WEBVTT 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:07.440 Hello everyone. 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:08.880 This is Pastor Benjamin. 00:00:08.880 --> 00:00:12.000 You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:15.439 At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:20.079 For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com. 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:21.039 Good morning. 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.120 Please stand and pray aloud with me. 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:33.439 Heavenly Father, may your word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path through Jesus Christ our Lord. 00:00:33.439 --> 00:00:34.399 Amen. 00:00:34.399 --> 00:00:39.200 If you're able, please remain standing for today's scripture, which comes from Psalm 32. 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:45.520 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:52.719 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 00:00:52.719 --> 00:00:59.520 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:07.040 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:13.519 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:20.239 I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:27.040 Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:31.040 Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:33.120 You are a hiding place for me. 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:35.120 You preserve me from trouble. 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:38.079 You surround me with shouts of deliverance. 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:41.920 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:44.959 I will counsel you with my eyes upon you. 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:53.519 Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curbed with brit and bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. 00:01:53.519 --> 00:02:00.000 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but the steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:06.719 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:08.159 This is God's word. 00:02:08.159 --> 00:02:10.479 You may be seated. 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:12.080 Well, good morning. 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:19.360 We've all known what it's like to play hide and seek. 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:26.800 If we were a kid at one point in time, and some of us who have grown up, we still know what it's like to play hide and seek. 00:02:26.800 --> 00:02:33.199 But here's the thing about that game the whole point of the game was to be found. 00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:37.360 And that kind of hiding, it ends in delight. 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:42.719 But there's another kind of hiding, and it ends in destruction. 00:02:42.719 --> 00:02:50.639 There's a researcher at Columbia named Michael Sipplin, and he has spent over a decade studying one thing secrets. 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:54.879 He analyzed more than 13,000 of them. 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:56.719 And here's what he found. 00:02:56.719 --> 00:03:04.000 The average person, let's say some of us in this room, is carrying around 13 secrets right now. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:09.680 And five of them, they have never told a single living soul. 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:12.960 But that's not even the most unsettling part. 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:20.719 The most unsettling part is that in a separate set of experiments, he found that secrets have a weight. 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:29.759 People who are preoccupied with a secret, they judge hills as steeper and distances as farther and longer. 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.560 It was as if they were physically heavier. 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:38.400 As he put it in the Atlantic, people acted as if they were burdened by physical weight. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.479 So why do we hide? 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:46.080 I think sometimes we hide because we want to feel safe. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:51.520 But if hiding makes us feel safe, why does it cost us so much? 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:54.319 And we've been doing this for a long time. 00:03:54.319 --> 00:03:58.080 Our hiding ways, it started in an ancient place, right? 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:02.319 The very first thing a human being ever did with sin was hide. 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:07.199 In Genesis 3, Adam said, I was afraid and I hid. 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:11.599 And the fig leaves that they found, Adam and Eve, were the first cover-up. 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:15.280 And we've been selling those ever since. 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:22.240 But God wants to call us out of hiding and into the hiding place. 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:28.639 It's the difference between hiding from God and hiding in God. 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:31.600 And we're going to explore that through our text through these points. 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:35.360 Come out of hiding and into the hiding place. 00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:42.399 If you have a Bible or a device or a bulletin, turn with me to Psalm 32, starting in verse 3. 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:47.439 Now we're going to come back to verses 1 and 2 in a little bit, but verse 3, 3 and 4. 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:54.879 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 00:04:54.879 --> 00:05:03.439 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 00:05:03.439 --> 00:05:08.560 Now notice where does David fill his guilt in his hiding? 00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:12.160 It's not in his head, but it's in his body. 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:24.560 His bones were wasted away, his strength was dried up, his voice groaning all day long, and even his sleep, feeling the heavy hand of the Lord upon him day and night. 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:28.079 This silence is not a peaceful quietness. 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:31.360 It's the refusal to acknowledge our sin. 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:40.079 So I was thinking through this text and I was trying to understand this a little bit more and looking at like how do bones waste away? 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:42.480 What's going on here underneath the text? 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:48.399 Well, this word in our text, it's the same thing that happens to your favorite old t-shirt. 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:53.759 It becomes thin, uh threadbare, falling apart at the seams. 00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:58.639 And David is saying that's this is what's happening to his body. 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:05.920 Unconfessed guilt, unconfessed sin that we are hiding, it wears you out like an old coat. 