The Shouts of Jesus (Psalm 32)

Welcome. I'm glad you're with us. I'm Gary Wilkerson here at World Challenge Studio, and we are continuing our series on the Book of Psalms.

This is an expository teaching. We try to go as much as possible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, line by line, precept by precept. We also see this as a devotional series, so it's not just doctrine.

It goes into the doctrine, but it also goes into the heart and wants to help us achieve an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. So we hope this has been a blessing to you. Today, we'll be looking at Psalm 32, and the message is titled, The Shouts of Jesus.

You're going to see something intriguing here today when Jesus shouts. You're going to want to pay attention. He is meek and mild, lowly.

He has come to comfort those who are hurting and oppressed. And so when Jesus shouts, it's saying something significant, and we need to pay attention to that. So let me read Psalm 32.

It's just 11 verses, and then we'll pray, and then we'll break it down verse by verse. Psalm 32, a mask of David. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord accounts no iniquity, and in whom 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 the heat of summer. I acknowledge 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's godly pray, 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 in 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 the horse or the 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 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. Father, teach us, instruct us, and let there be shouts of your work in our life, that it would not be distant. It would not be so far removed that we would not feel it.

The thunder of your voice, the shouts of your voice instructing us about sin, instructing us about righteousness, instructing us about the gospel, and instructing us about the purpose of your instruction in our life. Thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. First two verses, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven. First word he talks about here is transgression, but he doesn't stop there.

It would be enough for him to get on his knees and say, Lord, I have transgressed against you, but he goes further and says, whose sin is covered. He's not only transgressed, he has sinned. And he's talking about the blessing of the covering of transgression and the covering of sin.

Verse two, he continues, blessed is the man whom the Lord does not count iniquity, and whose spirit there is no deceit. Three different words that David uses for sin here. Doctrinally, it's important to understand this because these are elements that we are all dealing with in our life.

We are struggling with breaking the law. We are struggling with transgression. We are struggling with sin.

We sometimes wonder, God, why is sin so deep and rooted in our heart? Why am I struggling with habitual practices? Why can't I break free from this particular pattern in my life? And David breaks these down into three things. The first one he talks about is transgression. The way I would most clearly identify a transgression is crossing over the line or crossing over a boundary.

It is the Hebrew word pesha and it speaks of an infringement or an intrusion into another's life or property or exceeding the bounds of limits, crossing the line. You've heard people say this probably before when somebody tells an off-color joke in a particular setting and you go, you know, you crossed the line. Or when you did something on the job that was totally inappropriate and the people around you will say you crossed the line.

This is in God's eyes when we do this in relationship with him. He has boundaries. He has rules.

He has teachings. He has instruction. And when we go against that, he says we have transgressed against the law.

This is, this one, this transgression is a willful violation. It is often with, has to do with the way we go about this without even concern, without even caring about it. This crossing the line, this transgression seems to be willful in the sense that we don't even care when we cross that line.

It's boastful at times. And David confesses there he has in his own life has seen transgression. You and I have seen that as well.

We've crossed the line and there's, there's the rebuke of the word of the Lord. There's the shout of the law really was what it is. We're going to get into that in just a moment.

The second one is David mentions here is sin. And this word in the Greek is hamarita. And it means falling short of the mark.

You probably, if you've been in church at any time or any Bible studies or read about this word sin, it's speaks of like an arrow being put at a target and it goes towards the target and there's the bullseye, but it misses the bullseye and misses the mark. Now that's the most common way. I heard that since I was a kid in Sunday school, but really it doesn't fully paint the picture because that that's almost like, well, you got close.

You did pretty good. You're not in the first circle, but you're right around the edge. So, you know, why would God be so angry at that? Missing the mark in the sense of an archer in, in this, this word here, Hebrew, chata would be like taking the arrow and wanting to go up to the, to the sun or to a star and shooting it upwards saying, I'm going to hit that mark up there, that, that high calling and the arrow falling obviously far short.

That's why Paul described this word, this, this, this word sin, all four in Romans chapter three, verse 23, three 23. It says all of us has fallen short of the glory of God. The, the, the best of our works, the best of our law keeping the best of our trying to in our own self overcome transgression and sin has fallen far short.

