Exposure Therapy

Sermon Transcript

Two statements that seem safe to say about happiness: Everyone wants it, and nobody wakes up every day already having it. Maybe in the summer you get closer, but what about those dark, cold Philadelphia winters? We want to be happy–what is the doorway to it? Some might say better health, more money, less stress, better friendships. Perhaps a Christian would say more holiness, more discipline, deeper fellowship. We could find an element of truth in some of these answers, but the Psalm on which we are focusing today gives a different answer. It ends with a call to great joy: Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice…Shout for joy! Who doesn’t want that? And yet the pathway is an unexpected one. Far from the achievement of our own success or our own righteousness opening the door to joy, we learn in this Psalm that Confession of sin is the doorway to joy. Do you think of confession of sin that way? I can’t imagine any of us naturally do. If anything we resist confession of sin; it feels like an enemy to happiness. It typically makes us feel worse about ourselves to confess our sins, and yet this Psalm tells us that very thing is the doorway to real joy. It shows us this by showing us the blessing of forgiveness, the urgency of confession, the importance of humility, and the response of joy.

 

The blessing of forgiveness

 

Our Psalm begins with a pronouncement of blessing—blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. To ascribe blessedness to someone is to ascribe to them a deep and stable happiness—joy and peace. We all want that, but most kind of guess at how to attain it. They feel drawn to achievement in their career, family life, adventure seeking, romance, appearance, you name it…and for any of these goals, there are all kinds of literature and techniques to help you achieve them. But what almost no one will do today is try to tell someone else what the really blessed life would be for them. The assumption is that it’s up to you to decide what you really want, and the best others can do is help you attain it, which of course leaves open the possibility that you could spend your whole life trying to attain something, only to get it and realize that it didn’t deliver the joy and peace you thought it would.

 

But scripture is bolder than that. Scripture has the audacity to claim that all humans share a common humanity that was created a certain way, such that it won’t run on just anything. If you try to put water in a gasoline tank, you will not enjoy a blessed driving experience, no matter how pure the water. So scripture doesn’t just give us techniques we can use to attain our vision of the blessed life—it tells us what the blessed life is. You want a life of deep joy and peace? Here’s what you need: 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.

 

Three different words are used for sin in these verses, as are three different words used for forgiveness. For sin we have transgression, sin, and iniquity. Transgression refers to a rebellious act that crosses a boundary God has put in place. God has given you certain possessions, but God has given someone else other possessions. If you stretch out your hand and cross the boundary between what is yours and what is theirs by stealing, or even if in your heart you want what is theirs to be yours, those are transgressions, violations of the command not to steal and not to covet, respectively. Sin is a more general term and refers to any missing of the mark of perfection—so sin is not just the voluntary, premeditated, intentional transgression of a law you know to be God’s law. Sin is any lack of conformity unto the image and glory of God in which we were created. God doesn’t just command us not to steal, for example—he commands us to be generous. Someone may not steal and therefore not transgress that command, but if they are still stingy at heart, there is some lack of conformity in them to the law of God. And finally, iniquity speaks to the guilt, the defilement, the pollution or deformity of sin. Sin is not only a violation of the law; it is ugly, a derangement of the image of God in which we were made, and it justly incurs God’s sentence of condemnation.

 

It’s interesting, then, that the Psalmist doesn’t just say, “Blessed is the one who never transgresses, who never sins, and who has no iniquity for the LORD to count against him.” Certainly such a human would be blessed, but the Psalmist knew that such a human didn’t exist! Do you know that too? Nobody claims to be perfect, but do you really believe you are guilty in the sight of God of transgression, sin, and iniquity? If you are here today and you are not a Christian, perhaps you are sincerely wondering, “What do I do that is so bad?” The basic place the Bible would start to answer that question would be with what Jesus himself called the great and first commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matt 22:37-38). The idea is that there is a real God who made you, and deep down, you know him, but like all of us, you suppress that knowledge of him. The website PsyPost.org published an article earlier this month that summarized the findings of a study published in the journal Intelligence that finds people with higher cognitive ability have weaker moral foundations. The results of the study support a model literally entitled the “Morality Suppression Model.” The article suggests that “This could reflect a broader pattern in which smart people use their reasoning skills to downplay moral norms that constrain behavior.” In other words, if we have a moral intuition against a certain behavior, but we also want to engage in the behavior, we use our reasoning skills to suppress the moral intuition and justify the behavior.