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:10.480 And then the word heavy, your hand was heavy upon me. 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:14.240 That's that weighty, oppressive feeling. 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:16.000 Oppressively heavy. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.879 It's the word for a load that you cannot lift. 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:26.000 It's not just like I'm putting one kid in one arm, one kid another, but this is a load that you cannot lift. 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:33.920 So David's guilt here is not just a mood, I'm feeling guilty, but it's a weight that he cannot lift. 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:38.639 And this is exactly what the research found that I just mentioned a little bit a little bit ago. 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:42.800 It's not, and it's not the hiding that wears us out the most. 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:44.240 It's the rehearsing. 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:50.720 It's the mind that keeps racing and wandering back to the secret when we are alone in the car at 2 a.m. 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:53.759 in the morning, in the middle of the night, or when you wake up in the morning. 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:58.399 We are silent on the outside, but we are wasting away on the inside. 00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:04.160 The thing that you will not say out loud is the very thing that's eating you alive. 00:07:04.160 --> 00:07:08.720 So here's the answer to our question: why do we hide? 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:11.920 We hide to feel safe. 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:13.680 And this is what is tragic. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:18.240 We believe it's safer to be unseen than to be seen. 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:22.240 But hiding, keeping silent, it's never safety. 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:25.839 It's a slow, what we learn in our text, it's a slow crush. 00:07:25.839 --> 00:07:29.759 It's a heavy hand, verse four, of our holy God. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:36.480 The place that we often run to to feel protected is the very place that quietly destroys us from the inside. 00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:44.079 Now keep your finger on verse five, but let's drop down to verse six, and that last half of there, verse six. 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:49.680 Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:53.199 What is this rush of great waters? 00:07:53.199 --> 00:08:00.079 Well, I think this is just another word picture for the weight and the guilt of our weight of our own guilt. 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:06.000 It's these great waters, it's the Bible's way of talking about chaos, judgment, drowning, death. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:11.040 It's the think of the flood or the Red Sea, it's the deep that swallows you whole. 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:14.639 And this is what it looks like to be silent in our sin. 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:16.959 Would have a heavy hand upon us. 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:21.519 It feels like rushing water, rapids all around us. 00:08:21.519 --> 00:08:24.639 Now go back to verse five and let's look at this again. 00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:31.920 It says, I acknowledge, David says, I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. 00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:38.080 So instead of coming out of hiding what he has done before, what did he do? 00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:41.440 We he covered himself, and we cover ourselves. 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:46.000 This is the ancient practice, and we got really good and creative out of it. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:54.639 There are generally, I think, maybe two fig leaves, two ways to hide, and this is influenced by my reading of Paul Miller's book, The J Curve. 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:56.080 Highly recommend that book. 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:57.440 But two ways to hide. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.840 The first is self-protection. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:02.320 Call it the victim story. 00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:08.080 It's where we say, I'm the one who got hurt, and I'm not putting myself out there again like that. 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:09.679 We blame shift. 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:11.919 It's the woman who gave me the fruit, God. 00:09:11.919 --> 00:09:14.159 I didn't take the fruit from the tree. 00:09:14.159 --> 00:09:18.159 We criticize, we judge, and we run other people down. 00:09:18.159 --> 00:09:19.440 Why? 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:26.159 It's so no one sees our own hearts of disorder, our own guilt and our own pain. 00:09:26.159 --> 00:09:27.279 So we hide. 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:29.759 We hide behind our wounds. 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:32.720 The second fig leaf is self-promotion. 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:34.879 Call it the manager's story. 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:41.919 Our sin becomes just another example of how we just are poor, how we just poorly manage the things around us. 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:47.120 Therefore, we choose to medicate, we choose to achieve, we choose to give generously. 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:52.960 We quietly redefine our sin until it isn't sin anymore. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:54.159 And we hide. 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:58.879 We hide behind our competence, our ability to cover our sin. 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:04.000 And we've gotten really creative at this two fig leaves or this hiding. 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.879 We built whole websites and economies for hiding. 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:13.039 Take one look at your social media account and just ask the question is that really you? 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:17.600 Or maybe you don't do that on social media, maybe you present the real you out there. 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:29.200 But we all, I think all of us suffer in subtle ways where we live on the outside as full of life, as completely happy, but we are dying on the inside from our guilt and our sin. 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:34.320 We actually believe that the hidden will reveal the horrible. 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:40.399 And so we manage our image to our friends, to our kids, and even to our spouses. 00:10:40.399 --> 00:10:44.240 We manufacture the story you want everyone else to believe. 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:53.360 But here's the thing: both are fig leaves, self-protection and self-promotion are just two well-developed places to hide. 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:59.840 Neither one lets God cover you because neither one lets God truly see who you are. 