listening to
[01:05:10] this today that are walking under a heaviness give them now that peace in their heart as they confess their need for you for some jesus holy name we pray amen would y'all stand in both rooms

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[01:05:34] as we sing again there is one gospel

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[01:05:37] amen i hope that uh eliano's is not mad at me but i mentioned dutch bros i'm probably getting an

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:07:54] email but that's okay the reason i say that is because as we did for mother's day we have a gift card for the fathers to say happy father's day on it they're right out there for you to pick up
[01:08:04] it is for a free drink at eliano's coffee and uh we just want a small token to say happy father's day to you we're so glad you're a part of this fellowship as we come together with one another
[01:08:16] well as we've always done we want to end our uh time together reading scripture uh out loud with one another, and this is from Romans, and we will place it on the screen, and it is Romans chapter
[01:08:30] 5 verse 1, and we will read this out loud together. God's Word says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Go with Him.
[01:36:15] So glad that you're here today, and happy Father's Day. So good that we're together. It is a happy Father's Day on kind of a special way. Some of you may already know, but some of you may
[01:36:26] not know that up until the wee hours of the morning, this building had zero power. And so a special thanks to the Duke Energy people who worked up until the late hours of night and making sure that the power was restored so that we could meet together in comfort
[01:36:43] of air conditioning and lighting. But also a special thank you to the amazing staff that I get to serve alongside, who worked up a plan B.
[01:36:51] And we were still going to meet.
[01:36:53] Don't know exactly how it was going to work out, but we were still going to meet.
[01:36:56] We had a plan.
[01:36:57] We were ready to roll with it.
[01:36:58] And so a lot of scurrying around yesterday trying to figure out what we were going to do if power was not back on.
[01:37:05] But praise God it is, and we're here together.
[01:37:07] And we get to worship the King of Kings.
[01:37:09] And today we're coming out of Psalm 32, and we're speaking specifically about the peace that God brings.
[01:37:16] Walking in that peace.
[01:37:18] And it will be a special message for all of us here on Father's Day.
[01:37:21] I want to start our time out as we get ready to join in with this amazing worship team here to sing praises to our King with a prayer.
[01:37:28] So if you would, join me and stand here in this room, in the youth center as well, as we stand and we pray to the Heavenly Father that our hearts would be made right before Him,
[01:37:38] before we sing praises to Him.
[01:37:39] Let's pray together.
[01:37:40] Father, we thank You so much for Your grace and Your mercy that You give to us, A mercy that goes beyond anything that we've ever done.
[01:37:48] No matter what we've done, your mercy is always more.
[01:37:52] So as we sing that to you this morning, hear our hearts and meet us here.
[01:37:57] And may the worship that we offer up to you be led by you and for you.
[01:38:01] So just hear our hearts and meet us where we are.
[01:38:04] For it's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

[01:38:44] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[01:38:44] Great job leading us, worship team.

[01:53:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:53:08] Sometimes I'm over there, and I'm singing the songs, and when the song ends, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to go up there and talk now.
[01:53:15] So that's kind of where I was just then.
[01:53:18] Amazing time to worship.
[01:53:19] Hey, we're going to be going through Psalm 32 in just a second, but before we do that, I want to kind of give a recap of this past week.
[01:53:26] We held Windshake Camp here on our campus, and we had a Windshake staff team, a crew of mostly college students that came through and helped us lead.
[01:53:36] We had around 350 kids attend this week.
[01:53:41] We had 142 volunteers serve throughout the week.
[01:53:45] Let's give it up for the volunteers.
[01:53:46] What an amazing, amazing thing.
[01:53:51] We had kind of a worship rally in here four or five times during the day, and not only is us having power today a small miracle, but the room smelling normal is kind of a miracle too. Just to be perfectly honest with you, there
[01:54:06] were some days I walked in and went, oh, I think I'll go back to my office. No, it was fun. We had a lot of fun. And you think, well, why do you do these types of things? Well, some of it's
[01:54:16] discipleship. It's to allow kids to know that being and walking in the faith is something that can be fun. It should be fun. It should be a kind of a hanging out together and being together. But the
[01:54:28] other side of that is we had 20 decisions for Christ this week. Isn't that amazing? And in addition to that, we had another 48 gospel conversations. And so all 60 of those we'll be following up with and finding out more, making sure that those who made a decision for Christ
[01:54:49] are following in, getting into a good discipleship strategy for their life to grow in their faith.
