Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Will you pray with me?
Dear God, open our eyes and our ears to hear your word to us this morning and to see what you would have us do in faithful response. Amen. This is a reading. Psalm 32. It's on page 440 of your black Pew Bibles. And if you would follow along with me and keep it open. This is going to be an actual expository sermon this morning, so you'll need it.
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.
While I kept silence, my body 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.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Therefore, let all who are faithful on offer prayer to you at a time of distress. The rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble.
You surround me with glad cries of deliverance.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart.
This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Psalm 32, one of my absolute favorites, and I didn't really realize why.
I'll tell you in a bit.
Let's pray.
God may now the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you and move us into the future with you. In Jesus name. Amen.
The early Church Father Augustine, as well as the Apostle Paul was aware that we are both saints and sinners. And Augustine cherished the Psalms.
This one is one of what is called a penitential psalm. That's what Bonhoeffer says.
And it seems to be as you see as you look in the text. That is, it is a psalm of David.
Now, it's a little bit familiar to us and similar to Psalm 51. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me, which seems to be right after King David was challenged and confronted with his sin of raping Bathsheba, committing adultery with her, and then murdering her husband.
And there is an aspect in that psalm where he says, I will share my transgressions, but this one seems to be a little bit later.
And there is the aspect of it that not only is this a dialogue between God and the psalmist David, but also a teaching opportunity.
Look with me at verses one and two. Look at all the different words used for sin.
Transgression, that means rebellion, mutiny, whose sin is covered, off the mark, going our way, getting off the path, iniquity, twisting the truth and deceit, trying to cover up. And in every one of those definitions of different facets of sin, it is forgiven, it is covered.
There is no iniquity that has been charged to our account, imputed to us.
And if we are willing to uncover, then God meets us.
Some of you know that I grew up as a Lutheran and as a Lutheran, and the first three churches I served were as a Lutheran lay associate before I became a Presbyterian in 1971.
And there's more liturgical movement in the chancel. And I think that's one of the reasons that I so appreciate Psalm 32, because as we look at the first three verses, the Psalmist David is talking to the congregation.
Happy are those when I kept silence, My body wasted away through my groaning all day long. This is the result of guilt.
But then, as in Lutheran worship or more liturgical worship, the pastor, the leader of worship, turns and represents the people of God and speaks in front of the communion table, or altar, as it's called in those denominations, representing the people to God for day and night. Look at all the times that your listed for day and night. Your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity. And I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.
That's right, used verbatim in the Lutheran liturgy.
The pastor says, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. And the congregation says, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Not only the sin, but also how it affects me the guilt.
It's so amazing.
But then we see that there is a change very soon still. We have the psalmist speaking to God. Therefore let all who are faithful to you at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You know, the Israelites were not comfortable with the water.
The Phoenicians, the Philistines, they lived Closer to the Mediterranean Sea. They were sailors. Israelites were desert people. The waters were very frightening. And, of course, respecting the sea, respecting the floods, as we have seen here and in the southern part of our country recently, are so powerful and can be so destructive.
But when I acknowledged my sin, you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
So with that in mind, how wonderful it is to know that if we are faithful to God and choose to be loyal to God, God will surround us and we will have loud cries of deliverance.
And look on down at verse 10.
Many are the pains, the torments of the wicked, the text says. The pains, the sorrows, the challenges of the wicked. But steadfast love, that chesed love that continues to go on, surrounds us as we are people who trust the Lord.
Let all the faithful pray to you, and then you are a hiding place.
We don't need to hide ourselves in deceit, but God is the hiding place for us.
We've already seen that in several of our songs and hymns. You preserve me. You surround me.
I don't know if any of you have had this experience, but 45, 47 years ago, when my son Jason, who's not here but is out of town, was a preschooler, Don and I and Jason were at a mall.
And I was doing something, and Don was aware that Jason was wandering off, and so he just followed him, followed him out of the department store, followed him into a toy store, into a pet store.
Jason didn't touch anything, thank God.
And on down the mall, people began to look at this little kid and think, you know, where are his parents? And Don would own that name, okay?
But when they got to about the far end of the mall, Don realized that it was time to go back. Because I didn't know what was going on and where would they have disappeared to. And so he scooped him up and surrounded him and delivered him from this path that wasn't our path, but it was the path that he had taken, fallen off the path that we would have normally allowed. Have you ever experienced that as a parent? Do you remember experiencing it as a child? When you have been delivered after falling and cutting your knee, and mom or dad or grandparents are there to scoop you up, surround you with loving arms and deliver.
I think we all can relate.
But now look at verse 8.
The Psalmist who originally spoke to the congregation, and then from verse four through seven addresses God.