We are not able to do this. And there's three areas. First John chapter two, verse 16 tells us three areas where the sin is working in our life.

And it starts off by saying all that is in the world. And anytime you were attached to the world or have a love for the world, deeper than a love for God, we're going to see these three areas, not only rise up in our life, but become almost like addictions to us. Number one is the lust of the flesh.

That's the bodily things for, for, for food, for drugs, for alcohol, for sexual immorality. The second one is the lust of the eyes. The it's, it's, it's the, it's the greed.

It's the striving after things, the materialism, the, the pressure to be as good as the neighbor. And that's the lust of the eyes. And the third is the pride of life, selfishness, self-ambition.

And when it comes to sin, pride of life also deals with sin. It says, I can take care of this myself. I have confidence.

Paul called it confidence in the flesh confidence that, uh, it doesn't take the cross. It doesn't take the blood. All it takes is me trying a little bit harder, promising I'll do better next time.

I'll, I'll overcome that addiction. I'll overcome that habitual pattern of sin because I'm good enough. I'm strong enough.

I'm capable enough. And I don't want to come to God and confess my failure. So I will have pride of life.

So we have transgression. We have sin. And David goes on and says, there's this third thing that I'm wrestling with.

And this is something that you and I are wrestling. And I would suggest to you that it's the core of all of our wrestling. It is the birthplace of transgression and sin.

And it's called iniquity. If, if crossing the line is transgression and missing the mark is sin, then iniquity is being sinful by nature or having what the ancient writers called having original sin. And it's Greek.

It's the word Awan and it means perversity or twistedness, moral evil acts of moral uncleanness. It's most often used when it's contrasting righteousness. And so it's, it's, uh, it's the, it's the speaking of an opposite here.

So if you look at real quickly, turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter six and verse 19, Paul says, I am speaking in human terms for, because of your natural limitations for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity. So here, here's the word iniquity. Paul is calling that a slave to impurity.

It's you can't escape it. Try as you might to try with the pride of your life, as, as John said, and you're not going to escape it. So it's impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. The juxtaposition here is on one side, you have this iniquity, this lawlessness, this, this very nature of who you are on the other side, what God does for us. We'll talk about this.

Hopefully in just a moment is the remedy to this original sin, the remedy to the sin nature. So this, this word iniquity may speak of actual commitments, committing of sin. It may speak of, of actions or behaviors, but at its root, I believe it speaks more deeply to the idea of who you are by the very internal nature of your being.

It's, it's the parable of a bad tree bears bad fruit. And sometimes we look at sin or transgression and we see the fruit of it. Here in this word, we see the tree, the tree that produces this.

It's original sin. The word original sin is a, is a bit of a strange word. Somebody in Sunday school one time said, I don't think any of my sin is original.

I think somebody's already done it before. As if you were kind of being creative and trying to do something that's original. It doesn't mean that what it means is it's, it's, it's, it's the origins of your being the, you, you, it came from our origins.

It has been part of our original heritage and being, and it's not something that is just passed down from one to another in the sense of here's my behavior and you kind of see me model that and you pick it up, but it's literally within, you might even say maybe in our DNA, it is actually part of who we are as the, as the fallen nature. And all three of these things are brought together in David's understanding. He's, he's, he says of himself in Psalm 51.5, that he was brought forth in iniquity.

So he, he is, and that's a scripture that we can use to speak clearly about the depravity of man, the, the, the moral incapability of strengthening yourself to rise up out of the slavery to unrighteousness. And it calls for a dependency on something other than what we have in ourselves. It calls for a dependency upon God.

So what do we do here with these three particular sins? What do we do? David goes on to say at the end of verse two, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. And he's getting ready to say, because I don't want to be deceitful about these things. I want to understand that I've transgressed the, the gone over the cross the line.

I, I've missed the mark. I haven't achieved the, the, the glory of God. And, and, and, and I see the right in my very fabric of my being, the original sin, the depravity of man, the fallen nature.