[01:54:55] But also those 48 gospel conversations where there were still questions lingering, We'll be following up with them as well to find out where they are in being drawn to salvation.
[01:55:07] So anyway, exciting times.
[01:55:08] Those of you who served, those of you who have helped make that happen, thank you so much.
[01:55:12] It was an amazing, amazing week.
[01:55:15] And you would say to yourself, you know, looking in the room, it doesn't really look like you had anything going on here this past week.
[01:55:21] And that's because of the amazing team that cleaned on Friday and got everything back to spick and span.
[01:55:28] People were washing the walls, and I kid you not.
[01:55:31] The walls were being washed, but the place looks amazing.
[01:55:35] And so just thank you for everyone who helped make such a great week for the kids, their families, and just an opportunity to be a part of that.
[01:55:42] It was a very, very neat week and greatly appreciated.
[01:55:47] Well, happy Father's Day.
[01:55:49] And you know what I did for Mother's Day?
[01:55:51] I kind of reserved back a few of the dad jokes.
[01:55:56] But I may have a list.
[01:56:00] Now, you've probably heard these.
[01:56:02] These are a list of ones that people sent me and said, hey, Father's Day is coming.
[01:56:06] I want to make sure you're well stocked.
[01:56:08] And so after some filtering, I'll let you understand what that means, I went through and pulled out some.
[01:56:15] Some of them are old ones, but they're just good ones.
[01:56:17] I want to kind of lean into that.
[01:56:19] And you say, well, why are you so big into dad jokes?
[01:56:22] Well, it all started when my oldest daughter was a little girl, and she walked into my room one day, and she had a shirt that was unbuttoned, and she was about this tall.
[01:56:30] and she said, dad, will you do this? And so I grabbed my shirt and went like that. She said, no, no, no, on me. And so I grabbed her shirt and went, that's where it all started. And there is,
[01:56:42] and you're going to think I'm making this up. There is scientific proof where dad jokes are prevalent in the home. The homes adjust to society better. So let that one rest with you.
[01:56:57] All right. So here we go. Some are semi-funny. Some are very funny. It just depends on what kind of mood you're in. What kind of mood are you in? All right. Here we go. My neighbor
[01:57:09] put new shingles on my roof for free. He said it was on the house. Did you hear the joke about paper? It's terrible. You know, if you can't laugh, don't moan. Why did the orange
[01:57:32] stopped halfway up the hill. He ran out of juice. In my career as a lumberjack, I've cut exactly 2,325 trees. Every time I chop one down, I keep a log. Dad, will you hand me my sunglasses?
[01:57:56] As soon as you hand me my dad glasses. You're writing them down. You know you are.
[01:58:05] Dad, did you get a haircut? No, I got them all cut. Okay. What did the drummer call his twin daughters. Anna one, Anna two. What do runners eat before a race? Nothing. They fast. Which bear
[01:58:34] is the most condescending? A panda. To whoever stole my copy of Microsoft Office, I will find you. You have my word. If you boil a funny bone, it becomes a laughing stock. That's humorous.
[01:59:00] All right. Thank you for allowing that. Thank you. There's more where that came from. But perhaps that's not why we're here. We're here today to hear a word from God in Psalm 32. I am convinced
[01:59:21] that there are people who walk in life, who claim Christ, but aren't quite actually experiencing the peace that God intends for you to walk in. So today we're talking about the pathway to peace, finding rest in God's forgiveness. We're going to be looking at Psalm 32 specifically.
[01:59:41] We will just barely allude to Romans 4 and 5, but know that Psalms 32 is mentioned in Romans 4 and 5. So when we go through the book of Romans, you will have a good working knowledge of Psalm 32
[01:59:53] when we get there. We start this August going through the book of Romans.
