I want to start tonight by telling you the story of a man’s life. First, he was a young man on the run. His country’s king wanted him dead, and so he ran away with nothing. He stopped at a town of priests, and lied to the head priest in order to get food and a weapon. The king finds out, and because of the lie, the king’s men come and kill 85 priests, along with every man, woman, child, and baby in the town. Years later, the man admits it: “I am responsible” (1 Samuel 21:1–9; 22:9–23).

Then later, he’s in a position of leadership. A farmer insults him and refuses to share food with his men. So he straps on his sword and marches 400 men toward the farm to kill them all. The only reason he didn’t is because the farmer’s wife pleaded with him not to (1 Samuel 25).

Then, he’s living a double life. He goes over to the nation his people are at war with, and lives among them, then kills everyone, men and women alike. He leaves no survivors, and no one can tell what he’s really doing. Then he goes back to the enemy king and lies straight to his face (1 Samuel 27:8–12).

Then, he gets power. He becomes king himself, and he starts collecting wives, and more wives, and concubines. God said plainly he shouldn’t do this, but he does it anyway (Deuteronomy 17:17; 2 Samuel 5:13).

Then, one spring, when he’s supposed to be leading his army in battle, he stays home. One evening, when he’s walking on his palace roof, he sees a woman, bathing. He asks who she is and finds out she’s the wife of one of his soldiers who’s off fighting his war. He sends for her anyway and sleeps with her, then sends her home (2 Samuel 11:1–5).

A few weeks later, he gets a message: she’s pregnant. So he calls her husband home from war and tries to get him to sleep with his wife so everyone will think the baby is his. The man refuses to go with his wife while his fellow soldiers are sleeping on the battlefield, so he gets him drunk, but he still won’t go (2 Samuel 11:6–13).

So the man orders the general to put the husband on the front line of battle, tells the general to pull back when he’s there, so he leaves him for dead. He had the husband even deliver that sealed message, carrying his own death sentence (2 Samuel 11:14–17)!

Lies, deception, adultery, and murder. You know, our resumes look the same. Remember Romans 3 tells us to let God be true even though everyone is a liar (Romans 3:4). Jesus Christ preached in Matthew 5 that if you’ve looked at another person lustfully, you’ve committed adultery, and if you’ve held a grudge, you’ve committed murder (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28). We’re all guilty of this sin.

But this man, is King David of Israel. He was a broken man, a sinful man, a hopeless man. But that’s not the end of the story. Through the life of David we learn that You can conceal your sin, or confess your sin, but you can’t do both.

Tonight we’re going to talk about God’s forgiveness. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Romans chapter 4, verses 6-8.

Likewise, David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
–Romans 4:6

We’ve been learning this entire time in Romans that it is impossible for a person to become righteous on their own. Righteousness is only possible through complete surrender to Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Imagine being in David’s shoes. Failure after failure, sin after sin, yet, being declared righteous, being declared a man after God’s own heart in Scripture (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). That recognition comes only from the Lord, in a way that only the Lord can provide forgiveness. And then, Romans turns us back to the words that God used David to write, Psalm 32:

Blessed are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the person the Lord will never charge with sin.
–Romans 4:7-8

You know, the word “blessed” can carry different meanings to different people. For some of us, blessed is a hashtag. New truck. #blessed. Beach vacation. #blessed. Promotion at work. #blessed. In our world, people say they are blessed when things are going their way.

If you’re from the south, “bless their heart” might not be a compliment at all!

But that’s not what Romans means when it talks about what it means to be blessed, that’s not what Psalms means when it talks about being blessed.

Our blessing, is a deep, settled joy. The kind of life that only God can give. In fact, because this portion of Romans is quoting Psalm 32, we see the amalgamation of two words in this one word: blessing and joy. You see, when you read Old Testament quoted in the New Testament, it’s actually quoting the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. The New Testament was written to a Greek speaking world, and the Greek translation of the day was called the Septuagint.[^1] That’s why when you see an Old Testament reference in the New Testament, it reads a little bit differently than when you turn back to it in the Old Testament. It doesn’t change its meaning; it actually makes its meaning clearer. All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). What we find is that the blessing and our joy is tied together.

Let’s turn back to Psalm 32 and read the English translation from the original Hebrew text.

How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How joyful is a person whom the LORD does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit!
–Psalm 32:1-2

Joy and blessing go together. Some of us might confuse joy with happiness. Happiness depends on what is happening, but Joy depends on what God has done in your life. And as Christians, as Christ-followers, we live transformed lives because of what God has done. Notice the clarity in these two verses: A person is joyful when their transgression is forgiven. Transgression is just the word the Old Testament uses for rebellion. And that’s what sin is, it’s rebellion against God.[^2] And we have all sinned. And how joyful we are when we know we are guilty of sin, but we are declared not guilty of sin. We are forgiven!

And your sin is literally covered by Christ. He took the penalty we deserved, He drank the cup of God’s wrath (Matthew 26:39). When you’re in Christ, and you stand at that great white throne of judgment one day, when you’re following Him, He doesn’t see your sin because you are covered by the Son (Revelation 20:11–15).