 

Well the Bible teaches that we have all been born with a moral intuition that we ought to love the God who made us, but since that would constrain our behavior to obey him, we use our reasoning skills, however developed they are, to suppress that moral intuition. For some, that means denying belief in God altogether. More commonly, it means redefining him into a being who basically lets us do what we want but still rewards us in the end as long as we don’t do anything heinous like commit murder. Whatever the case may be, the point is this: None of us love God naturally, and all of us still fall short of loving him perfectly. That’s what we do that is so bad. If the one who is blessed is the one who has no transgression, sin, or iniquity, then none of us will be blessed.

 

But what’s amazing about this passage is that it holds out the possibility of blessing to those who have transgression, sin, or iniquity, because those transgressions can be forgiven, those sins can be covered, and that iniquity can not be counted against us. The first word for forgiveness in verse 1 is just translated “forgiven,” though more literally it means to “bear” or “take.” Here our transgressions are depicted like a load we bear, but when God forgives them, he takes the load off us. The next word is “cover,” and here we could think of the story in the book of Genesis when Cain murdered his brother Abel, and God said to Cain that the voice of his brother’s blood is crying to him from the ground (Gen 4:10). Before God covers our sins, they cry out for our condemnation. But once they are covered, their cry is silenced. When God looks at us, he no longer sees our sins, for he himself has covered them. Then finally in verse 2 we have this idea of the LORD not “counting” iniquity against the blessed man. We even use this language in our legal system today: “So and so was arrested on three counts of armed robbery.” When you sin, the LORD justly counts that sin against you, but here we see that when God forgives sin, he no longer counts it. It is removed from your account, from your record. As the description of sin is comprehensive in these verses, so is the description of forgiveness.

 

That’s the blessed life, David says: To have your transgressions forgiven, your sins covered, your iniquity no longer counted against you by God. He doesn’t say blessed is the one who is wealthy, blessed is the one who is healthy, blessed is the one who gets married and has lots of kids, blessed is the one with rich and lasting friendships, blessed is the one with the big house, or blessed is the one in the safe neighborhood. He says blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, against whom the LORD counts no iniquity. Why? Why does he think of that as the blessed life? He goes on to tell us why from his own experience beginning in verse 3.

 

He says when he kept silent, his bones wasted away through his groaning all day long, for day and night God’s hand was heavy upon him, and his strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. You may have noticed at the end of verse 2 that the blessed man is the one in whose spirit there is no deceit—what’s the opposite of that? It’s not one who sins; we all do that—it’s one who keeps silent about his sin. It’s one who is trying to present themselves as a basically good person without any transgression, sin, or iniquity that actually matters. If you asked them whether they’re perfect, they’d say no of course not, but if you asked them to name a specific sin with which they routinely struggle, they’d have a hard time citing a specific example. It’s one who keeps silent about their sin. David says he tried that, but his experience was not pleasant. He wasn’t silent about everything—he mentions groaning plenty in those days, but never by way of confessing his sins. As one commentator on this passage, Christopher Ash, put it, “It is easy to groan, to complain about our lot in life, to grumble about our sufferings, to murmur at the faults of others, yet to remain silent about our own sins before God.”

