Psalm 32 | Subversive Spirituality

Listen to this week’s sermon, Subversive Spirituality preached by Pastor Jason Dunn from Psalm 32.

Transcript

Welcome And Opening Prayer

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 0:06

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Hannah Corlew 0:20

Good morning. Please stand and pray aloud with me. Heavenly Father, may your word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Psalm 32 Read Aloud

Hannah Corlew 0:34

If you're able, please remain standing for today's scripture, which comes from Psalm 32. 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 transgression 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 eyes upon you. 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. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but the 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. This is God's word. You may be

Hide And Seek With Our Souls

Hannah Corlew 2:10

seated.

Pastor Jason Dunn 2:10

Well, good morning. We've all known what it's like to play hide and seek. 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. But here's the thing about that game the whole point of the game was to be found. And that kind of hiding, it ends in delight. But there's another kind of hiding, and it ends in destruction. There's a researcher at Columbia named Michael Sipplin, and he has spent over a decade studying one thing secrets. He analyzed more than 13,000 of them. And here's what he found. The average person, let's say some of us in this room, is carrying around 13 secrets right now. And five of them, they have never told a single living soul. But that's not even the most unsettling part. The most unsettling part is that in a separate set of experiments, he found that secrets have a weight. People who are preoccupied with a secret, they judge hills as steeper and distances as farther and longer. It was as if they were physically heavier. As he put it in the Atlantic, people acted as if they were burdened by physical weight. So why do we hide? I think sometimes we hide because we want to feel safe. But if hiding makes us feel safe, why does it cost us so much? And we've been doing this for a long time. Our hiding ways, it started in an ancient place, right? The very first thing a human being ever did with sin was hide. In Genesis 3, Adam said, I was afraid and I hid. And the fig leaves that they found, Adam and Eve, were the first cover-up. And we've been selling those ever since. But God wants to call us out of hiding and into the hiding place. It's the difference between hiding from God and hiding in God. And we're going to explore that through our text through these points. Come out of hiding and into the hiding place. If you have a Bible or a device or a bulletin, turn with me to Psalm 32, starting in verse 3. Now we're going to come back to verses 1 and 2 in a little bit, but verse 3, 3 and 4. 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, and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Now notice where does David fill his guilt in his hiding? It's not in his head, but it's in his body. 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. This silence is not a peaceful quietness. It's the refusal to acknowledge our sin. 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? What's going on here underneath the text? Well, this word in our text, it's the same thing that happens to your favorite old t-shirt. It becomes thin, uh threadbare, falling apart at the seams. And David is saying that's this is what's happening to his body. Unconfessed guilt, unconfessed sin that we are hiding, it wears you out like an old coat. And then the word heavy, your hand was heavy upon me. That's that weighty, oppressive feeling. Oppressively heavy. It's the word for a load that you cannot lift. It's not just like I'm

The Physical Weight Of Hidden Sin

Pastor Jason Dunn 6:20

putting one kid in one arm, one kid another, but this is a load that you cannot lift. So David's guilt here is not just a mood, I'm feeling guilty, but it's a weight that he cannot lift. And this is exactly what the research found that I just mentioned a little bit a little bit ago. It's not, and it's not the hiding that wears us out the most. It's the rehearsing. It's the mind that keeps racing and wandering back to the secret when we are alone in the car at 2 a.m. in the morning, in the middle of the night, or when you wake up in the morning. We are silent on the outside, but we are wasting away on the inside. The thing that you will not say out loud is the very thing that's eating you alive. So here's the answer to our question: why do we hide? We hide to feel safe. And this is what is tragic. We believe it's safer to be unseen than to be seen. But hiding, keeping silent, it's never safety. It's a slow, what we learn in our text, it's a slow crush. It's a heavy hand, verse four, of our holy God. The place that we often run to to feel protected is the very place that quietly destroys us from the inside. Now keep your finger on verse five, but let's drop down to verse six, and that last half of there, verse six. Surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. What is this rush of great waters? Well, I think this is just another word picture for the weight and the guilt of our weight of our own guilt. It's these great waters, it's the Bible's way of talking about chaos, judgment, drowning, death. It's the think of the flood or the Red Sea, it's the deep that swallows you whole. And this is what it looks like to be silent in our sin. Would have a heavy hand upon us. It feels like rushing water, rapids all around us. Now go back to verse five and let's look at this again. It says, I acknowledge, David says, I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. So instead of coming out of hiding what he has done before, what did he do? We he covered himself, and we cover ourselves. This is the ancient practice, and we got really good and creative out of it. 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. Highly recommend that book. But two ways to hide. The first is self-protection. Call it the victim story. It's where we say, I'm the one who got hurt, and I'm not putting myself out there again like that. We blame shift. It's the woman who gave me the fruit, God. I didn't take the fruit from the tree. We criticize, we judge, and we run other people down. Why? It's so no one sees our own hearts of disorder, our own guilt and our own pain. So we hide. We hide behind our wounds. The second fig leaf is self-promotion. Call it the manager's story. Our sin becomes just another example of how we just are poor, how we just poorly manage the things around us. Therefore, we choose to medicate, we choose to achieve, we choose to give generously. We quietly redefine our sin until it isn't sin anymore. And we hide. We hide behind our competence, our ability to cover our sin. And we've gotten really creative at this two fig leaves or this hiding. We built whole websites and economies for hiding. Take one look at your social media account and just ask the question is that really you? Or maybe you don't do that on social media, maybe you present the real you out there. But we all, I think all of us suffer in subtle ways where we live on the outside as full of life, as completely