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:08.559 A friend of mine puts it this way: Guilt is only, he says, guilt is only a gift to those who want to be well. 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:13.279 If you want to stay hidden, guilt is actually misery. 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:19.919 But if you actually want to be well, if you want to be free, then the heavy hand, the wearing out, that 2 a.m. 00:11:19.919 --> 00:11:25.200 rehearsing, it is the most merciful gift that God can give us. 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:29.279 It is the very thing that's driving us out of hiding. 00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:34.080 Look down again with me at verses five and six, and let's watch these verbs. 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:50.480 David says, I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity, and I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 00:11:50.480 --> 00:12:00.000 Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at the time when you may be found, surely in the rush of great waters. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:01.840 So how do we come out of hiding? 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:03.759 David has the plan right here. 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:13.840 We do four things we acknowledge our sin to God, we do not cover our iniquity, we confess our transgressions to him, and we offer up prayer. 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:20.960 Confession, here, this word is the exact same word that means to give thanks or to praise. 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:26.639 So in Hebrew, confession of our sin and praise are the same word. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:40.480 So biblically, confession is not this groveling because of the consequences of our sin, but actually, confession is a praise to God that starts with the truth about yourself in front of God. 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:51.360 Jesus says in Luke chapter 12, he says this nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 00:12:51.360 --> 00:13:01.679 Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and whatever you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:05.039 God already knows all things. 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:12.879 So our confession is simply agreeing with what he already knows. 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:14.080 And what does God do? 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.159 What does God do once we confess? 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:20.720 Once we stop trying to cover our sins, verse 5, it says he forgives. 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.519 We confess and he forgives. 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:27.120 We must uncover in order to be covered by God. 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:29.600 Well, here's the diagnostic question for you. 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:31.679 Which fig leaf is yours? 00:13:31.679 --> 00:13:34.399 The self-protection or the self-promotion? 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:37.519 When you get caught, which story do you reach to? 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:40.559 Are you the one who is the wounded one? 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:43.759 Or are you the one who got who has it all handled? 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:48.799 Or maybe a different question: what is the secret that you've never said out loud? 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:53.600 Is there a closet in your soul with a door still shut? 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:57.679 You can be hidden or you can be known. 00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.519 You can't be both. 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:05.759 Now coming out of hiding, I've experienced this in my own life, it sounds terrifying. 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:09.919 Who in their right mind uncovers the worst thing about themselves? 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:13.440 You would only do that if you knew where you were going. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:15.840 And that is our second point. 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:20.399 Come out of hiding into the hiding place. 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:23.840 Look down with me at verse seven. 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:29.519 David says, You are a hiding place for me. 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:32.080 You preserve me from trouble. 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:35.919 You surround me with shouts of deliverance. 00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:38.799 The word hiding place means a shelter. 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:39.840 It's a refuge. 00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:41.519 It's also a type of concealing. 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:42.480 You're concealed. 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:48.559 So it's the same instinct that David has been wrestling against about wanting to cover his own sin. 00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:49.600 It's been flipped. 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:55.519 So you stop hiding your sin and you start hiding yourself in God, the hiding place. 00:14:55.519 --> 00:14:57.519 And what is that hiding place? 00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:01.279 In the hiding place, you are preserved from trouble by your God. 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:04.480 You're surrounded by shouts of deliverance. 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:12.240 So as you confess, as you acknowledge, as you shout out your sin, God shouts out your deliverance. 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:14.879 Now skip down with me to verse 10. 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:18.240 Many are the sorrows of the wicked. 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:24.639 So we could just add that to the list that we were talking about earlier about our bones wasting away and our strength being sapped up. 00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:29.279 Well, many are our sorrows of the wicked when we hide and conceal our sin. 00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:32.240 Hiding impacts us in a lot of different ways. 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:37.919 But keep reading, but the steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:40.879 This is that same word that we were just reading in verse 7. 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:48.399 We are not only surrounded by shouts of deliverance, we are surrounded by his steadfast love. 00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:56.879 Now let's find out more about who God is and go back to those verses that I skipped at the beginning, verses 1 and 2. 00:15:56.879 --> 00:15:58.960 Read with me. 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:07.200 Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:15.519 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:20.559 God acts in a really steadfast, loving way here. 00:16:20.559 --> 00:16:21.600 We are forgiven. 