It's not just that I'm doing bad things, that there's something in me that needs to be transformed. And he says, you know, there's a blessing that God gives. And he puts it upon a man, a man or woman who, who has come under the understanding of the cross of Jesus in faith.

He puts an understanding in us that, that no deceit is going to help us. You can't hide. You can't run.

You can't cover. Remember Adam and Eve tried to hide in the garden after they sinned. How horrible an approach to God, the most delightful being ever.

The, the one who invented things like joy and love and peace. And when he came to that garden, he brought all that with him. And imagine hiding from that.

You see in that how destructive these simple patterns in our life are not dealing with our sin nature, the original sin in our life. So don't have any deceit. Don't try to hide.

Don't try to run. Don't try to cover it. Don't try to have the pride of life, help thinking that'll help you through this.

No deceit. And then he goes on to, to talk not about this first area, this, and that's what I would call the first shout that we've just been talking about. The shout of the law, where Jesus comes with a booming voice, a thundering voice saying to us, this is the law of God.

This is the law given to Moses. Thou shalt. And he gives these commandments, not only the 10, but 613.

And, and, and in Romans, Paul asked the question, why then the law, the law condemns the law, the law rebukes, the law shows us our own sinfulness. Paul even says, when I saw the law, sin increased in me because of the, the nature of it. Just, it frustrated me, cause more anger to come up in my life, cause more lust to stir up in my life.

The thing that you said, I can't do. I started to strive to do sin increase. So Paul asked him, why did God then give the law? This is the shout of the law.

It's, it's to show us that our pride of life is not sufficient. Our self effort is not sufficient. Our cleansing ourselves and the law, Paul says it, it, it shuts every mouth.

It, it, it, it, it condemns us all. It shuts us up in sin. We read that from Romans chapter six, that we were slaves to unrighteousness and the law confirms that the law brings us into that.

And that's the shout of the law. And the, and the second shout here is the shout of the gospel. And it's, it's the understanding of that we cannot keep the law in ourself.

We need something other than the law and that's the gospel. And the gospel begins with repentance. The gospel begins with faith.

And I believe with all my heart, those two things are gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to us because we're dead in our sins and trespasses. We're dead in these three areas that David talks about. We have no ability to transition out of that and all of a sudden say like, Hey, I'm going to turn from being an iniquitous person, depraved of nature, dead in my sin and trespasses, and I'm going to have faith and repentance.

No, it's the glory of God. It's the call of God. It's the choosing of God that he moves upon us by his spirit.

And when he does that, here's one of the first things that happens in gospel life verses three through five. For when I kept silent about, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. This speaks of, of without the gospel, there's just a wasting away of our life.

There's depression, there's discouragement, there's fear, there's anxiety. There's, the law is calling us to strive. It's calling us to press in, but it gives us no power to accomplish that, which is calling us so, so it can say, don't covet.

But Paul said that very thing when it says don't covet it, it just makes me want to covet more. And so we need to not keep silent about the inadequacy of the law or silent about the need for something greater than the my bones wasted away. This speaks not only of emotional or mental, but physical, how it can cause us to be slothful, how it causes us to disengage with spiritual ambitions and zeal and vibrancy in life.

And he says he was groaning all the day long. There's, there's a groaning when we're not living the full gospel life. There's a groaning when we're striving under the law to be better, to do better, to please God, to earn his favor, to overcome sin in our own strength so that God would be now acceptable.

He would accept us now because we finally overcome that thing that we were struggling with. He, he gave us room and we messed it up. And so we need to fix the mess.

We, we spilled the milk, so we've got to clean it up and understanding, not understanding what God does for us in the gospel. For day and night, verse four says, your hand was heavy upon me. This is the, this, this is going back to the, to the shout of the law, the, the heavy hand, the hammer, Jeremiah called it, the hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.

It's, it's breaking our heart because out of that brokenness comes healing. And his hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up.

Sounds, sounds pretty bad, but it's actually pretty good. This, this is the transition moment. This is the glorious place where we have come to an end of ourselves, where we say, Lord, no longer can I try in my own strength.

