Happy Is the One Whose...

Matt Horine

Psalms • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Introduction

In 1980, an artist by the name of Allan Bridge began a social experiment with the people of New York City. Using a new technology; the answering machine, he posted flyers all over the city which said, “Attention amateurs, professionals, criminals, blue-collar, white collar. You have wronged people. It is to people that you must apologize, not to the state, not to God. Get your misdeeds off your chest!”

He encouraged people to call into this number posted on the flyer anonymously and then share all their misdeeds. He wanted them to share all the things they had done to harm people, to hurt people, confess their sins basically. Don’t give your name, don’t let on who you are and then at some point he would play back these apologies publicly so that the people of New York City could hear.

It did not take long before the phone started ringing. People were calling in at a frantic rate. People were apologizing for not reporting a crime they had witnessed. Others apologized for making life difficult for others. A little girl once called in to apologize for hitting a dog.

One man called in to apologize for a car accident that he was involved in. Apparently, he had skidded on some ice and crashed into a greenhouse. He took off but found out that the owner was out almost $25,000 from all the damages. And here’s what he said on the line: “I want to make it right, but I just don’t have the money for it.”

This phone number remained open from 1980-1995. Over the course of those 15 years thousands and thousands of people called in to “get things off their chest.” Allan Bridge was referred to as the “secular priest” of New York City. Somehow seeking to offer forgiveness through the catharsis of a public yet anonymous confession.

Now, this social experiment failed to truly grant forgiveness and freedom. We’ll talk about why in a bit but what it did do was reveal the weight or burden that sin puts on a person and the desperate need for forgiveness and atonement. The human heart yearns to be set free from the chains or shackles of sin. And make no mistake, that’s all sin does.

Do you yearn to be free? Do you yearn to be happy? Do you yearn for your wrongdoing and sin to be paid for and forgiven? Have you gathered here this morning carrying a weight on your shoulders, the weight of not being good enough, the weight of constantly falling short of God’s perfection, the weight of knowing you can’t be perfect, the weight of trying with all your might to do right but continually slipping up? Do you want to be set free? Do you want to be forgiven? Do you want to be happy? Then let’s learn together from Psalm 32 where the true gift of freedom and forgiveness and happiness is found and rejoice in it.

And it’s not found by calling a phone number and anonymously confessing your sins to a recorded answering machine. It’s not found through religious observations. It’s not found through charitable work or right living. It’s found through the finished work of Christ on the cross, the true payment for our sins. We need our sins to be covered, we need our debt to be paid for.

David opens this Psalm with the word, “Blessed.” It’s the Hebrew word, “asre” (aash-ray) which literally means “happy.” And so, he’s opening with a very leading line, “happy is the one whose…” Do you almost feel a leaning into this text? “Happy is the one whose…what? Tell me!”

And so, I’ve broken this Psalm down into three parts today to answer that question or that longing. “Happy is the one whose…”

We’ll address:

1. The Need.

What is our need?

2. The Heart.

What is required to find happiness? What’s the process? What do we do?

3. The Result.

What’s our life look like after the deepest needs, longings, and yearnings of our heart has been met?

Alright, so let’s tackle:

1. The Need.

Follow along with me in verses 1-2 again and remember that the word “blessed” means “happy.”

Psalm 32:1-2, 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.

Let’s just answer the question quickly and plainly. What is humanity’s most desperate need? To be forgiven.

Now why is this such a desperate need of ours? Because as David says here, we are transgressors, we are sinners filled with iniquity and deceit. And all of this is committed against a holy God.

Let’s just take these words one by one to build the case against us.

We are transgressors.

The word “transgression” has to do with rebellion and betrayal. God created us in his image, as ones who belong to him and we have rejected him, betrayed him, rebelled against him. We have spat in his face and said I will not submit to you, I will not follow you, I am going to do what I want to do. I am king, I am god, get out of my way. We’ve slapped the lion in the face and dared it to make a move.

That is what it means to be a transgressor.

We are sinners.

The word sin here is the Hebrew word, “hata-a(h).” It means to miss the mark. The Greek equivalent used often throughout the New Testament is the word, “hamartia” which references fatal flaws within us that ultimately lead to our downfall.

In Arthur Miller’s play, “The Death of a Salesman,” Willy Loman, the main character is obsessed with finding success as defined by the American Dream and yet throughout his life he faces trials, setbacks and struggles, family problems which leave him yearning for and wanting more. His pride and misguided view of success leaves him discouraged and depressed where ultimately, he takes his own life because he saw himself more valuable to his family dead than alive.

It’s a tragic story of a fatal flaw which ultimately led to his downfall.

We are sinners. We have missed the mark of God’s perfect standard of holiness. We have and will always fall short.

Romans 3:23 says it this way,

Romans 3:23, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But not only are we transgressors, not only are we sinners, but we’re also,

Filled with iniquity.

This word means we’re crooked, we’re bent, we’re misguided, we’ve drifted off course, we’re perverse. We’ve taken God’s good design and perverted it. In our culture we’re seeing not only the public acceptance of this perversion of God’s design but a glad celebration of it.

All these descriptions of our fallenness describe the different facets of our sin. The fact that we are transgressors describes that our relationship with God is fractured. The fact that we are sinners reveals that we’ve fallen short of God’s law. The fact that we’re filled with iniquity reveals sins effect on us.

We are needy and what we most desperately need is God’s forgiveness. The most shocking reality of these first two verses is not the severity of the need or the ugliness of our sin but the depth of our redemption and restoration and pathway toward full forgiveness.

All our transgressions can be forgiven. To be forgiven is to have a weight lifted and carried away. It’s the reality that we bear the weight no longer.

