Debt Forgiveness - Psalm 32 Sermon From May 2014 Prayer Service

Debt Forgiveness  -  Psalm 32 / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Rev. Ted A. Giese / Easter Wednesday May 7th 2014

        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.

          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.

          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.

          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 for me;

                   You preserve me from trouble;

                   You surround me with shouts of deliverance.

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

                   I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

          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.

          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!

(Psalm 32 ESV)

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends. Everyone sins not everyone asks for forgiveness.[1] Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew says “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened." Jesus continues saying, "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"[2] ... and what better thing, what better blessing, is there to receive but the forgiveness of your sins. And who better for it to come from than from your heavenly Father. King David begins Psalm 32 saying just that, he writes,

          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

A person who has received forgiveness from the LORD is blessed, his debt is clear there is nothing owing and nothing counted against him. Being free and clear of a debt is a great feeling, a relief, most everyone knows this feeling when it's a financial thing, for instance, like a credit card being paid off or a bank loan or a student loan or a mortgage being paid off. If you haven't yet paid off this kind of debt and you have it as a constant worry then you know the frustration and misery that comes with it hanging about your neck all the time, it seems to be always with you causing you stress and trouble; It gets under your skin and bothers you ever time you go to buy something ... you think "I should put off buying this, I could use this money I'm spending to pay off that debt." Sin is like this sort of trouble in many ways. It needs to be paid off to get rid of it, and it is always hanging around your neck, it's there crouching at the door, day in and day out looking to have dominion over you, when you go to do something good it's right there muddling the good thing up as saint Paul says "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."[3] "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."[4] Paul says "it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."[5] For this reason we need always to pray for forgiveness: So that when we pray, we endeavour constantly to ask our heavenly Father for that blessed forgiveness; so that in our prayers we endeavour constantly to seek the forgiveness our heavenly Father provides, so that in our prayers we endeavour constantly to knock at the door of our heavenly Father's kingdom. Trusting that Christ, who is the door, will be open to us. Jesus Himself says, "I Am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved."[6]

What's a person's life like if they never ask, never seek, never knock? Does it change the blessed gift? Does it change the face of God? Does it change what's on the other side of the door? No, the gift of forgives is still there; The Face of God still shines on the world; The paradise that Jesus promises[7] is still on the other side of the door. Silence is the killer, when the mouth stays closed and no question is asked, when the wood of the door is silent and no knocking can be heard then there is pain and suffering and torment, the silent sin is the sin that kills. David says in Psalm 32:

          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.

All debt starts out grand, as does all sin, there is a burst of "freedom" at first but then reality sets in. The credit needs to be paid, the loan needs to be paid, the things acquired with that debt lose their lustre and the night comes and you are left with your debt in the darkness, you lay there with numbers racing through your head in the dark and your bones waste away. So it is with sin, doing the thing that is forbidden is exciting at first but then the reality of it sets in and when you are left with your silent thoughts in the dark of night your bones waste away. In grief and guilt you walk around all day groaning silently in shame. The hand of God is upon you and the fear of dishonour and embarrassment encircle you. This is what a life without asking forgiveness is like, what life without seeking the LORD in prayer is like, what a life where you fail to knock at the door is like. You think, it does not bother me ... I push it away ... I defer my debt of sin ... I dodge the creditors when they come with God's law and demand payment ... I flip off the lights and sit in the dark pretending that no one is home. You can't run from it forever. Relief comes in repentance, in asking for forgiveness, in praying for it.

David sings of his prayer to the Lord saying:

          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.

Those last words sound like the words we use in settings three and four in the confession and absolution portion of the Divine Service in The Lutheran Service Book. We say them as a preface to our prayers for forgiveness. Week in and week out, day in and day out, we Christians pray for forgiveness of our debt of sin knowing that Jesus has paid it all for us at the cross. Jesus who had no debt of sin of His own paid our debt of sin: He paid the debt He did not owe. Therefore take to heart David's words in psalm 32 when he continues by saying, 

          Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer

                   to [The LORD] at a time when [He] may be found;

          surely in the rush of great waters,

                   they shall not reach Him.

