[0:00] 1st John chapter 1 verse 5 to chapter 2 verse 2 it's page 1225 this is the message we have heard from him and declare to you god is light in him there is no darkness at all if we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not live by the truth but if we walk in light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of jesus his son purifies us from all sin if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness if we claim we have not sinned we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives my dear children i write this to you so that you will not sin but if anybody does sin we have one who speaks to the father in our defense jesus christ the righteous one he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world okay so next reading from um sam 32 i don't have a page number so i'll be called it 560 560 okay sam 32 blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the man whose sin the lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no is in no deceit 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 soft as in the heat of summer then i acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity i said i will confess my turned transgressions to the lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found surely when the mighty waters rise they will not reach him you are my hiding place you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance i will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go i will counsel you and watch over you do not be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you many are the woes of the wicked but the lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him rejoice in the lord and be glad you righteous sing all you who are upright in heart thanksgiving peter's going to come and speak to us now and apparently johnny thinks that the only things worth noting about peter are that he's originally from tipperary he now lives in cork um as a monster staff worker with ice and he's married to maive and i'd like to add that peter's so much more than all of those things he's also um a tipperary man but he's probably quite nervous about today's match against waterford where's it in the bag and i'm gonna keep on you in the bag as well
[4:00] thanks for thanks for having me sharing it good morning everybody yep um as rightly noted my name is peter originally from feathered in county tipperary which is a very important point uh married to the beautiful maive for uh a year and a month and a bit um yeah so we're looking at sam 32 this morning i was thinking as we were standing up and sitting down earlier on it's interesting how our body language can uh just display something of what we're thinking or what we're feeling in our hearts um and i think for this um probably initially the body language is certainly one of kneeling um and then it goes on to one of standing or rejoicing i'm not going to ask you to kneel i know some of you have babies in your hands and things like that so uh that wouldn't be appropriate um yeah i'd just like to ask as well does does everybody know who tiger woods is vaguely yeah okay cool well in 1996 earl woods who is tiger woods and his dad said of his 21 year old son listen to this now tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity when i found that quote i was just like wow this is gold for sermon material it didn't take so it takes so long to read actually though through all of tiger's uh achievements on and off the golf course um that i had to cut it out it'd take just too long to read through it all so you begin to wonder if his dad's prophecy is coming through to a certain extent and he is an amazing god for probably the best of all time and through the likes of his tiger woods foundation uh he raises a huge amount of money for charity he's married to ellen who's a former swedish model with whom he has two children however in recent times you may have heard that tiger has admitted to having a string of extramarital affairs uh offering the following reasoning i convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply i thought only about myself i thought i could get away with whatever i wanted to i felt i was entitled i suppose it's easy um to look at tiger and to look at others and judge them but the truth of the matter is that we've all been there haven't we we may not be the most successful sportsmen in history even though sometimes a thursday night soccer as i rack up goal after goal i just wonder uh we may not be all um part of multi-million pound sponsorship deals um we may not have had uh affairs outside of marriage but we've all been there we've either done things that would have shocked us in clear conscience or we've not done things that we should have done and then even when we do things right we get all proud about ourselves and think that we're great like tiger we've covered our sins in the hope they wouldn't be uncovered we've kept silent and not confessed our transgressions like tiger we all know what it's like when we've had a spirit of deceit when we've been trying to fool ourselves and others what tiger has done is extremely serious many of the companies sponsoring tiger have either suspended or cancelled their support of them all together resulting in the value of the companies falling and one economics professor estimates that the loss caused to companies because of what tiger has done is between five and twelve billion u.s dollars when you consider that the the outfall or the fallout of the islandic um ash cloud was i think something between one and three billion dollars it kind of puts it in perspective um but far more serious than the the financial cost is the emotional mental and spiritual cost that has been accumulated and will continue which someone will have to pay for so he's called