Our sin, David says, is “covered.” This has everything to do with the atonement. Meaning, what was once wrong has been made right. On the cross Jesus became the sacrifice for our sin. His blood, his death became the payment and so we, through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are covered in his righteousness, his right-standing which now restores us back to God.

Lastly, David says the Lord does not count our iniquities against us. This means our sin is not on our account any longer.

If you spent the next month racking up charge after charge on your credit card you would rightly expect that the next month when that statement comes, you’d see a mountain of debt that you would have to pay back. But imagine opening that statement and seeing a balance of zero because someone paid the debt and any time you used that card again the debt would not be credited to your account but to the one who was paying it off.

That’d be a pretty liberating feeling, wouldn’t it? This is what it means to not have the Lord count our iniquities against us. Not only has our past sin been forgiven, but also our present and future sins are no longer credited to our account because Jesus has paid off every last one of them.

Colossians 2:13-14, And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

The debt is paid, and it is paid in full. Do you understand more clearly now why David says, “happy is the one whose…”

But now let’s look at the process or the pathway toward this happiness. It has everything to do with,

The Heart.

How do we respond to our fallenness?

What happens when our heart is stubborn or prideful in the face of our sin and depravity? What happens when we refuse to acknowledge our sin or we rationalize it or justify it? What happens when we don’t deal with our sin.

Look what happened to David in verse 3,

Psalm 32:3-4, 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.

We have some flowers in our backyard that just sit in the sun all day long, no shade whatsoever. And if I forget to water them for a day or two, I’ll come home, and they are all shriveled up and drooping until I give them some water. They need it to remain healthy and alive.

What David is saying here is that if he’s not resting in the sufficiency and goodness of his God then he withers away. And so, listen to what I’m about to say here. It’s not the confession of sin that is life-giving, it’s the forgiveness that comes through the power of the gospel.

Those New Yorkers that would call that apology line and confess what they had done to an answering machine were not finding any relief after they hung up the phone. Why? A few reasons. 1) They weren’t being forgiven. The debt of their actions still weighed on them. They still carried the burden of their wrongdoing. 2) They were confessing to total strangers and not to the ones they had offended. They weren’t making right what they had wronged.

(Illust. – one half of the auditorium vs. the other half)

In Psalm 51, we have recorded a prayer of confession by David and in that Psalm he says in his prayer to God that his sin was against God and God only. Now, for those who know the story behind Psalm 51, you know David offended many people. He had committed adultery. You could argue potentially even rape. He used his power and title as king to get what he wanted from another woman. He then covered it up by having her husband killed. So, the list of David’s wickedness in just this one instance is pretty long and ugly and yet, he says to God, against and you alone have I sinned.

Our sin is ultimately an offense against a holy God. It isn’t that we don’t seek to make things right with fellow brothers and sisters, but ultimately any sin is an offense against the God of the universe and when we do not acknowledge that reality and find grace through the power of the gospel, we will wither and waste away.

And that’s why in verse 5 David says, “I acknowledge my sin to you., I did not cover my iniquity, I will confess.”

A heart that finds happiness in the Lord is one that lives openly and honestly with God. It’s one that acknowledges sin for what it is and doesn’t seek to excuse it away or justify it. A heart that finds happiness doesn’t run from their sin or try to hide it but one that confesses it and then finds forgiveness.

There’re are many reasons why we fail to confess our sin.

1. Pride

2. Arrogance

3. Insecurity

4. Fear

But all of these have at their root a failure to understand and believe the gospel. All these reasons elevate man as savior and remove Jesus from the picture.

When was the last time you confessed your sin before the Lord? And not in a general way, like we typically do. Most of us recognize that we’re sinners but when was the last time you confessed your specific sin of selfishness, pride, arrogance, anger, lust, divisiveness, gossip? When was the last time you asked a trusted brother or sister in Christ to reveal to you potential patterns of sin that you may be blind to?

Happy is the one whose sins are forgiven.

Charles Spurgeon once said,

“It does not spoil your happiness to confess your sin. The unhappiness is in not making the confession.”

And that’s what we’re after here right? Joy. Peace. Hope.

Listen to the calmness of David’s soul in verse 7.

Psalm 32:7, You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance.

That’s his heart after confession. That’s his heart after receiving mercy and forgiveness. That’s a soul that is unshaken and steady.

Do you not desire rest for your weary soul? Confess your sins, turn from them, and find mercy and forgiveness at the cross of Christ.

This is,

The Result.

Verse 10,

Psalm 32:10-11, Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

God’s love is steadfast and surrounds those who hope in him. And so, one of the results of a heart that confesses sin is it is filled with the love of God the Father. His love will always overpower our faults and shortcomings. He is always willing and eager to forgive.

But we also see that one of the results of a heart that confesses and hopes in the gospel is joy itself. Here David commands us to be glad.

I was joking with a friend the other day. We had both taken our kids to Disney over the last year and so we were talking about the cost of the trip itself and how angry we get with our kids if they start whining or complaining and what we typically do as parents is tell our kids, “you will be happy!” ”You will enjoy this whether you like it or not. We paid good money for your happiness so put a smile on that face!”

What’s typically happening in those moments with our kids is a certain need not being met. So, they might just be overstimulated with everything. Maybe they’re hot or hungry or tired and so they whine. There’s a need and it’s not being met. But our response is, suck it up, you will be happy anyway.

That’s not the command here at the end of this Psalm. Just be happy whether you like it or not. Put a smile on that face. What David is saying is, in the Lord, because of Christ, all our needs are met. With him, we’re never hungry, never thirsty, never tired, never in need, he is our all in all. And so, be glad in that truth. Happy is the one whose sin is forgiven.