No longer do I have confidence in the flesh. The law has done its work. It's tutored me to show me that I am incapable of coming into the gospel myself, of coming into the grace of God, myself, of coming into faith in my own power.

I need something more. And the strength without that is dried up like the heat of summer. Verse five, I acknowledge my sin to you.

And I did not cover my iniquity. I will say to you, I will confess my transgression to the Lord. And here's the gospel.

And you forgave the iniquity of my sin. What a powerful phrase here. Let's look at the negative first, the iniquity of my sin.

He's putting two words together here in a strange fashion. It's not used very often in scripture. He didn't just say you forgave my sin or you forgave my iniquity, but you forgive the iniquity of my sin.

You forgave the being that I am. You forgave me in my very deepest part of my soul. You took away my slave to iniquity and you put me now as a slave to righteousness.

You took me out of the old kingdom and created me into a new creation in the kingdom of God. My sin is now dealt with because you've dealt with the original sin nature. This is what Paul talked about in Romans as well.

When he speaks about the Adamic nature, Adam's nature was passed down to us from our first father. He sinned and then we took that original sin onto ourself. And Paul in Romans says, oh, but what Jesus did came along and he took us under his banner and took us into, created us as a branch into that new tree that he is.

And we now bear fruit for righteousness. We are not under the Adamic nature of sin now, although we still wrestle with the sin nature, but there's this duality now that Christ has come and put his righteousness within us. May I just take a moment to read this, this to you.

It's Romans chapter five. And I think this will be clearer than the way I just tried to describe it. So I want to read it.

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man. So that's Adam and death reigned through him. That one trespass, that one disobedience, it reigned that one man.

Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through that one man, Christ Jesus. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that's the shout of the law, that we're all shut up in that one man's sin. And we're under the headship of Adam.

And that's our lineage. And our DNA, if you will, is found in the fall of that one man. And it's our fall as well.

Even before we commit the first sin, we don't, we don't commit, we don't sin and then become a sinner. We are sinners and therefore we do sin. And that's under the Adamic or Adam's nature.

Verse 18 again, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

That's again, the, the iniquity we're talking about in our life. So that by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. What a beautiful transformation we see here when David is saying, he forgave the iniquity of my sin.

He's talking about what I believe to be the threefold work of Christ on the cross, the threefold work of Christ. You're taking notes, write these down because this will be something to rejoice over, shout over, and you can join Jesus in the shout of the gospel. And the first one is the cleansing of sin.

The blood of Jesus has washed us from sin. So every sin we've committed, this is the, the fruit of the branch. It is, it is the, the things that the fruit of the tree that has come forth.

And Jesus says, I'll wipe your slate clean. I'll, I'll free you from even the condemnation of those things in your past, the cleansing of sin that Jesus died for our sin. He nailed all our sin to the cross, but gloriously he did more than that.

You see, because if he just forgave our sin, we would still not be acceptable to God. We would still not be righteous before him. We would still not be in his sight, able to go into heaven and abide with him forever because God doesn't need us just to have an empty slate, a clean slate saying like, well, there's no sin in him, but there's not any righteousness in him.

There has to be righteousness. It takes this righteousness to stand before God. We can't stand before him just saying, I didn't do anything wrong.

We have to have the righteousness of Christ. So there's this, what, what is called the imputation of Christ's righteousness into us. And this is why it's important to understand that Jesus didn't just kind of show up at 33 years old, do a few miracles, then die on the cross for our sins.

He spent 33 years before that. Why? Because he perfectly fulfilled all the law that were Adam and everyone else failed. Even Moses failed, Joshua, David, all the prophets who preached holiness, all of them failed.

And none of them were in their self's righteousness. Paul says in Romans that there are none righteous, not even one save Jesus Christ. He's the only one who's lived a perfectly righteous life.

Not one sin, not one lust, not one thought, not one covetousness, not one emotion, not one willful disobedience. He was perfect. You see, God requires perfect obedience to the shout of the law.

And Jesus fulfilled that shout. He fulfilled it perfectly. And so when he went to the cross, he could become a full on substitute for us.