Two Fig Leaves We Wear

Pastor Jason Dunn 10:25

happy, but we are dying on the inside from our guilt and our sin. We actually believe that the hidden will reveal the horrible. And so we manage our image to our friends, to our kids, and even to our spouses. We manufacture the story you want everyone else to believe. But here's the thing: both are fig leaves, self-protection and self-promotion are just two well-developed places to hide. Neither one lets God cover you because neither one lets God truly see who you are. 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. If you want to stay hidden, guilt is actually misery. 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. rehearsing, it is the most merciful gift that God can give us. It is the very thing that's driving us out of hiding. Look down again with me at verses five and six, and let's watch these verbs. 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. 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. So how do we come out of hiding? David has the plan right here. 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. Confession, here, this word is the exact same word that means to give thanks or to praise. So in Hebrew, confession of our sin and praise are the same word. 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. 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. 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. God already knows all things. So our confession is simply agreeing with what he already knows. And what does God do? What does God do once we confess? Once we stop trying to cover our sins, verse 5, it says he forgives. We confess and he forgives. We must uncover in order to be covered by God. Well, here's the diagnostic question for you. Which fig leaf is yours? The self-protection or the self-promotion? When you get caught, which story do you reach to? Are you the one who is the wounded one? Or are you the one who got who has it all handled? Or maybe a different question: what is the secret that you've never said out loud? Is there a closet in your soul with a door still shut? You can be hidden or you can be known. You can't be both. Now coming out of hiding, I've experienced this in my own life, it sounds terrifying. Who in their right mind uncovers the worst thing about themselves? You would only do that if you knew where you were going. And that is our second point. Come out of hiding into the hiding place. Look down with me at verse seven.

Confession That Leads To Forgiveness

Pastor Jason Dunn 14:25

David says, You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. The word hiding place means a shelter. It's a refuge. It's also a type of concealing. You're concealed. So it's the same instinct that David has been wrestling against about wanting to cover his own sin. It's been flipped. So you stop hiding your sin and you start hiding yourself in God, the hiding place. And what is that hiding place? In the hiding place, you are preserved from trouble by your God. You're surrounded by shouts of deliverance. So as you confess, as you acknowledge, as you shout out your sin, God shouts out your deliverance. Now skip down with me to verse 10. Many are the sorrows of the wicked. 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. Well, many are our sorrows of the wicked when we hide and conceal our sin. Hiding impacts us in a lot of different ways. But keep reading, but the steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. This is that same word that we were just reading in verse 7. We are not only surrounded by shouts of deliverance, we are surrounded by his steadfast love. 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. Read with me. Blessed is the man 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. God acts in a really steadfast, loving way here. We are forgiven. Our transgression is forgiven. It literally means in the Hebrew to lift up, to carry away. Remember that weight that David has been carrying? 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. 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. The weight in the hand of God is not a punishment, it is a pressure in the direction of life. 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. And what is it like when we stop covering ourselves and we uncover before God? Does he have his finger out when he's looking at us? No. He's the coverer that we need. God takes the fig leaves in our lives, he burns them with consuming fire, and he fits us with a new covering. God also counts no iniquity. This is an accounting word, it's a ledger. The Lord looks up the books, and next to your name and next to the call of iniquity, he writes, nothing. Paul actually