 

But that didn’t go well for David because it’s not as though he was fooling God. God saw his sin, and so day and night God’s hand was heavy upon David. The LORD let David feel his fatherly displeasure, and he will let you feel it too if you remain silent about your sin. Perhaps some of you are feeling it today. I sometimes talk to people who say that God feels distant to them, even though they’re doing all the right things. I’ve learned that usually when someone says that, if I talk to them for another 10 minutes, it becomes clear they aren’t doing all the right things. Perhaps they aren’t deliberately transgressing a known command, but we’ve seen that sin is more than that, and there is often a heavy dose of bitterness, entitlement, pride, and love of the world at work in them, and the problem is not so much that all of it is there; the problem is they keep silent about it! They won’t admit it! To hold on to your sin, to keep it hidden, to constantly try to convince yourself, God, and others that it isn’t there…that will dry up your strength like the heat of summer.

 

But here’s how David learned the blessing of forgiveness, verse 5: I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgression to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. When we try to cover our own sins, the LORD has to expose them. But when we willingly expose them through an open confession of them, the LORD covers them. He opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And notice that to obtain forgiveness, all David did was confess. He didn’t say a magic formula, he didn’t perform any works of penance or satisfaction, he didn’t execute any religious ritual. He confessed his transgressions directly to the Lord, and here’s what he testifies of the LORD: He forgave the iniquity of his sin. He covered it. He no longer counted it against him.

 

What a relief: From hiding his sin in silence and living with deceit in his spirit, he exposed his sin and openly confessed it. From the LORD’s hand being heavy upon him, the LORD forgave him. Confession of sin was the doorway to joy for him. While he remained unwilling to go through it, the LORD’s hand was heavy upon him, but once he went through it, he found forgiveness and true blessing. What can we do, then, with this realization from David’s life? He begins to tell us in verse 6, where we see the urgency of confession.

 

The urgency of confession

 

In verse 6 he gives us his inference from all this: 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. If there is such blessing in forgiveness of sin, if there is such a burden in continuing to remain silent about your sin, and if confession of sin is the way to receive an assurance of God’s forgiveness of your sins, what should that incline you to do? Confess your sins today! Offer prayer with confession to God at a time when he may be found.

 

The clear implication is that a time is coming in which the LORD will not be found. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. When you appear before God in that day to give an account for the life you lived, you will not have an opportunity then to confess your sins. If you have been hiding them while on earth, God will expose them then. But if you expose them now, they will not condemn you then. So do not put off confession. If you are aware of a way you have sinned against God that you have not confessed, confess it today. This is part of why we confess our sins together every Sunday during our service, and give you time to confess your specific sins to God silently—because we don’t want another day to go by in which we keep silent about our sin. This is part of why I’d commend to you a devoted time of regular private prayer in which you intentionally incorporate confession of sin. Many Christians have been helped by the acronym ACTS: Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. When you pray, spend time praising God, then take intentional time to consider how you have fallen short of what God requires, and admit it to him.

 

Sometimes perhaps you go to do that and you aren’t conscious of your sin—in those cases, some meditation on a summary of God’s law can be helpful. Read the Ten Commandments, the beatitudes of Matthew 5, the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13, the fruit of the Spirit of Galatians 5. I often encourage people to use the Westminster Larger Catechism’s treatment of the ten commandments, contained in questions 98-148. That’s not inerrant and I disagree with some of it, but it’s a helpful summary of what God requires. Other times you may be very aware of your sin because you have transgressed a clear command of God. You got drunk, you looked at pornography, you engaged in sexual activity with someone to whom you are not married, you struck someone…these are the sorts of sins you can just never commit again in your life, but if you ever do, what you do in the 24 hours after you do is vital. Do you start rationalizing it, justifying it, excusing it, or do you offer prayer to God at a time when he may be found?