The high priest before him could not fully substitute for us because they had to come into the place of sacrifice for sins. They had to sacrifice for their own sin first. And so they were not clean vessels, nor did they fulfill the demands of God.

But Jesus did this. So when he died on the cross for us, he not only took away our sins, but he put into us his righteousness. And some people say this is infused in us.

This is a Catholic theology, or even in some Protestant teachings, some of the faith and prosperity movement speaks of this, that this righteousness of Christ, his perfect righteousness has not just been imputed in you, but it's infused in you now so that you are perfectly righteous. Not in the sense of Christ being in you, but you yourself, even if Christ were distant from you, you would stand alone as righteousness. That's called the infused righteousness.

This goes against the gospel teaching. Paul particularly talked about that in Romans 7, where he says, the flesh wrestles against the spirit of the spirit. Don't do what I want to do.

This is not before he was a Christian, or otherwise he wouldn't be wrestling with the things of the flesh. He would just be fully engaging them as he did in persecuting the Christians and the hatred in his own heart, calling himself the chief of sinners. But he's not the chief of sinners here when he is dealing with this battle because he's hating sin and fighting against it.

But he sees within me, in my own self, there's no righteousness. It's Christ in me. He is covering me with his righteousness.

Not only is my sin covered, but my unrighteousness is covered. And Christ now allows me to have full access into the presence of God. And that's the third of the threefold work of the cross is God's intercession, Jesus's intercession.

And it's found in Hebrews chapter 7. I'd love to take a moment with you just to briefly look at this. Hebrews chapter 7 says this, consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost, what a beautiful word, those who draw near to him, to God through him. We draw near to God, not through our own mustering up our own faith, our own encouragement, our own battling, our own efforts or our own striving.

We draw near to God through him. Doesn't that make you just want to just come to Jesus and say, thank you, Jesus, for doing for me what I could not do for myself. I try in my own strength to pray more, to fast more, to witness more, to sin less.

And what I realized when I fully understand the gospel and just living under the law, it's through him. It's the grace that empowers me to do the things that I could not do in my own strength. And now that he has graced me, he's given me his strength to accomplish his purpose.

And now back to this third, the third use of the third work of Jesus on the cross is that it says that just to draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Oftentimes we read this and you've heard it said probably before, Jesus is praying for you. And what we think when we hear that is like, Oh, I'm praying that you won't be so discouraged today.

Or I'm praying that you'll overcome that sin. Or I'm praying for your family. I'm praying for your finances.

That's not it at all. Jesus is God. And so he doesn't have to ask for things on us.

This intercession is more of a legal word. He's advocating for us. This is so powerful that, that Jesus stands before God and we're there in his presence.

And Jesus is bringing us to the father saying, I've not only cleansed their sin, but I've put my righteous cloak upon them. They, they, they are now righteous as I am righteous. I perfectly fulfilled all the law.

I did every act of obedience purely perfectly. And now I've put that cloak upon them. So father, when you see them, you see the righteousness of Christ.

You see them as perfectly keeping the law. And this answers the question. Some people say, well, if he's made me righteous like him, then I'm perfect.

You're not perfect in yourself. You're still wrestling with sin and the flesh and this and the sin nature that tries to creep in to our life once again. But you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

Your perfection is that Christ has covered you. Christ is your perfection. Christ is your righteousness.

Christ is your freedom to live victorious before God. And so Jesus is interceding for you. He's advocating for you.

He's pleading your case as a lawyer would before the judge. And he's declaring you righteous. Isn't that wonderful that Jesus, your elder brother speaks up for you and says, Gary's righteous.

And you say, me, look at, look at my life. Look at my sin. Look at my fallen nature.

Look at the arrow that has missed the mark so many times. And Jesus says, no, all that's gone. But not only that, every work that I've done, every step of obedience I've done has been counted on your side.

And this is the great exchange, how Christ exchanges. It's this legal, it's almost like an accounting term. On one side, you have all the red ink, the debt.

And on the other side, you have all the black ink, the merit. And Jesus says, I clean all the red side out so you have no debt at all. But then I also move you into all the black part, all the merit that's on my side.