[01:59:59] But the gospel that forms us is something we've been going through this summer to get through kind of understanding what the gospel is. It's not just a gospel that sets us free. It's a gospel
[02:00:09] that we walk in. And it's my prayer that today when you leave this room, you'll understand a little bit deeper why I say you should remind yourself, you should tell yourself the gospel every morning that you wake up you should remind yourself of what the gospel means and and go
[02:00:29] through that in your mind yes it's important for you to have kind of a devotion time a quiet time reading scripture praying to god but as a part of that include what the gospel presentation is
[02:00:40] for you tell yourself the gospel presentation because i know for me personally i know that sometime during the day, I am going to stump my toe, both figuratively and in reality. I'm going to stump my toe in some way. I'm going to mess up. It's just the way life is. Perhaps for me,
[02:01:02] it's more often than some of you, but every day, I just know. I call it Daniel Goober moments.
[02:01:10] Like, I'm going to have a Goober moment. It's just what it is, and now the office has picked up on and they'll go, was that your Google moment?
[02:01:16] And I'm thinking, I'm hoping that's it today.
[02:01:18] I'm hoping that's all that's there.
[02:01:20] But the gospel is something that we're supposed to walk with.
[02:01:24] And today is kind of important for us on a day called Father's Day because for many, Father's Day is a day of gratitude, celebration, memory, kind of like a celebration of just getting to be a dad.
[02:01:39] But for some, Father's Day is incredibly complicated.
[02:01:45] Some are thankful for their father.
[02:01:47] Some are grieving their father.
[02:01:50] Some are missing a father who is gone.
[02:01:53] Some are carrying wounds from a father who was present physically but absent emotionally and spiritually.
[02:02:01] Some men in the room are dads who feel encouraged today.
[02:02:06] Others feel like you are barely holding it together.
[02:02:09] And if we're honest, there is a particular kind of weight that men carry today.
[02:02:16] It's been weight that we've carried throughout all of the generations of men, but it seems to be a little bit different in today's culture.
[02:02:24] The weight of responsibility, the weight of provision, the weight of leadership and decisions, the weight of knowing our list of failures, the weight of not knowing if we're doing enough, not being enough, the weight of knowing are we leading well enough, or are we loving well enough.
[02:02:43] And most men are not trained to say, I am not okay.
[02:02:50] We are trained and brought up to keep moving, get up, go to work, take care of it, fix the problem, pay the bill, handle the pressure, be strong, don't complain, and by all means, don't fall apart.
[02:03:03] Now, some of that is good.
[02:03:05] Responsibility is not a curse.
[02:03:07] Work is not evil.
[02:03:10] Strength is not wrong.
[02:03:12] And leadership is not a burden to resent.
[02:03:16] God created men with a purpose.
[02:03:21] He called Adam to work in the garden before sin ever entered the world.
[02:03:26] But sin changed the soil that we toil.
[02:03:34] After the fall, work that we do started fighting back.
[02:03:39] It became painful. Responsibility became heavy. Relationships became strained. Shame entered the human heart, both for male and females. And ever since then, men have been tempted to respond the same way Adam did in the garden. Hide, cover, blame, and keep distant from God. And Psalm 32
[02:04:05] shows us that hidden sin does not make a man stronger. It makes him weaker. It drains his soul.
[02:04:15] It dries up the strength. It turns the inner life into a summer drought. But this psalm also gives a pathway to peace. How many of us just need to know the pathway to peace with God? And you say,
[02:04:33] well, you know what? I've given my life to Christ. Shouldn't I experience peace? There's more to it.
[02:04:39] It's a daily thing. It's a daily walking with him to understand that peace with God. Not peace because life gets easier. Not peace because responsibility disappears. Not peace because every problem is solved. And certainly not peace because we have finally become impressive enough.
[02:04:57] but peace because sin is forgiven, guilt is removed, God is no longer our enemy, peace because we stop hiding from the only one that can actually restore our souls.
[02:05:16] So here's the big idea for where we're going today. This is where I hope we land. The peace people are searching for is not found by caring more, hiding better, or performing harder.
[02:05:28] but by coming clean before God and resting in the forgiveness secured through Christ.
[02:05:35] This is what we're aiming for. This is where we're headed.