Now look at this last part. Keep in mind that the original audience of the New Testament would have been studying the Old Testament closely, a lot of times you see partial Old Testament references because it’s assumed that the audience is familiar with the whole passage. We should also be that familiar with the Old Testament, that we know the context of what’s being referenced in the New Testament. But the verse says at the end: In whose spirit is no deceit. This means that sins are confessed. There is no secret sin toward God, but it’s up to us to not live a life of deceit and confess our sin to Him. God knows our hearts. He knows our hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). But God expects us to be transparent with Him.

Forgiveness is not a punch card. Forgiveness is a full pardon. There is no limit to God’s forgiveness. He will continue to forgive you when you sin. But when you’re full of the Holy Spirit, you won’t want to abuse the pardon. When you keep reading this Psalm, you see David remembering what it was like to continue in sin without confessing his sin to God.

When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was drained as in the summer’s heat.
–Psalm 32:3-4

God disciplines His children. David is reflecting on his own experience of what it was like to live in unrepentant sin. You can read about this throughout the Psalms. David had constant pain in his body (Psalm 51:8), he was groaning because of it. The hand of God was heavy on him. He was dried up like a plant during a drought (Psalms 38–39). He was miserable, defiled his conscience, worried his mind. One pastor said God does not permit His children to sin successfully.[^3] The Lord chastened David for almost a year, and made him stop lying, and humble himself, and confess his sin.[^4] Remember that sin is the very thing that separates us from God. Sin comes in many forms. We’ve read about them in Romans. Lust, grudge, unforgiveness, robbery.

How many of us here tonight have thought lustful thoughts, or worse, succumbed to pornography? How many of us here tonight are holding a grudge against a person that we can’t let go of? How many of us here tonight are not forgiving someone for something that was wronged against you? Jesus taught us to have mercy on others because God has had mercy on us (Matthew 18:21–35). And how many of us have robbed God by not being obedient in our tithe (Malachi 3:8)? We can keep going all day, but one thing Brittany and I have been convicted of lately is that James 4:17 says it is a sin to know the good and yet not do it. How many Gospel-sharing opportunities have we missed because we’re more concerned with what people will think about us rather than being obedient to the Lord’s call to share the good news of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)?

I want to make some space right now that we can all confess our sins to the Lord. Let’s pray to Him and speak from our hearts.

Here is what happens when you acknowledge sin.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not conceal my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
–Psalm 32:5

All of those things that you just prayed for, you’re forgiven of. That’s not what I’m saying, it’s what the Bible says! From that point of confession, you are forgiven! Your iniquities are not charged, you are declared not guilty! But this is not something you can do once and never do again, because you will sin again. Let’s look at the rest of this Psalm.

Therefore let everyone who is faithful pray to you immediately. When great floodwaters come, they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with joyful shouts of deliverance.
–Psalm 32:6-7

The Christian life is a life of constant repentance. Let’s remember this in our marriages, in our relationships, when we’re parenting our children, and grandparenting your grandchildren. In everything that we do and every interaction we have, we know that we are prone to sin, and everyone around us is too. But when we do sin, we confess that sin immediately. Both to God and to the person we sinned against (1 John 1:9; James 5:16). That’s what following Christ is. That we recognize we are broken people. Imperfect people following a perfect God.

At the beginning of tonight, I told you the beginning story of a man’s life, but I did not tell you how it ended. After the cover up, after the letter, after the funeral, God sent a prophet to the palace. The prophet Nathan looked at David the king of Israel, looked him in the eye and said four words: “You are the man.” For the first time, David stopped trying to cover his own sin, and he let God cover it for him. “I have sinned against the Lord.” He said. Immediately, the prophet spoke back: “And the Lord has taken away your sin; you will not die.” That fast. Confessed and forgiven (2 Samuel 12:1–13).

Don’t confuse forgiveness with consequences. There were plenty of consequences. The baby died, David’s home was never the same (2 Samuel 12:14–18). Forgiveness does not erase consequences.

But listen to what God did next. David and Bathsheba were married and had another son. They named him Solomon. God sent that prophet back and he gave that baby an alternate name: Jedidiah, which means “Loved by the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:24–25).

Do you see that? God took the relationship that started in sin and brought out of it a child he called loved. What men plan for evil, God uses for good (Genesis 50:20)! And when you turn to the first page of the New Testament, and read the family tree of Christ, it says right there in verse 6 that David fathered Solomon by Uriah’s wife (Matthew 1:6). God did not erase the past, He used it to write history. Everyone reading will remember Uriah, and Jesus Christ Himself is a descendant of David. The worst chapter of David’s life became the story God wrote to bring our Savior into the world.

So here’s my question for you tonight, if God can take that man, with that story, and call him a man after God’s own heart, and use him to bring Jesus into the world, how much will He do with you?

But you can either conceal your sin, or you can confess your sin. But you can’t do both. David’s story ended with Conviction, “You are the man” and then confession, “I have sinned.” And then, forgiveness: “the Lord has taken away your sin.” Yours can end that way too.

Have you confessed all of your sin?