We receive all the full righteousness of Christ. What does that do? It breaks the power of transgression. It gives us an ability to stand on the right side of the line.

It gives us a power to not miss the mark, but to hit the mark. Why? Because Jesus hit the mark and we are cloaked and covered in him. And it deals with this very sin nature that separates us from God, not because we did acts of sin, but because we are sinners.

And now we still sin, but we are not labeled as one who is living in unrighteousness and unjustified. Now we have been justified. And this is the shout of the gospel.

And what happens then? Verse six and seven tells us about this active work of Jesus Christ. Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Surely in rushing the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.

You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me in trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance.

When we come to Jesus and he transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light and imputes his righteousness to us and gives us a right standing before God. Then he says, offer prayer when he may be found, because there's always this great rushing waters. There's always the attack of the enemy, the flesh, the world, the pride of life.

These things are always crouching at the door to try to grab hold of you to get a foothold in your life. So under the gospel shout, there's this third shout now of Jesus. It's the shout of deliverance.

It's him. I just picture Jesus just shouting on our behalf, rushing waters will come against you. Waves will crash against you.

Storms will come at you in magnitudes. You won't be able to stand in your own strength, but I will surround you. He says here with shouts of deliverance.

This is Jesus saying this. I will surround you. I'm going to shout over you.

You're delivered. The waves won't crash against you anymore. And when they do, you're going to be able to stand.

The floods won't drown you. I shout against those things in your life and I bring you to a place of deliverance. Oh, glorious things in verse six and seven that he may be found when trouble abounds.

He may be found when great waters come against you. They're not going to reach you. This is him shouting.

They're not going to reach you. This is him shouting. These things won't be found in your life and you're going to be a hiding place for me.

You preserve me in trouble. This is the shout that's surrounding us. I'm preserving you.

I'm keeping you. My hand is upon you. My grace is upon you.

My reconciliation has redeemed you. My advocacy for you causes you to stand before God, perfectly seen as an acceptable son or daughter in his presence. How glorious that he shouts over us and he surrounds us with these shouts.

Day and night you hear this shout. I'm surrounded. I step forward and I feel trouble coming at me and I hear the shout of deliverance.

Things that are in my past try to re-echo their voice in my head again and all of a sudden I'm surrounded behind me, in front of me by the shouts of praise. In my left hand, in my right hand troubles and tribulations come against me with full force and there's the shout of Jesus against it. You shall not pass.

You shall not come. You may not be found. You will not reach him.

You will be preserved in your time of trouble. I will surround you, he says, with my shouts of deliverance. So we see the shout of the law condemns us.

The shout of the law, gospel, then begins to free us and the shout of Jesus's deliverance protects us and preserves us. So we don't have to fear. It's like, oh, I was saved, but now I'm starting to struggle by these waves and these winds and these troubles and this sin that's crouching at the door.

I got free from transgression and sin and iniquity. And in verse 5, the iniquity of my sin you forgave, but then troubles came again and I slipped and I failed and maybe I have no more hope or maybe I lost it. And Jesus shouts, no, perseverance of the saints.

I'm holding you. No man shall pluck you out of my hand. Oh, and some people, I believe, grossly say, well, you can take yourself out of his hand.

No, no, no, no. He is holding you. If you could take yourself out of his hand, you would have already done it.

We in our own selfishness and our own sinfulness would easily jump out of his hands. But the glory of God is the one who saved us is the one who keeps us. If we save ourselves, then we have to keep ourselves.

But if he saves us, then he's going to keep us and no man will pluck us out of his hand, not even ourselves. In verse 8 and 9 gives now what I call the shout of instruction. Martin Luther and some of the early reformers talked about the three uses of the law.

If you're taking notes, write these three things down. The first use of the law is the one we talked about already. The shout of the law is to show us the sinfulness of our sin, to see sin increase to where we finally realize we can't do it ourself.

The second use of the law is called the civil use of the law. And that's just the moral law that God has allowed by what we call common grace to filter into society. So to some degree, the men are trying to do good things.

They're trying to pass good laws. The Supreme Court in America, by common grace, brought a reversal of the Roe v. Wade in America. That's the common grace of the civil use of the law.