[02:05:39] So Psalm 32 is a psalm of David and is the one of the great forgiveness.
[02:05:45] Now for context, some of you know it already, but you may not.
[02:05:49] Many scholars say that this psalm was written after David's well-known sin.
[02:05:57] The one that you say, how could he be considered a man after God's own heart, after what he did?
[02:06:03] You find it in 1 Samuel, the account of where David had his nation at war, his men were at war, he stayed back. While he stayed back, he actually admired another man's wife, brought her into his
[02:06:17] home, she got pregnant, and then he tried to cover it up by having that husband come home so that he could cover up the fact that she was pregnant.
[02:06:27] Well, it has to be Uriah. That was his name.
[02:06:29] But Uriah, out of loyalty to the cause, said, I am not going to be with my wife when my men are out in the battlefield.
[02:06:39] And so then David was confronted by a prophet, and for a year he lamented, a year of struggling with this.
[02:06:49] Then we read Psalm 32.
[02:06:51] So scholars are saying this was written after that transgression.
[02:06:55] after that problem. And I wanted to tell you that context so that you could understand that just like the first song we sang in here today, no matter the depth of our sin, His mercy is more.
[02:07:08] He will cover what we have. We do not have to walk in guilt and shame. We do not have to walk on the daily of just carrying a heavy guilt and shame in our lives because where we failed.
[02:07:21] And I just kind of want to kind of say this as a side note and everything. Often, you don't have to tell a man where he's failed because the moment he fails he knows we just hide it well
[02:07:34] you say well you're acting like nothing happened that's because on the inside is a hurricane but on the outside i'm cool calm and collected but on the inside i'm dying a slow death so if you feel like that that's going on just pray for that person because most men and you
[02:07:55] know what I'm talking about. When we fail, we know we did. And we're like, oh, that was not good.
[02:08:07] But here's what I want us to understand. The blessed life is not the life of the sinless man, but the life of the forgiven man. So I want us to look at three things. The peace of being
[02:08:22] forgiven, the misery of staying hidden, and the freedom of walking with God. Number one, the peace of being forgiven. David begins with a word that probably would surprise us, knowing where he's coming from, but he uses the word blessed. The word means more than just a
[02:08:40] happy, shallow, emotional sense. It means favored, secured, well off before God. It's not just, you blessed me by giving me that donut. It is, I am blessed. It is a security before God. I want
[02:08:58] you to understand the depth of that word. So, let's look at that, Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2.
[02:09:03] Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and whose spirit there is no deceit. David uses the word blessed. He's not saying blessed is the one who never failed. He's not saying blessed is the
[02:09:28] man who has a perfect record. He's not saying blessed is the father who never lost their temper, never neglected prayer, never made a selfish decision, never wounded his family, never hid behind work, never wasted time, never carried a secret sin. He is saying blessed is the
[02:09:46] one whose transgression is forgiven. That means the blessed man is not the man with nothing to confess. The blessed man is the man whose sin has been dealt with by God. David uses three words
[02:10:03] here to talk about the sin, transgression, sin, and iniquity. Transgression is rebellion. It's crossing the line that God has drawn. Sin is missing the mark. It's falling short of what God's holy design is. Iniquity is crookedness. It's distortion. It's the bentness of our nature
[02:10:25] and our actions that are kind of self-focused. But David is not minimizing sin. He's not saying blessed is the man who's forgiven. He's not minimizing sin. He's not saying everyone makes mistakes, so don't worry about it. What he's painting the picture of is that we have a real
[02:10:43] problem. All of us have rebelled. All of us have fallen short. And all of us have a selfish desire within our hearts. And that's not just for the men. That's all of us. I wanted to clarify that.
[02:10:59] I knew you knew it already, but I thought I'd point it out. David uses three beautiful words, though, to cover this. He says, transgression is forgiven. The word forgiven. He says, sin is covered. Not covered in the sense of being hidden by us, but covered by God,
[02:11:23] atoned for, dealt with. He says, the Lord does not count iniquity against the forgiven person.
[02:11:30] That is an accounting language. The debt is not credited to our account. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 4. Paul is explaining that we are not made right before God because of our works.