David says don't let it go too long, don't waste away in your sin silently and then because of silence be caught off guard like those who died in the Flood when God was merciful for 120 years allowing for repentance and yet the flood still came and death with it. In that day it was too late, if you die without Christ Jesus there is no promise of salvation when the flaming waters of the last day rush over you. Only the Christian will be saved on that day. Only the one whose sin is covered in Jesus, only the one against whom the LORD counts no iniquity on account of Christ's righteousness, only the one in whose spirit there is no deceit because of Christ's perfection applied to them will be saved. The salvation David prays for is fulfilled in Christ Jesus, when David prays for forgiveness to the LORD, when David confesses his transgression to the LORD it is Jesus who provides David's forgiveness, it's Jesus who provides David's hiding place, it's Jesus who preserves David from David's trouble just as it is Jesus who has forgiven your debt of sin, and has given you a hiding place in Him and who preserves you with His precious body and blood in Holy Communion unto eternal life. In Psalm 32 David offers you advice, He says, 

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

                   I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

          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.

This advice sound a lot like the saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" David says don't be like that horse, don't be like that stubborn mule who refuses to drink from the waters of forgiveness which Jesus freely provides for you, the water He gives you to drink, the water of life that is yours to drink without price.[8] Don't sit silently with your sin and waste away; for David teaches us this true and trustworthy saying in Psalm 32:

          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!

Today you are in one of three places:

1) You think you have no reason to shout for joy at being forgiven because the thing you're revelling in, the thing that is a sin, you think is not a sin.

You think this, in part, because the world has taught you falsely that good is evil and evil is good, they present darkness as light and light as darkness:

Fear not, for a day is coming when the truth of this deception and it's lie will be made clear to you. That is the first place a person could be, deep in the debt of sin with no eye to the need for that debt to be paid.

2) You know you're in debt but you have no reason to shout for joy because you are trying to pay it off yourself and try as you might you can't, the harder you try the deeper in the debt of sin you become.

You think this, in part, because the world has taught you falsely that you can save yourself, you sit in silence wasting away with no prayer on your lips, your hand is not raided to knock at the door, you sit turned away from the face of the Lord looking at your own belly button:

Fear not, for a day is coming, and has come, when the knock at the door will not be your knocking but the knocking knocked by Jesus, who comes to you in your trouble to save you from the debt of sin. Jesus says to you this day "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me."[9] That is the second place a person could be, aware of the debt of sin with no eye to how it may be paid off by Christ Jesus: No eye to the fact that it has been paid off in full by the Christ. Don't be deaf to the promises when Jesus comes knocking, you are a Christian, Jesus knocks at your door. He has paid your debt don't keep trying to pay it yourself.  

3) Which leads us into the third place: You know that Jesus has paid your debt of sin and you are glad, and you rejoice, and you shout for joy for you have been made righteous before your heavenly Father in Him and now your heavenly Father forgives you each and every time you come for forgiveness and you trust that He gives you forgiveness and every good thing.   

You trust this, because you've been taught well, learn this lesson every day, place your petitions before the your heavenly Father each day as Jesus says praying in your prayers "give us this day our daily bread" and "lead us not into temptation" and "deliver us from evil," and "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," trusting in the Lord knowing that Jesus trusted perfectly and our forgiveness is in Him. That is the third place a person could be, aware of the debt of sin with their eye fixed on Christ Jesus,[10] for Jesus alone saves, provides forgiveness, and makes you justified before the Father covering your sin with His blood.[11] David in Psalm 32 points forward to this justification through Christ alone, it is David's hope, it is your hope too. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works."[12] In the name of Jesus, Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the  sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

_______________________________________________________________________

[1] "For no one is without iniquity. And there are none who have no iniquities, but there are only some whose iniquities are forgiven." Luther's Works AE Volume 10 First Lectures on the Psalms I Psalms 1 - 75, pg 147.

[2] Matthew 7:7-11

[3] Romans 7:15

[4] Romans 7:18-19

[5] Romans 7:17

[6] John 10:9

[7] Luke 23:43

[8] Revelation 22:17

[9] Revelation 3:20

[10] Hebrews 12:2

[11] Revelation 7:14

[12] Ephesians 2:8-9