[8:01] this huge um cost to be put on his family on his wife imagine if he came home one day and his wife ellen said to him tiger i know exactly what you've done but never again will i bring up your transgressions to hurt you or make you feel guilty or remind you it's at huge cost to myself but i forgive you wouldn't that be amazing wouldn't that be incredible if tiger were to read the opening verses of sam 32 he would come across a mouth-watering prospect that david sets before us this morning a person there in verse one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered whose sin the lord does not count against them in verse two and in whose spirit there is no deceit these two verses they're like a headline over the psalm and a headline that's far more interesting than anything written in recent times in the tabloids or the broadsheet about tiger how extraordinary it would be if ellen forgives tiger how much more so if god who is perfectly holy forgives us how could this be well as we've mentioned david writes verse one and two as a kind of a headline which grabs our attention but in verses three to five he brings us back in time to understand how verses one and two came about we shall see something of how david got to this point and how if at all we can share in the same experience of forgiveness i don't know if like me you enjoy watching wildlife documentaries on tv um as mabel tell you and sometimes what they'll do especially in the good quality bbc ones is that they'll have uh an image of a desert for example and they'll have it speeded up so the video will be taken over months uh of time and they'll have this picture of this dead dull dry desert and just as the rain starts to come in the desert uh bursts into life so it becomes full of life full of water rich green grass um and the whole scene is amazing really it's just a total transformation well it's like the total opposite here in verse four david's strength was sapped as if in the heat of the hottest summer and we're left wondering has he taken a vow of silence in verse three when i kept silent my bones wasted away but it seems there's something much more sinister going on as we look at the results of his silence it's as if the spiritual air pressure is high while david was silent you can see there in verse four god's hand was heavy upon him resulting in the groaning of verse three his bones wasting away and his vitality or his strength being sapped as it says in verse four well if verses three and four um describe the drought of summer verse five is surely the first sign of much needed rain we'd already seen how blessed is the man in whom spirit is no deceit and here in verse five david is explaining what it looks like when he stops trying to fool or to deceive god because self-deception i suppose by its very nature is difficult to see in our lives it obviously means that we're deceiving ourselves i think it'd be good to spend just a little bit of time thinking about david's way out of the trap of self-deception and there are four things briefly worth noticing firstly you'll see that david owns up to his sin in verse five i acknowledged i did not cover i said i will confess so the onus was on david he doesn't blame other people he doesn't blame his circumstances he doesn't blame god even though he had great opportunity as king to pawn off
[12:08] responsibility to others he doesn't do that here and he also doesn't pretend that it isn't that big a deal so secondly he doesn't water down the seriousness of what he has done it's thought that this psalm is part of david's reflection on the sins of his scandalous affair with bathsheba but he doesn't dilute it he doesn't pretend that it isn't that bad he calls it like it is he calls sin sin thirdly he realizes that that it's primarily against god that he has sinned so this this whole verse here david is talking to god he's communicating with god with the lord and fourthly there's a serious intentionality to what david does in verse five he can see it in the language i said i will confess so he makes up his mind to do this and i think i really think those four things are a good pattern for us to learn to get out of this trap that we so often fall into of self-deception firstly to own up to our sin secondly to not water down how serious it is thirdly to realize that that it's against god who is holy that we've primarily sinned and fourthly to be intentional to make a decision and follow through on the confession no matter what so in very stark contrast to the hiding and the cover-ups of verse three and four david here acknowledges his sin to god he doesn't hide his iniquity and he says i will confess my transgressions to the lord now the tiger has confessed and his wife ellen to put it mildly can withdraw her love from him she can pour out her anger on him she can take his fortune and his children and she can sell her story to the media if she likes or she can forgive him she can bear the cost of that forgiveness herself you see the person we have offended the person to whom we confess our sins has the right and the ability to become our savior or our destroyer so they can accept or reject our confession it's a bit unnerving when you think about it not that i'm taking pity on politicians but it's no wonder in the doll when politicians have to be before the opposition parties and they're sometimes so reluctant to admit that they were wrong it's no wonder as children before our parents how we always blamed our siblings and didn't admit our own wrongdoing it's no wonder breaths i'm sure were held as tiger finally admitted to his transgressions how will the offended party react what will they say what will they do in the case of hand in this psalm here with david and god it's even more tense because we know god to be holy and totally opposed to sin it's god's hand which is heavy upon david back in verse four god is already showing his holy opposition to sin by sapping david's strength by david's bones wasting away etc and so we wonder if david confesses sin excuse me if david confesses sin surely god will destroy him altogether will withdraw his love will pour out his anger destroy david altogether what's been going on up to this point is that david has been trying to bear the cost of the particular sins in view it is by those same means so what we see back in verses three and four it's by those means that god has been pressing david to confess to come clean with god so that he would be forgiven