[02:11:46] We are made right because of what God has done for us, and by faith we're made right. He uses Abraham first as an illustration. He says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as
[02:11:59] righteousness. Then Paul brings in Psalm 32, talking about David, and he actually quotes it, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Paul says David was describing justification by faith before we ever even used that language. This is the gospel. God does not simply ignore
[02:12:25] sin. God does not pretend that sin does not matter. He doesn't lower His holiness so that we can feel better. Instead, God provides sinners with righteousness through Christ. That's what the forgiveness does. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived the righteous life we have not lived. He
[02:12:49] rose from the grave in victory, and all who turn from sin and trust in Him are forgiven, covered, counted righteous before God.
[02:13:00] That is why peace with God is not something that we build by performance.
[02:13:05] I'll eventually feel that peace with God.
[02:13:07] I think if you can't quite grasp peace with God it's because you don't fully understand it yet.
[02:13:13] It's not because you're not doing something right.
[02:13:16] It's because you've not thought deep enough about what the forgiveness truly means.
[02:13:24] Your deepest peace will never come from proving you are enough. The deepest peace for anyone is in this.
[02:13:37] God knows the truth about me, and in Christ, I am forgiven. In fact, let's read that together out loud. You ready? God knows the truth about me, and in Christ, I am forgiven. This does not
[02:13:54] make anybody passive. It makes them whole. A forgiven man can begin to become a faithful man.
[02:14:05] A forgiven father can stop parenting out of insecurity and start leading out of grace.
[02:14:11] A forgiven husband can stop defending himself long enough to repent. A forgiven believer can stop living under the constant fear of being exposed because he has already brought his sin into the light before God. David begins with blessing because forgiveness restores the
[02:14:33] soul. And some of you, I'm sure, came in here today exhausted, not simply because life is hard, but because guilt is heavy. There is guilt from what you did. There is guilt from what you didn't
[02:14:53] do, maybe. Maybe it's from something you said. Maybe it's from who you become. Maybe it's something you're hiding. Guilt from what you fear would happen if people knew the whole story.
[02:15:06] Psalm 32 says there is blessedness available to the guilty people, but it's not found in denial.
[02:15:13] It is found in forgiveness. So number one, the peace of being forgiven. Number two, the misery of staying hidden. David gets personal here. He's starting to tell his own story.
[02:15:29] Psalm 32 verse 3. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
[02:15:39] For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
[02:15:46] Selah. Selah simply means pause and think about that. Let that set in. I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you
[02:16:06] forgave the iniquity of my sin. Let that sink in. So he says, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. I was groaning all day long. But the key there was keeping silent. It's not a being quiet
[02:16:26] before God in worship. It's a silence of concealment, the silence of refusal, the silence of a man who will not confess before the Lord. He kept silent. He did not bring it into the light.
[02:16:40] He did not name it before God. He didn't repent. He did not stop hiding. And notice what happened.
[02:16:47] It says his bones wasted away. He groaned all day long. This is not just spiritual language. David is describing how unconfessed sin affects the whole person. Unconfessed sin affects every aspect of our lives, our soul, our body, our mind, our emotions, our relationships, our sleep,
[02:17:10] how we worship, how we lead, how we do our work is impacted by this.
[02:17:19] Many times people assume that hiding sin preserves strength. Men want to be strong. They want to be perceived as strong. And so hiding sin helps us be stronger. But David says hiding sin drains strength. Verse 4 says, God's hand was heavy upon him. David's realizing the heaviness of God's hand
[02:17:41] was not out of a punishment. Here's the picture that we paint. We say, I sin, God punishes.
[02:17:50] There could be some of that. There are some scriptural things that back that up, right? But that's not what's happening here. What David is recognizing is that hand was heavy because God was saying, don't get comfortable in what you are being destroyed by.
[02:18:09] Don't try to make peace by the very thing that is destroying you.
[02:18:13] His hand was heavy.
[02:18:14] It would be like a dad you know when you've seen your kids playing out in the yard and they start getting a little bit close to the road and you say their name and they're not listening and they have to get a little bit closer to the road
[02:18:26] and finally you say their first, middle, and last name.