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:23.200 Our transgression is forgiven. 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.960 It literally means in the Hebrew to lift up, to carry away. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:29.679 Remember that weight that David has been carrying? 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:37.679 Forgiveness is God reaching down and picking up that weight and hauling it off as far as the east is from through from the west. 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:56.000 And if we go back to verse four for a second, God's hand is not the hand that wants to crush us, it's the hand of a loving father, pressing us, leading us to repentance and forgiveness, leading us to the fruit that is keeping in with repentance. 00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.600 The weight in the hand of God is not a punishment, it is a pressure in the direction of life. 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:10.480 It is the hand that leads us to a blessed life here, that David says, where your transgression is forgiven and where your sins are covered. 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:17.279 And what is it like when we stop covering ourselves and we uncover before God? 00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:20.799 Does he have his finger out when he's looking at us? 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:21.519 No. 00:17:21.519 --> 00:17:24.160 He's the coverer that we need. 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:43.119 God takes the fig leaves in our lives, he burns them with consuming fire, and he fits us with a new covering. 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.839 God also counts no iniquity. 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.160 This is an accounting word, it's a ledger. 00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:53.920 The Lord looks up the books, and next to your name and next to the call of iniquity, he writes, nothing. 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:59.920 Paul actually quotes this, and we read this earlier in our call to worship in Romans 4. 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:04.880 And Paul sees the beauty and the character and the one who is our hiding place. 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:16.880 He quotes it to explain how a sinner gets right with God, righteousness, not by our works, not by our shrewdness, not by our ability to hide, but by faith as counted as righteousness. 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:20.319 So hear what this beatitude actually means. 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:29.039 Blessedness is not found in having nothing to confess, it is found in having nothing left to hide. 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:33.599 The blessed one is not the person who has never sinned. 00:18:33.599 --> 00:18:39.519 It is the one who stopped hiding and found themselves in the hiding place. 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:43.839 Look at verses eight and nine. 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:52.240 God says, this is God is the one who's saying, I, he's the subject here, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:54.799 I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 00:18:54.799 --> 00:19:03.599 Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curved with a bit and bridle, or it will not stay with you. 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:05.599 Do you see the contrast? 00:19:05.599 --> 00:19:16.559 In verse 4, God's hand was heavy, but God would rather not lead you by heavy hand that presses, or by the bit in the bridle here in verse 9. 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:18.559 He doesn't want you to be a mule. 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:24.240 God says, I and instead, God is contrasting that and says, I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:30.240 God would rather guide you with a look than drag you with a bridle. 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.519 Because there really are two ways to arrive at repentance. 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:46.880 You can either be dragged there by the consequences of your sin, by bit and bridle, or you can be led there by the kindness of our God, by his instruction, by his teaching, by his counsel. 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:51.279 Do we come to confession because our sin has finally caught up with us? 00:19:51.279 --> 00:19:54.480 Or is it the consequences that forced us there? 00:19:54.480 --> 00:20:01.599 Or are we being led gently by instruction, by teaching, for the one who is our hiding place? 00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:14.079 The reality is that we need this psalmic spirituality of coming out of hiding and into the hiding place, not just for when we began our faith journey, but on every step along the way. 00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:21.200 Even after we're forgiven, justified before God, we find ways to still hide, even though they might be more religious. 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:21.920 J.I. 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:25.839 Packer named our battle with sin and hiding in one of two ways. 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:31.039 He says we either run to despair and we say, I must not have surrendered enough. 00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:35.759 This is why I keep sinning, and we hide behind self-condemnation. 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:42.799 Or he says we run to passivity and we say, I'll just get out of the way, hiding behind doing nothing. 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.839 Both of those are also still fig leaves. 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:49.119 And the blessings of verses one and two remove their power. 00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:52.960 Because you don't fight sin in your life to get God's love. 00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:57.039 You fight it because you have already won God's forgiveness and love. 00:20:57.039 --> 00:20:58.799 This is God's instruction. 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:01.200 This is God's teaching. 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:06.240 Gavin Orland says it like this Sanctification is total. 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:09.680 No one enters heaven with clenched knuckles. 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:15.200 Infinite joy means no closets in the soul hidden from God. 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:23.039 And this act of acknowledgement, this act of confession before our Lord, it's something that we cannot do alone. 00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:26.720 Almost 40 years ago, John Stott said this. 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.240 He said this about his time then, but it's so true now. 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:37.519 He says he wrote one day screens and technology would make personal contact ever less necessary. 00:21:37.519 --> 00:21:43.759 And that in such a world, the fellowship of the local church would become even more necessary, not less. 00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:49.839 And we would need to be a people that would meet with one another and talk and listen to one another. 