 

Verse 6 tells us that when the godly do this, then even the rush of many waters will not reach them. This is why it is such a blessing to know that your sins are forgiven. As long as you are still hiding, God’s hand is heavy upon you—you don’t really know that he’s for you. In fact, it feels like he’s against you. You’re still afraid that if you really exposed your sin, he’d condemn you, so you keep hiding. But once you’ve gotten it all out there, once you’ve really exposed it, and you’ve received his forgiveness, then you really know he is for you. When you first start dating someone and they seem to like you, that feels good, but it’s still pretty unstable—what if they really get to know you, and don’t like you? But when you are years in to marriage, your spouse sees the worst of you yet again, and they stay, and they really forgive you—that’s when you know they truly love you, warts and all. And so the one against whom the LORD counts no iniquity can know that he really loves them.

 

And if you know that, then even when deep waters come, you know they aren’t the condemning waters of God’s judgment; they’re the sanctifying waters of God’s grace! They’re sent to cleanse you, not to drown you. They reach your sin, but not your soul. Because make no mistake about it: The rush of great waters will come in your life in some way. That’s why it’s so foolish to make a pain-free, suffering-free life your aspiration for a blessed life. Even if you get a glimpse of it, you’ll be anxious about losing it. But if you know that God is for you, if you know nothing can separate you from his love, then even when the rush of great waters comes, you can be at peace.

 

That’s what David describes in verse 7: You are a hiding place for me, you preserve me from trouble, you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Here he says through the great waters he is hidden in God, preserved from trouble, and surrounded with a chorus of the saints rejoicing together because God has delivered him. That’s the blessing held out to you if you will no longer keep silent, but acknowledge your sin to God while there is still time to do so. But next we’ll see that in order to do so, we need humility. So let’s talk next about the importance of humility.

 

The importance of humility

 

It’s not entirely clear who is speaking in verse 8; it could be God, it could be David. The message is clear, though: He wants to instruct us in the way we should go, and he’s concerned with how we receive that instruction. We’re told in verse 9 to not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Horses and mules don’t receive instruction—you can’t impart wisdom to them such that they then know what to do, where to go, and when to do it. So instead, horses and mules are directed by force, with a bit placed in their mouth, that is then attached to a bridle that the rider holds in the saddle and through which they direct the horse in the direction they want the horse to go.

 

When God gives us instruction, then, the wise way to respond is to receive it, to let it instruct us, rather than ignoring it like an animal. The implication is that if you ignore it like an animal, God will have to discipline you, put his hand heavy upon you as we have seen, to teach you what you were too stubborn to learn from his word. I’ve already alluded to some of the enemies of confession, but let’s consider them here as ways we can stubbornly resist God’s instruction like a horse or a mule. One way is when we excuse our sin, rather than confessing it. “I was having a rough day.” “I’ve been through so much in my life.” “I was brought up in an angry home; of course I get angry.” “I’m an introvert and I’m not getting enough time to myself.” Granted that hard situations, upbringing, and even temperament can be the occasion for our sin, but they are never the cause, nor do they absolve us of guilt. If I take the lid off my water bottle and turn it upside down, water will spill on the floor. If you come in later and say, “Why is there water on the floor?” I could say, “Because I took the lid off my water bottle and turned it upside down.” But if you then ask, “Why isn’t there orange juice on the floor?” I’d have to admit it’s because there wasn’t orange juice in the bottle. So if sin comes out of you, hardship may have turned over the water bottle, but sin only came out if sin was already in there. If you fell short of what God requires in his law, there is no good excuse.

 

Another way we remain stubborn in the face of God’s wise instruction is we minimize our sin, rather than confessing it: “I wasn’t angry; I was frustrated.” “I wasn’t drunk; I was just buzzed.” “We didn’t go all the way or anything.” “Everyone lies in some ways—I mean, nobody’s perfect.” Granted that some sins are more heinous than others; nobody is asking you to confess to a more heinous sin than the one you committed. But we tend to diminish the heinousness of whatever sins we did commit. Another is that we rationalize sin rather than confessing it. I’ve seen some attempt this online recently where they’re tried to defend lying in order to achieve what they consider to be necessary political goals. Some rationalize tax fraud by claiming that the government already gets plenty of their money. Granted that we are sometimes in situations where discerning the will of the Lord is tricky, but once it is clear what the Lord would have us do, it ought always to be done, and any time we have fallen short of it, an open acknowledgement of our sin to him is called for.

