A Maskil of David.

1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,

whose sin is covered.

2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

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 of my sin. Selah

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.

7 You are a hiding place for me;

you preserve me from trouble;

you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

which must be curbed with bit and bridle,

or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,

but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,

and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

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The challenge of this psalm: How does one convey the true depth of human depravity and sin while also declaring the power and magnificence of forgiveness?

• Sin: Explaining what it is to be wet to a fish is what it’s like explaining sin to a human.
  • On top of that, we sometimes dismiss these types of psalms because we know David’s backstory.
  • How can we get our minds to include more that just the dramatic, grievous, obvious, primitive sins David did, but also the subtle, socially-accepted, inner, sophisticated sins we do every day?
    • He objectified and used someone (Bathsheba).
    • He hurt and harmed someone (Uriah).
    • He privately disillusioned someone (Joab).
    • He deceived someone (the nation).
• Forgiveness: a tenderness and mysticism to something so personal, invisible, and intangible as God’s forgiveness.
  • Orchestra

This psalm addresses both concepts and leaves us with abundantly joyful people.

• Flow of Psalm:
  • The song starts with a description of the joyfully happy (blessed) person (1-2).
  • The song details the psalmist’s auto-biographical experience shifting from misery to extreme joy (3-7).
  • The song ends by imploring all future readers of the psalm to enter into God’s joy (10-11).
  • It is a Maskil: A teaching or instructional psalm.
  • It is a reflective testimony: Psalm 32 comes after David has processed his experience (Psalm 51) and is ready to instruct the congregation.
• So we turn to this instructive song to ask, what are these blessed, glad, rejoicing people like?

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1. They know what sin is and does.

What is sin?

• Common answers:
  • Missing the bullseye.
  • Falling short of God’s perfect standard.

The psalm suggests a multifaceted portrait of sin.

• The psalm includes a poetically beautiful pattern of triads (sets of three).

  • Forgiveness (v. 1-2): forgiven, sin covered, counts no iniquity.
  • Consequences (v. 3-4):
    • Physical: my bones wasted away (3).
    • Emotional: my groaning all day long (3).
    • Spiritual: For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up (4).
  • Repentance (v. 5): acknowledged my sin, uncovered my iniquity, confessed my transgression.
  • Divine Leadership (v. 8): instruction, teaching, counsel.
  • Joy (v. 11): be glad, rejoice, shout for joy.
  • Meditation (Selah): Three pauses mark crucial turning points in the psalm.

• The first triad: sin.

  • Transgression (1): An act of willful defiance or rebellion against God’s authority.
  • Sin (1): Falling short of his perfect standard.
  • Iniquity (2): A twisting or perverting of our moral character.

• The psalmist’s experience.

  • verse 3-4

God uses many concepts and images to communicate ways we go wrong.

• Transgress (Psalm 51:1). Trespass (Ezra 9:6). Iniquity (Psalm 32:5). Wrong (Jeremiah 22:3). Lost (Luke 15:24). Shame (Romans 6:21). Disgrace (Proverbs 14:34). Bad/Evil (Genesis 6:5). Dishonor (Romans 1:24). Wickedness (Psalm 10:15). Trouble (Psalm 107:6). Error (Psalm 19:12). Fraud (Leviticus 6:2-4). Crime (Ezekiel 7:23). Mischief (Proverbs 10:23). Broken (Psalm 51:17). Blemish (Leviticus 22:20). Missed the mark (Romans 3:23). Wandering (Isaiah 53:6). Crooked (Philippians 2:15). Rebelling (Isaiah 1:2). Debt (Matthew 6:12). Desolation (Jeremiah 4:7). Drunken swerving (Isaiah 28:7). Stray (1 Peter 2:25). Oppressive toil (Habakkuk 2:13). Impiety (Titus 2:12). Ungodly/godless (Romans 5:6). Lawlessness (1 John 3:4). Injustice (Leviticus 19:15). Evil (Matthew 6:13).

God details various ways sin hurts us.

• 1. Alienation from God.
  • “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… separated from Christ…alienated and hostile in mind” (Eph. 2:1-3; 2:12; Col. 1:21).
  • David said God’s hand was heavy upon him (4)—as a believer, he was not out of God’s presence, but experienced God’s presence as a weight of judgment.
    • This is severe mercy, and is what David needed to wake up.
      • Smelling salts.
• 2. Broken Human Relationships.
  • Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:16) > Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1-8) > Lamech: cycles of vengeful violence (Gen. 4:23-24).
  • This brotherly, human infighting is a through-line of Scripture and human history. James echoes this pattern, asking, “What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1-2).
  • Sin infects human relationships at every level—between spouses, siblings, and families—leading to oppression, abuse, and division.
  • It also damages entire societies, communities, nations, and continents—the whole globe!—by corrupting justice and withholding the righteous treatment of others.
• 3. Tainted Minds and Hearts.
  • “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19).
  • Romans 1-3 world
  • Sin’s influence darkens the mind, enslaves the will, and twists emotions.
• 4. Corruption of the Cosmos.
  • “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it…for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:20-22).
  • What this suggests is that sin, and the fall it produced, introduced futility and suffering into the natural world, which is why we see disease and disaster as common occurrences. What was once very good in God’s sight is now groaning under the weight of the curse.
• Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971): “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.”

God portrays sin in various ways.