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:52.480 And I would say to come out of hiding with one another. 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:53.519 He was right. 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:59.759 We have never been more connected with technology, but more hidden in our hearts from one another. 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:09.119 So, church, this is the antidote to the hiding economy, a community where you can be fully known and fully loved at the same time. 00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:11.039 That's what we are here for. 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:14.319 You weren't meant to come out of hiding alone. 00:22:14.319 --> 00:22:15.839 Now, I say this. 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:22.559 I say, get into community whenever I do a membership class or a premarital session or my closest relationships. 00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:31.200 Let's say it's going to be very difficult for me to come around you and care for you unless you plug yourself deeply into community. 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:41.119 Our community is the one that fulfills the law of Christ in Galatians by helping us carry our hidden guilt and our burdens and helping us carry them to where? 00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:42.720 To the foot of the cross. 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:46.240 So, yes, you're not meant to come out of hiding alone. 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:48.880 Our community is meant to carry the weight with us. 00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:54.720 They can walk us, though, to the foot of the cross, but they cannot take off the weight. 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:56.960 There's only one person who can do that. 00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:00.960 There's only one person who can actually lift off the weight from you. 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:04.160 There's only one person who can cover your sin. 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:06.720 And he is looking for you in the darkness. 00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:11.119 And that is where this whole psalm has been pointing us all along. 00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:14.000 So let me start where I began. 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:18.400 When we are kids, we would play hide and seek, and you would find the perfect spot. 00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:20.880 I'm sure you know those perfect spots in your houses. 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:26.319 Maybe it's behind the couch, maybe it's under some blankets, maybe it's it's in the closet. 00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:29.920 And at first it's a thrill because nobody can find you. 00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:42.000 But then as the minutes go by, it gets quiet, it gets dark, and that thrill it turns into a small cold fear. 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:42.799 What? 00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:45.759 And we ask, what if nobody comes for me? 00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.240 What if they stop looking for me? 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:53.920 And every kid hiding in the dark really is hoping for one thing to be found. 00:23:53.920 --> 00:24:04.480 Winnicott, a British pediatrician and psychologist, said it perfectly this way: it is a joy to be hidden, but it's a disaster not to be found. 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:07.039 And that's the whole Bible in one sentence. 00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:10.720 In the garden, the man hides and God comes looking. 00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:13.359 He says, Where are you, Adam and Eve? 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:14.319 Where are you? 00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:17.839 God is the seeker who comes after the sinner. 00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:20.319 Jesus was that seeker. 00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:22.240 He lives as we should live. 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:25.359 We hide to avoid being exposed. 00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:27.680 Instead, Jesus was exposed. 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:31.839 He was stripped, shamed, uncovered on the cross. 00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:35.519 We cannot lift our own weight, our own sins. 00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:38.240 Instead, Jesus bore them on himself. 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:41.599 The heavy hand of judgment was on him. 00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:45.680 We are terrified of the flood of the rushing waters that come. 00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:56.160 Instead, Jesus went under those rushing waters, and the great waters closed over his head, so that we would never have those waters go over our own heads. 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:02.319 On the cross, the Father turned his face away, and Jesus became the one who was not found. 00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:06.880 And he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:12.559 He was the unfound one, so that you would never be unfound again. 00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:23.039 Jesus left his hiding place at the side of the Father in heaven itself and came down into the dark where we are hiding to seek and to save the lost. 00:25:23.039 --> 00:25:26.480 He was uncovered so that you could be covered. 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:32.079 And when we are found, we are blessed, the Psalm says in verses 1 and 2. 00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:38.319 Because the blessed life is not found by hiding our sin, but being hidden in God. 00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:40.480 And we respond. 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:41.920 How do we respond? 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:44.240 Verse 11 captures it so well. 00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:54.400 It says, look with me, he says, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy. 00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:57.119 All you upright in heart. 00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:04.640 Beloved, my plea with you is to come out of hiding and into the hiding place of God. 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:06.240 Let us pray. 00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:26.400 Father, we are so grateful for your steadfast love for us in this, that you have given your son to ransom a people by forgiving our transgressions and covering our sins by his blood. 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:37.680 Jesus, you are the one who left your home to come and find us in our sin and our darkness and to deliver us. 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.359 Spirit, fill us with gladness. 00:26:41.359 --> 00:26:49.119 Give us a shouting joy, and help us to trust in the steadfast love of our God. 00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:51.839 We give you the glory. 00:26:51.839 --> 00:26:52.799 Amen.