 

In humility, then, receive the LORD’s instruction, and confess where you fall short, rather than excusing, minimizing, or rationalizing your sin. Often the LORD will bring you his wise instruction through his people, and sometimes even through their loving confrontation. Don’t respond to that like a horse or a mule. If someone ever loves you enough to suggest to you that you may be getting something wrong or falling short in some way, don’t rush to defend yourself, natural as that feels. If you admit that you are a sinner, is it so shocking if someone else observed sin in your life? Take time to stop and consider what they are bringing to your attention, honestly and prayerfully evaluate it before the LORD, and confess any ways you fell short of what God requires in his law. Don’t get me wrong: You shouldn’t just say sorry because another person wants you to, and the fact that you hurt their feelings may be regrettable, but not necessarily sinful if you didn’t violate what God requires, but if you did fall short of what God requires, just confess it, and you’ll only be able to see whether you did if you are humble enough to be instructed. To confess sin you have to first be willing to be instructed as to the way you should go, and to receive correction when you fall short of it. You need humility. But if you will receive such instruction humbly, if you will confess sin honestly, then confession of sin can be a doorway to joy. So let’s look last at the response of joy.

 

The response of joy

 

Verse 10 summarizes again what this Psalm has now demonstrated: Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. So we’re told in verse 11 to be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and to shout for joy, all you upright in heart! If we’ve been forgiven like this Psalm describes, if we now know that God’s steadfast love surrounds us, how can we not be glad in the LORD? And how’s such a joy express itself? The text tells us that it’s with rejoicing, and with shouts for joy. That’s the response of joy. That’s how confession of sin is a doorway to joy. Keep silent about your sin, and your bones waste away while God’s hand is heavy upon you. But humbly receive instruction, confess your sin openly, and you will receive God’s forgiveness, the assurance that his steadfast love will surround you now even through suffering, and that produces a joy that expresses itself in shouting to the LORD. Maybe the sin you need to confess today is a stubborn refusal to be glad in the LORD and rejoice. Verse 11 of our passage is a command of God with no less authority than you shall not murder, steal, or commit adultery. If you are guilty of violating it today, the same doorway to joy is still open to you: Confess it.

 

One of the main things we do together when we gather for worship is not only confess our sins–we sing, because we are also assured of our forgiveness! But maybe it would help us to think of it more like shouting, as it is described here. We were recently talking over dinner at my Citygroup about advice people have received in choral training that if you are singing so loudly that you can’t hear the people around you, then you are singing too loudly. I dare to say that I think this Psalm pushes us in another direction. It seems better to say that if you aren’t singing loudly enough that others can hear you, then you aren’t singing loudly enough. The kind of singing we do in church should sound like a shout for joy. As our sister Karen Carlisle, a member here, is often quick to remind us: If you can shout at a sporting event for what some kids are doing with a ball, you ought to be able to shout to the God who forgives you transgressions, who covers your sin, and who no longer counts your iniquities against you.

 

But this Psalm does end with something of a tension; did you catch it? In verse 6 David didn’t just say, “Therefore let everyone offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.” Instead, he said specifically, “Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.” Again in verse 10 it’s the one who trusts in the LORD who steadfast love surrounds. In verse 11 the ones who are told to be glad in the LORD and rejoice are the righteous, and those who are told to shout for joy are the upright in heart. And yet the whole Psalm is about forgiveness of sin. The whole Psalm assumes that none of us are righteous in ourselves, or else it would just say blessed is the one who has no transgression, no sin, no iniquity. We’ve already talked about how that person didn’t exist—so how then can David still call out to the godly, the righteous, and the upright in heart? How can he still call sinners godly, righteous, and upright in heart?