[02:18:29] Anybody have PTSD when your full name is spoken by your parents?
[02:18:34] When my parents would say my full name, I was like, I'm going to the grave.
[02:18:40] I'm just dead.
[02:18:42] But it wasn't always out of punishment because I'd done something wrong.
[02:18:46] It was out of providing safety for me.
[02:18:50] You know, the child's playing in the yard.
[02:18:51] They're getting closer to the road, and you say their name.
[02:18:53] They're kind of not listening because they're so into their game.
[02:18:55] And then finally, out of a sternness, you say their name.
[02:18:58] and they look at you like it's because you're trying to protect the heavy hand of god is a merciful hand of god it is showing us mercy and that's what david is pointing out for us
[02:19:13] to don't make peace with the very thing that is destroying you don't try to justify it away don't try to simplify it don't try to sweep it under the rug confess it to god bring it out to
[02:19:28] him. Some of the heaviness that we feel in life comes from life because life is just hard.
[02:19:36] But some of the heaviness we feel is because we have unconfessed sin. It's the heaviness of knowing that we are not walking honestly before God. David says, my strength was dried up as by the heat of the summer. That is what hidden sin does. It dries a man up on the inside.
[02:19:59] He may still function.
[02:20:00] He may still show up.
[02:20:02] He still may smile, provide, and serve.
[02:20:06] But he may still even know the right words, but inside, it's a drought.
[02:20:12] And this is where we need to speak kind of gently to all of us.
[02:20:17] Because we're often tempted to manage appearances rather than deal with the heart.
[02:20:27] We want to put on an appearance.
[02:20:28] We want to put on kind of that happy face that everything's okay instead of just dealing with the heart.
[02:20:35] God wants to go straight to the heart.
[02:20:38] Somewhere along the way, I'm not sure where in my own life, but I know you have experienced it too, because somewhere along the way in our journey of walking with Christ, we start learning that it is easier to just mask who we are and that we're even struggling at all.
[02:20:57] and it looks similar to this. Does that look anything like me? Somewhere along the way, we've thought to ourselves that it's better to put on a mask to other people. Because if I let person A know about the struggle that I have in my heart about this particular thing,
[02:21:35] person A is going to judge me. You know why we learned that? Because we judge. Because we have learned that if I can point out your iniquity, then nobody's looking at mine. And so we start
[02:21:53] wearing masks. And we become more intrigued with how it appears and how it looks. Families, if you've got struggles going on with your kids and you say, I am so embarrassed. I can never show my face in the church again because of what my child did. Rest easy. There is not a single
[02:22:18] family in the world that is perfect, not a single one. Every family behind closed doors is grappling with life. God's interested in the heart, and He says, when you come before Me, take the mask off.
[02:22:37] Stop pretending with Me. We think that confession sometimes is something that we can kind of pretend with Him. We look responsible while being spiritually distant. We look strong while being prayerless. We look successful while being angry. We look composed while being ashamed. We
[02:22:59] look present while being emotionally absent. We look moral while hiding sin. But God is not after the appearance of us. God is after the heart of who we are. And the pathway to peace is not
[02:23:13] pretending. It is confession. 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
[02:23:30] of my sin. That means that when we're coming before God, we're not putting on a mask and saying, well, you know, this happened, and therefore I did this and this and this. Confession is not
[02:23:43] telling something God, something He already, like, He's like, oh, I didn't realize that.
[02:23:50] Confession is actually agreeing with God something that he already knows.
[02:23:56] He's looking to the heart.
[02:23:57] He's saying, when you come before him, take the mask off.
[02:24:03] Stop trying to pretend in front of God.
[02:24:08] Notice the movement that we see here in this psalm.
[02:24:11] David acknowledges.
[02:24:13] He says, I did not cover.
[02:24:14] I will confess.
[02:24:15] He stops hiding.
[02:24:16] He stops covering.
[02:24:17] He stops pretending.
[02:24:18] And what does God do?
[02:24:20] It says, you forgave.
[02:24:24] That's pretty stunning because it's not, you don't see in here, I confess and God made me suffer for six more months.