God As Our True Hiding Place

Pastor Jason Dunn 17:55

quotes this, and we read this earlier in our call to worship in Romans 4. And Paul sees the beauty and the character and the one who is our hiding place. 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. So hear what this beatitude actually means. Blessedness is not found in having nothing to confess, it is found in having nothing left to hide. The blessed one is not the person who has never sinned. It is the one who stopped hiding and found themselves in the hiding place. Look at verses eight and nine. 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. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 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. Do you see the contrast? 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. He doesn't want you to be a mule. God says, I and instead, God is contrasting that and says, I will counsel you with my eye upon you. God would rather guide you with a look than drag you with a bridle. Because there really are two ways to arrive at repentance. 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. Do we come to confession because our sin has finally caught up with us? Or is it the consequences that forced us there? Or are we being led gently by instruction, by teaching, for the one who is our hiding place? 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. Even after we're forgiven, justified before God, we find ways to still hide, even though they might be more religious. J.I. Packer named our battle with sin and hiding in one of two ways. He says we either run to despair and we say, I must not have surrendered enough. This is why I keep sinning, and we hide behind self-condemnation. Or he says we run to passivity and we say, I'll just get out of the

Led By Kindness Not Consequences

Pastor Jason Dunn 20:40

way, hiding behind doing nothing. Both of those are also still fig leaves. And the blessings of verses one and two remove their power. Because you don't fight sin in your life to get God's love. You fight it because you have already won God's forgiveness and love. This is God's instruction. This is God's teaching. Gavin Orland says it like this Sanctification is total. No one enters heaven with clenched knuckles. Infinite joy means no closets in the soul hidden from God. And this act of acknowledgement, this act of confession before our Lord, it's something that we cannot do alone. Almost 40 years ago, John Stott said this. He said this about his time then, but it's so true now. He says he wrote one day screens and technology would make personal contact ever less necessary. And that in such a world, the fellowship of the local church would become even more necessary, not less. And we would need to be a people that would meet with one another and talk and listen to one another. And I would say to come out of hiding with one another. He was right. We have never been more connected with technology, but more hidden in our hearts from one another. 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. That's what we are here for. You weren't meant to come out of hiding alone. Now, I say this. I say, get into community whenever I do a membership class or a premarital session or my closest relationships. 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. 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? To the foot of the cross. So, yes, you're not meant to come out of hiding alone. Our community is meant to carry the weight with us. They can walk us, though, to the foot of the cross, but they cannot take off the weight. There's

Community That Helps Us Unhide

Pastor Jason Dunn 22:55

only one person who can do that. There's only one person who can actually lift off the weight from you. There's only one person who can cover your sin. And he is looking for you in the darkness. And that is where this whole psalm has been pointing us all along. So let me start where I began. When we are kids, we would play hide and seek, and you would find the perfect spot. I'm sure you know those perfect spots in your houses. Maybe it's behind the couch, maybe it's under some blankets, maybe it's it's in the closet. And at first it's a thrill because nobody can find you. But then as the minutes go by, it gets quiet, it gets dark, and that thrill it turns into a small cold fear. What? And we ask, what if nobody comes for me? What if they stop looking for me? And every kid hiding in the dark really is hoping for one thing to be found. 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. And that's the whole Bible in one sentence. In the garden, the man hides and God comes looking. He says, Where are you, Adam and Eve? Where are you? God is the seeker who comes after the sinner. Jesus was that seeker. He lives as we should live. We hide to avoid being exposed. Instead, Jesus was exposed. He was stripped, shamed, uncovered on the cross. We cannot lift our own weight, our own sins. Instead, Jesus bore them on himself. The heavy hand of judgment was on him. We are terrified of the flood of the rushing waters that come. Instead, Jesus went under those rushing waters, and the great waters

Jesus The Seeker Who Covers Us

Pastor Jason Dunn 24:50

closed over his head, so that we would never have those waters go over our own heads. On the cross, the Father turned his face away, and Jesus became the one who was not found. And he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was the unfound one, so that you would never be unfound again. 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. He was uncovered so that you could be covered. And when we are found, we are blessed, the Psalm says in verses 1 and 2. Because the blessed life is not found by hiding our sin, but being hidden in God. And we respond. How do we respond? Verse 11 captures it so well. It says, look with me, he says, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy. All you upright in heart. Beloved, my plea with you is to come out of hiding and into the hiding place of God. Let

Rejoicing And Closing Prayer

Pastor Jason Dunn 26:05

us pray. 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. Jesus, you are the one who left your home to come and find us in our sin and our darkness and to deliver us. Spirit, fill us with gladness. Give us a shouting joy, and help us to trust in the steadfast love of our God. We give you the glory. Amen.