 

It seems like it’s because God forgives their sin, but verse 6 suggests you have to first be godly before you can even call out to God for forgiveness in prayer. And verse 11 sems to call for more than just someone who’s been forgiven—it calls for someone who is righteous and upright in heart to rejoice. You know in our legal system we either declare a defendant guilty or not guilty—we never declare them righteous. To have your transgressions forgiven, your sins covered, to have no iniquity counted against you would just leave you not guilty in God’s sight, but this Psalm goes further. In it David addresses those who trust in the LORD as positively godly, righteous, and upright in heart, even though they have been guilty of transgression, sin, and iniquity, but he doesn’t tell us how that can be. He tells us that he confessed his sin to the LORD, and without any good works, without any of the punishment he deserved being meted out on him, God forgave the iniquity of his sin, but he doesn’t tell us how that can be.

 

We only learn how it can be through the one man who had no transgressions to forgive, who had no sins to cover, and who had no iniquities in his account. He is God the Son, who became a human because God the Father sent him to attain the righteousness we all lack. He is the one who is godly, he is the righteous, he is the upright in heart. Yet on the cross, the LORD counted our iniquities against him. I mentioned earlier that to forgive in verse 1 means to lift or bear the transgressions, and the question that raises is where did God put them? He put them on Christ, and he bore them on the cross. Verse 1 says our sins have been covered—covered by what? Covered by the blood and righteousness of Christ. If our sins were transferred out of our account, where were they put? Into Christ’s account. How could God forgive David’s sin without requiring any work of satisfaction from David? Because Christ was going to come and do the work of satisfaction, and now he has.

 

Who are those who trust in the LORD, then? They are those who trust in Christ, the savior the LORD has provided. And those who do are not only counted not guilty because their sins were counted to Christ. They are counted righteous because his righteousness is counted to them. The moment you confess your sins, turn from your efforts to make yourself righteous, and trust in Christ, before you fix a single thing you have done wrong, before you do a single thing right, you are declared righteous in God’s sight, as righteous as you will be in heaven. If you reject Christ, it will do you no good to confess your sins to God. Verse 6 is clear that only those who are godly can offer prayer to God at a time when he may be found, and the only way you can be counted godly is through faith in Christ. Confession acknowledges your sin, but only Christ atoned for it. Confession of sin is the doorway to joy only insofar as it leads you to see your need for Christ, and to trust in him.

 

Even more so than our confession, he is our hope for forgiveness. If you think you have to confess all your sins to be forgiven of them, there is no end to the amount of introspection you will spend the rest of your life doing, and you will never get around to doing the thing for which this passage calls at the end: Be glad in the LORD! Rejoice and shout for joy! The moment you believe in Christ, all your sins are forgiven. He has already paid for them in full. Confession of sin, then, is not the way we earn forgiveness from God. Confession of sin is the way we experience his forgiveness more deeply, and the means through which the light of God’s face ordinarily shines on us again after we have fallen under his fatherly displeasure. Once a couple gets married, they’re married, and a spouse’s sin against their spouse doesn’t change that legal status, though it damages the relationship. So a spouse doesn’t ask forgiveness to restore the marriage—they ask forgiveness to restore the relationship.

 

So those who are already godly through faith in Christ are those who can call out to God for forgiveness, not to become godly, but to restore the joy of forgiveness. How much more then can we who are in Christ Jesus testify that blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How much more can we who are in Christ Jesus say not only that blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, but with the apostle Paul, quoting this passage, blessed is the one to whom the LORD counts righteousness apart from works (Rom 4:6). Yet all of that is suffocated when we are still excusing, minimizing, or rationalizing our sin. Confess it to him while there is still time to do so, humbly receive his instruction, and shout for joy at both the forgiveness, and the righteousness, that are now ours in Christ.