Then look at verse eight, which says, I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. I will counsel you with my Eye upon you, just like Don kept his eyes upon Jason.
Now who's talking? Is it the psalmist or is it God?
That's not perfectly finally determined, but we can imagine God saying, I will teach you and I will advise you. My eye is always on you. God's eye is on the sparrow.
But there's an exhortation, too. Not just comfort, but exhortation. Do not be like a horse or a mule without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
Now, from my experience, you might think, now what in the world does she know, growing up as a suburban kid in Connecticut, about horses or mules? I know zero about mules. We do see pictures of mules and cartoons of mules always resisting and being pulled but not being docile. But interestingly enough, probably no one here knows that in the 1930s, the late 1930s, in western Pennsylvania, my grandparents moved out of town and onto a farm. Valley Springs Pony Farm. My grandfather had always wanted a pony. His mother thought it was too dangerous. So on the farm where he grew up, he trained a calf who grew up to be obviously a cow, and rode that which is much more dangerous. But Granddad, when My aunt, who's 98, was about 10, said, well, since you asked what I want for Christmas, I'd really like a pony.
This is Granddad, who was the treasurer of a steel corporation, not very Frou Frou. So they moved. And in those years, from the late 1930s until the early 1970s, they had 45 to 50, 55 mayors and colts and foals and three stallions at Valley Springs Pony Farm. And so that's where I learned about halters and bridles and bits, because when the ponies were in the pasture, they just had a halter on with a little ring on the bottom. Didn't go through the mouth, just around so that if we wanted to leave them somewhere. And horses and ponies are herd animals, not too different from sheep, so they can be led. It seems that mules cannot be led so much. And the only time that a bridle was put on that went with the bit through the mouth and was led by someone either in a cart or on the back with reins that would pull and give signal that this is where you need to go.
But the halters were what we children. It was such a great place to go for summer vacation. Can you imagine?
And all the kitties and the dogs, except the Dalmatian laddie, whose strong tail just always whipped me and Was hard to stay away from. That was a little scary.
But the halter I think of as the Holy Spirit.
We don't need to have the sharpness of the bridle with the bit in the mouth. Hopefully we would be much more open to being led by the Holy Spirit. It wasn't always out in front. It was alongside. Remember, the Holy Spirit is that one alongside the paraclete.
And the goal, of course, of the Holy Spirit as we are cleansed and forgiven is that we would be a word that reminds, relates often to horses, docile, teachable, open to learning, humble enough that we are ready to be receptive and go along with how God and God's spirit are leading us.
So the encouragement, obviously, is not to knead a bit and bridle, but to stay near to God and allow the Holy Spirit, the halter, to lead us.
Isn't that what you want? Isn't that who we want to be as we are forgiven and as we are encouraged to be more and more conformed to the image, the character of Jesus Christ?
So early in our service, we had a corporate confession and a time of silence. And so I wonder about you. I, of course, have had several weeks to think about this, but what was the shape of your confession? Was it about rebellion? Mutiny?
Was it about missing the mark?
Was it about perhaps twisting the truth or trying to cover it up?
I know that I miss the mark big time in following the great commandment to love God with my heart, soul, mind and strength and my neighbor as myself, loving God with my heart, I can be easily seduced by things and distractions that also then make me miss the mark in how I spend my time, in what I put into my mind, in how I treat my body.
How about you?
And then there's that thing about neighbors.
So many of our neighbors are hurting from the local fires, from national firings.
And then, you know, there are those leaders, many of whom I don't love.
And well, that's far away. But then there are the friends of our heart who are followers of those leaders.
Oh, I really am off the mark on them.
And loving self, what do I allow the anger, that rock, that big rock to do to my emotions, my soul, when my time and my effort are spent on stupid stuff like Facebook?
And I don't even take appropriate healing rest for my soul.
So. And how about you? How are you doing? Loving yourself, your body, what you put into it, what you exercise, etc. But thank God that we have this great good news in our text. You know, Dr. Fuller, the son of the founder and the hermeneutics professor would always say the gospel and grace are implicit from the Hebrew scriptures on we don't have to just wait until we get to the New Testament so God forgives us our mutiny.
God helps us get back on the path after forgiving us.
God cleanses us and gives forgives us the little and the not so little lies and our covering ups when we confess and allow the Spirit of God to fill us and to cleanse us so we can rejoice as this psalm concludes and shout for joy all those who are upright in heart because of God's grace.
So be glad and rejoice oh you righteous let's pray.
Holy and gracious God we do thank you that you are a God of grace, you are a God who forgives.
We open ourselves to you that we might be upright in heart by the power of the Holy Spirit whose halter we put on and appreciate in Jesus name. Amen.