[02:24:32] I confess and God reluctantly considered forgiving me.
[02:24:37] He doesn't say I confess and God said, well, go back and try a little harder.
[02:24:42] He said, I confessed and you forgave.
[02:24:47] This is not because confession earns forgiveness.
[02:24:50] Confession receives what God delights to give through his mercy.
[02:24:57] Confession is not informing God.
[02:24:59] It's agreeing with Him.
[02:25:01] Here's what confession looks like in text.
[02:25:04] Lord, I am done defending this.
[02:25:09] I am done minimizing this.
[02:25:13] I am done renaming this.
[02:25:16] I am done hiding this.
[02:25:19] You are right, and I need mercy.
[02:25:23] That's what confession is.
[02:25:24] And here is the grace of God. When a sinner stops covering their sin, God covers it.
[02:25:33] Isn't that funny? We work to cover our sin, and it's exhausting, and it makes us dry.
[02:25:43] But when we confess that sin to God, the thing that we wanted to happen to the sin to be covered up, God does for us. We work to cover it, but when we confess, He covers it. Adam and Eve
[02:26:01] tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. I mean, tried to hide from God, but God covered it with fig leaves. Sorry. Adam and Eve tried to cover with fig leaves, but God killed an animal to
[02:26:12] cover it for them. That's where I was going with that. Follow me? All right, good. Daniel Goober moment. Stumped my toe every day. That was just one of them. David tried to cover his iniquity
[02:26:27] for a year, and he became miserable. And then he confessed, and God covered his sin.
[02:26:35] Christ went to the cross so that our sin would not merely be hidden, but atoned for.
[02:26:42] Jesus was exposed in shame so sinners could be covered in grace. That means confession is not walking into condemnation. For the believer, confession is returning to the Father who has already provided mercy in Christ. And this matters for us. This helps us in our steps with peace with
[02:27:04] God. We fear that repentance will make us look or appear or be weak, but in Scripture, repentance is not weakness. Repentance is the fact and the act of someone who stopped lying to themselves.
[02:27:21] It takes no courage to hide. Adam did that in the garden, but grace makes people honest.
[02:27:30] A restored man can say, I was wrong.
[02:27:35] A restored father can say, please forgive me.
[02:27:40] A restored husband can say, I have not led well.
[02:27:45] A restored believer can say, Lord, I need you.
[02:27:49] And that kind of humility does not destroy leadership.
[02:27:53] It deepens it.
[02:27:55] Men, your family does not need someone perfect leading them.
[02:28:06] They need you to be honest, repentant, and anchored in grace.
[02:28:13] Our children do not need a father who pretends that he never fails.
[02:28:20] They need to see a man and how he reacts when he does fail.
[02:28:27] Do we hide? Do we blame? Do we get defensive?
[02:28:30] Do we excuse or do we confess, repent, receive grace, and walk forward?
[02:28:36] The peace of God begins to restore the soul when the heart stops hiding.
[02:28:43] Remove the mask.
[02:28:45] Number three, the freedom of walking with God.
[02:28:50] After David experiences forgiveness, he turns outward and he begins teaching others.
[02:28:55] And he says, I will teach others.
[02:28:56] And then he also allows God to speak through this psalm so that God can also say what he would do in this part.
[02:29:04] David is basically saying, don't wait, don't delay.
[02:29:06] Do not assume there will be a better season for repentance.
[02:29:10] Do not keep living at a distance from God.
[02:29:12] Psalm 32, verse 6.
[02:29:14] Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.
[02:29:19] Surely in the rush of great waters they will not reach him.
[02:29:23] You are a hiding place for me.
[02:29:24] You preserve me from trouble.
[02:29:26] You surround me with shouts of deliverance.
[02:29:30] Let that sink in.
[02:29:32] I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.
[02:29:36] I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
[02:29:40] Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curbed with a bit and a bridle, or it will not stay near you.
[02:29:49] Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
[02:29:56] Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
[02:30:06] Peace comes foundationally when we understand that we can walk in the grace and the mercy of God.
[02:30:18] Expectations that we have placed on our lives beat on us.
[02:30:23] The difficulty that we face in life wears us down.
[02:30:31] Some hide at work.