• Fish who’s never been dry: These are helpful images to open our minds.
• Debt
  • Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12).
• Stain:
  • “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Is. 1:18).
  • Carpet stain.
• Burden:
  • Like a weightlifter crushed under an impossible poundage, the psalmist cried, “My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me” (Psalm 38:4).
• Slavery:
  • Like Pharaoh in Exodus, it rules cruelly over people.
  • Jesus warned, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
  • This metaphor reveals sin as a master that shackles the will and corrupts the desires.
• Exile:
  • Major OT motif—exile.
  • It drives us away from God’s presence and leads to spiritual exile.
  • Like Cain, who “went away from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16), while under sin we are “alienated” from him (Col. 1:21).
• Other: Rebellion (Is. 1:4), idolatry (Jer. 2:13), sickness (Is. 1:5), chaos (Hos. 8:7), and treason (Luke 19:14).

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2. They know who the Lord is and what He does.

The structure of the psalm:

• Progressive Structure: The Lord is the constant presence and the final destination.
  • He was there with his hand heavy upon his man while his man persisted in hidden sin (4).
  • He was ready to release all debt once his man acknowledged and confessed his sin (1-2, 5).
  • He became a hiding place for his man once his man stopped trying to hide (6-7).
  • He became his man’s instructor, teacher, and counselor once again (8-9).
    • The forgiven life is a guided life.
    • In Exodus, Israel was delivered from Egypt, but also to the Lord.
      • We are not only delivered from (sin), but to (the Lord’s leadership).
    • Forgiven people do not have to be like animals (horse, mule) who need direct leadership (bit, bridle), but loving children and servants who willingly follow the Lord.
  • His steadfast love is the source of all this forgiveness and joy (10-11).
• In a Chiastic Structure: The Lord is the central figure (6-7).
  • Because he can become our hiding place, the one who preserves us from trouble and surrounds us with shouts of deliverance, we can run to him with all our flaws and release them to him.

The Lord offers his robust grace to every sinner.

• The second triad: forgiven, covered, no iniquity counted (1-2).

• He can take us from debt to paid in full to riches in Christ Jesus!

  • “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.” (Colossians 2:13–14, ESV)
  • Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
  • Heirs

• He can take us from stain to perfect righteousness in Christ Jesus!

  • “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith…” (Romans 3:23–25, ESV)

• He can take us from burden to rest in Christ Jesus!

  • “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”” (Matthew 11:28–30, ESV)

• He can take us from slavery to liberation in Christ Jesus!

  • The glorious truth of the gospel is that through Christ we can be set free—“if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”—through Jesus, we can be liberated from sin’s tyrannical rule (John 8:36).

• He can take us from exile to intimate presence in Christ Jesus!

  • “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Colossians 1:21–22).
  • Home

• He can heal our broken world, minds and hearts, and cosmos in Christ Jesus!

  • “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Psalm 32:11, ESV)

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The turning point: true repentance.

• Upon true repentance, the radical grace God supplies is released.

  • The turning point of the psalm: 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 of my sin. Selah (5)
  • When a dam breaks, the water, which had created pressure on that dam, is released.
    • When we take full ownership, do not cover or hide, and make no excuse before God, articulating our guilt before him, his forgiveness flows—we experience his grace.
    • Someone—either you or God—will try to cover your sin. Only one can succeed.
  • When unlikeness to Christ appears, it is important for us to die to ourselves through repentance and receive the life of Christ to transform us.

• The first king (Saul) and the second king (David) of Israel offer a comparative contrast that helps us understand how much God is looking for a contrite, humble spirit.

  • God rejected Saul and accepted David after their sins.
    • Both were physically attractive.
    • Both took care of their father’s flocks.
    • Both were chosen by Yahweh.
    • Both demonstrate humility early on in their calling.
    • Both were anointed by God.
    • Both were filled with the Spirit.
    • Both go back to their day job after a massive military victory.
    • Both were accepted by the people.
  • But when Saul was confronted for his sin, he made excuses for himself and repeatedly blame-shifted (1 Sam. 13:13-15, 15:13), yet David was broken and demonstrated extreme contrition.
    • He acknowledged his sin (5).
    • He refused to cover his iniquity (5).
    • He confessed his transgressions to the Lord (5).

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Conclusion

• Song: Come, Let Us Return To The Lord
  • All who feel the sting of your sin
  • Come and lift your eyes once again
  • How great a price was paid to save the souls of us
  • Who strayed, yet still we stray Come, let us return to the Lord
• “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, ESV)
• Communion
  • We come to the fount of grace, gushing forth to ongoing forgiveness and grace.

Study Questions

Head (Knowledge / Understanding)

1. According to Psalm 32, what are the three terms David uses to describe sin, and how do they differ in meaning?
2. What progression does the psalm trace from the misery of hidden sin to the joy of forgiveness?
3. How does this psalm portray the Lord’s role in both convicting and restoring the sinner?

Heart (Feelings / Impressions / Desires)

4. How have you personally experienced the “heavy hand” of the Lord when hiding sin, and how did it shape your relationship with him?
5. Which image of forgiveness in the sermon (debt canceled, stain removed, burden lifted, slavery broken, exile ended) most deeply moves you, and why?
6. How does knowing God surrounds the repentant with “shouts of deliverance” affect your view of his heart toward you?

Hands (Actions / Commitments / Decisions)

7. What subtle or socially acceptable sins might God be calling you to acknowledge and confess this week?
8. How can you cultivate a lifestyle of willing, joyful obedience rather than needing “bit and bridle” guidance?
9. What concrete step will you take to help someone else experience the joy of forgiveness described in Psalm 32?