[16:11] or in other words so that god himself might bear the cost of david's sin rather than david being destroyed by trying to bear the cost himself well how does god bear the cost of david's sin we might ask and the simple answer is that god bears the cost of david's sin in the cross of christ god the son becomes man so that we might so that he might associate with mankind with david he willingly lays down his life for david on the cross as god the father pours out the wrath that david deserved on god the son jesus bones wasted away because of david's sin jesus groaned because of david's sin god's hand was heavy upon jesus and his strength was sapped to the point of death for david's sin as paul tells us in second corinthians god made jesus who had no sin to be sin or in this case god made jesus who had no sin to be sin for david so that in jesus david might become the righteousness of god so rather than withdrawing his love for david and pouring out his anger on him god father son and spirit shows his love for david by diverting his anger to jesus on the cross who laid down his life for david god bears the cost as the father gives up his only son as the son becomes man and dies the death of a criminal as the son bears the outpouring of the father's wrath and the love of the father is withdrawn from him it's for that reason and that reason alone that the beautiful words at the end of verse five are true god forgave the guilt of david's sin as augustine said the word is scarcely in his mouth before the wound is healed you see david has realized how unnecessary it is for him to be experiencing the things of verse three and four because jesus has already experienced those things fully to their limit and in their most awful sense on the cross and so david and us and we are brought back to the happy man of verses one and two when david stopped trying to cover up his sin god really covers it up through christ oh what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven whose sin is put out of sight yes what joy for those whose record the lord has cleared of guilt whose lives are lived in complete honesty oh is that embarrassing moment when the priest takes his stuff of water as we've been reading this morning the question naturally arises how much do we relate to david here how much or how much should we relate to it well david gives us an amazing answer in verse six he says therefore or in other words because of the reasons i've just outlined let everyone who is godly pray to you or pray to god while he may be found did david have saving faith prior to the experience of this psalm i would say he did what he's reminded of in this psalm though as we need to be reminded is that this honest confession of sin is something that's an ongoing part and parcel of life as a christian as we heard already if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves while we're in this fallen world
[20:13] the battle rages on sin still wields its power the battle rages on there's a warning from david in verse six god is truly patient with us but we shouldn't take this for granted perhaps this morning there's something in our lives in our minds even that's eating us up that's wasting our bones and we're avoiding god sometimes it's easy to be in the midst of sunday morning worship and to be totally avoiding god i've been there myself this psalm warns us that in a flood of great waters we shall not come near him in other words there will come a time when it will be too late when we have covered it up too often and for too long we should realize that not only will this prayer be often on our lips as christians but with great urgency as well in a time when god may be found but also be encouraged we should be encouraged by our merciful god that presses us to be honest with him and not cover this matter for the christian the cross of christ plunges deeper than the depths of our sins and surely the delight that we will see in the following verses should inspire us to come clean with god and not to cover our sins the joy we see in verse 7 it's a most delicious a most immediate thing for the christian who has like david said i will confess my transgressions to the lord god who before was pressing down on us becomes our hiding place becomes the one who will preserve us from trouble the one who will surround us with songs of deliverance we're told in the book of revelation it's a most important thing for the christian the people will hide themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and will say to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb it is true that we need a hiding place from god's wrath but the question is are we hiding in the chlorine and this morning are we desperately trying to preserve ourselves are we desperately trying to preserve ourselves are we like david saying that the author of life will preserve us are we surrounding ourselves with deception and defence and denial defence and denial, or are we allowing the almighty Lord of creation to surround us with songs of deliverance?
[23:03] As Tiger made his apology in front of the world media, one very astute journalist made the observation that we felt Tiger wouldn't have been there if he hadn't been caught, but a tiger doesn't change his stripes. We shouldn't be like the horse or the mule of verse 9 or the tiger which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle else they will not come near God. God out of his love for us will be heavy handed with us if needs be, if we are like David or like the horse or the mule of verse 9, but that is not his preferred way of relating to us. Even as we dwell on the example of David this morning, God, as he promises in verse 8, is instructing us and teaching us in the way we should go. He is counselling us and watching over us. What sweet truth this psalm contains.
[24:07] Verse 10 and 11 say, Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. Rejoice in the Lord and be glad you righteous. Sing all you who are upright in heart. Father God, we thank you so much for your plan of salvation. We thank you for the cross of Christ. We thank you, Father, Son and Spirit, for how wonderful, how perfect and how amazing what you have done is. And Lord, we pray that, like David, we would realise quickly, or even more quickly, Lord, when we are not coming clean with you. And Lord, that we would know that the cross of Christ, what Jesus has done, is not just, Lord, for our conversion experience, Lord, but that we should live in the shadow of the cross, day by day, Lord. We thank you for these wonderful truths, and we pray,
[25:20] Lord, that they would be sinking deep into our minds, into our hearts, into our actions. Lord, that throughout the week, we may live out of the truth of your word, rather than out of the deception of our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen.
[25:42] Our final, uh, choading in number 793, and where are my choading faces?