[02:30:32] Some hide in anger.
[02:30:34] Some hide in entertainment.
[02:30:36] Some hide in control.
[02:30:37] Some hide in silence.
[02:30:39] Some hide in secret.
[02:30:40] some hide in achievement some hide in withdrawal from god but none of those hiding places preserve the soul david says god himself becomes the refuge of the forgiven and then god says i will instruct
[02:30:59] you i will teach you in the way that you should go i will counsel you with my eye upon you this is the voice of god guiding his people forgiveness is not the end of the journey it is the beginning
[02:31:10] of a restored fellowship and relationship with God. God does not forgive so that we can wander aimlessly. He forgives so that we can walk with Him. Do you feel the peace of God as you're going
[02:31:28] through life? If you're not quite there, I can encourage you in this statement. God is not the one stiff-arming. He wants and desires for us to be able to walk in peace with Him. Strength
[02:31:48] receives instruction. David says, do not be like the horse or the mule. Do not make your life harder by resisting God. Then it says, many are the sorrows of the wicked. The contrast is clear.
[02:32:09] He's saying that sin heaps on. Unconfessed sin heaps on. It doesn't mean that believers in Christ don't suffer. We do. We have some difficulties that we deal with, but it just means that the sin, especially unconfessed sin, multiplies sorrow in the end. But steadfast love
[02:32:30] surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. The word steadfast love is covenant love, loyal love, the faithful mercy of God toward His people. David began the psalm with the blessing of forgiveness, and he ends with the gladness of trust. Here's what he's saying. Forgiven people rejoice,
[02:32:54] because they are surrounded by the steadfast love of God. That's where I want to walk.
[02:33:04] I want to walk in the steadfast love of God on the daily. Romans 5.1 says this, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the foundation. Peace with God is not some kind of vague inner calm. It's not
[02:33:27] just simply a better emotional state. It is reconciliation with the holy God against whom we have sinned. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So this is the flow. This is the
[02:33:45] steps of peace with God in Psalm 32. Five words, forgiveness, confession, refuge, instruction, and joy. That's what you see in the flow of this. It begins with forgiveness. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven. It moves through confession. I acknowledge my sin to you.
[02:34:09] It leads to refuge. You are my hiding place. It grows through instruction. I will instruct you and teach you, and then it ends in joy. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice. That's the pathway.
[02:34:23] Not hiding, but confession. Not self-righteousness, but faith. Not performance, but grace. Not distance from God, but refuge in God. Not guilt as your identity, but forgiveness as your song.
[02:34:39] I realize that today people are carrying real weight. The responsibility is real. The pressure is real. The failures may be real, but there is a deeper reality even still. In Christ, forgiveness is real peace with god is real grace is real restoration is real hope is real
[02:35:08] come to the lord confess what needs to be confessed receive what christ has secured and rest in the peace of god let's pray father i'm thankful for your word i'm thankful for what it does for me to restore my soul. Help me to be a person that doesn't hide from you,
[02:35:48] but actually comes face to face with you. Not pretending, not excusing, but just coming face to face with you, confessing in my heart where I know I need mercy. Let me rejoice. Let me experience your blessing. And as I hide in you, fill my life with joy. For it's in your name I

[02:36:21] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_06]
[02:36:21] free. Amen. Would you all stand here and in the youth center as we sing our final song,

[02:36:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[02:36:30] There Is One Gospel. That's okay. That's a good one. Well, as a small token to our dads that are

[02:38:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[02:38:52] in the house, we want to, like we did for Mother's Day, offer a gift card for Elianos. So swing by and pick that up. It is just a small token to say that we're thinking about you, we're praying for
[02:39:03] you, and it gives us an opportunity to bless a local business as well. So pick that up sometime sometime before July 30th. Use it because the account will be closed after that. And so don't
[02:39:15] try to use it after that. It just won't work. But we want to say happy Father's Day to you.
[02:39:20] And as we always do, we want to end our time together reading scripture before we go out into the world. Romans chapter 5 verse 1 that was already read. Let's read it out loud together.
[02:39:30] God's word says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[02:39:39] Walk with Him.