Don't murder, don't kill, traffic violations that could harm people. It's a restraint. The second use of the law, the civil use of the law, is a restraint against the immorality of our heart so that the line is drawn and it attempts to keep us from that.

And that's why the righteous rejoice when there's godly leadership. But when we have leadership like we have growing more and more in America, it becomes more and more difficult to see the civil use of the law working. That's why we need a spiritual awakening to see the second use of the law become more prevailing in our society that has so downgraded into sin and immorality.

This is. And then the third use of the law is for the believer. And this is important for us to understand because a lot of times believers think we have jettisoned the law.

There's the end of the law. Paul said the end of the law for righteousness. In other words, I don't use the law to become righteous.

I don't use the law to become justified in the eyes of God. I don't use the law to try to make me acceptable to God. That is law keeping.

That is confidence in the flesh. And that's what's come to an end. That's what has been jettisoned.

We no longer use the law to try to do what Jesus has done for us to live perfectly. If you have that use of the law, then you have to keep it perfectly and you can't. So that's where Jesus's imputed righteousness is so important to us.

I hope you're following this because it's really important for us. So this third use of the law then is as a believer, as a son and daughter, as no longer a slave, but a child of God, that child has some household methodologies. Maybe at your house, the kids eat TV dinners and watch a movie while they're eating.

When we have family dinners, our kids are grown and our grandkids and our kids come over to our house. We don't sit in front of television. We have a family meal together.

And some people say, well, no, I want, you know, why would you do that? You know, a guest might come to our house and say, you know, we'd like to do something different. I say, no, this is just this kind of our family, our household methodology. And so the law then becomes the ways and means of God's household, not to earn his blessing or favor or righteousness, but simply to do what Psalm 32 says, verse eight and nine.

So as now being found in Christ, a son or daughter, here's where the law can be used in our life. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

If you're using the law to become righteous, you're trying to get the eye of God on you. You're trying to get salvation in your own strength. But once the cross has done its work in your life, now you're moving from that power.

The gospel empowers you to obey. The gospel doesn't say you don't have to obey. The law says you have to obey, but gives you no power.

The gospel says you still are called to obedience, but now you have a power and a desire, a spiritual ambition within you, but not just an ambition that causes you to fail time and time again, but an ambition that when you do fail, you get back up. And an ambition that when you do see the call of God, the instruction of God, it's a desire. It's a delight.

That's why the book of Psalms is so precious. It so often speaks of, I delight to do the will, the law of God. And he counsels you, look at this, with his eye upon you.

He's watching over you to instruct, to guide, to move left or right. It's the lamp. Your law is like a lamp unto my path and a light unto my feet.

It's the instruction of Christ. It's the shout of instruction. It's not mute.

It's not Jesus saying, no, okay, you got saved. Now do it on your own. No, you got saved.

You came into the righteousness of Christ and now he's training you in righteousness. He's equipping you in righteousness. He's instructing you in righteousness.

He's empowering you in righteousness. It's the work of sanctification. It's a lifelong process, but you will see growth.

You will see development. You will see old sins just begin to lose their power. And what happens then, if your history with God is like mine, you'll see new things in your life that you hadn't even noticed before, that he begins to put the finger on and instruct us with that.

And so in verse nine, he says, the only thing I ask you is don't be like the horse to the mule. Don't have it without understanding. And you have to have a bridle in your mouth.

In other words, what he's saying, you have to put the law back in your mouth. You have to put these rules and regulations, do this and don't do that. And Paul encourages us not to go back to the law.

You began in the spirit, he says to the Galatians, why would you go back to works? And so, but if you become like a horse or a mule, there may be a time in your life where you find yourself back under the law, striving to do things in your own strength. In verse 10, then, verse eight and nine, by the way, is God's voice. It changes from verse one through seven and verse 10 and 11.

It's all of a sudden there's this interjection of God speaking. Here's what I'm going to do for you. Now that I've imputed my righteousness to you, now that you have this right standing before me in heaven because of the work of perfect obedience of Jesus, then I'm going to speak this.

I'm going to shout this over you. The shout of deliverance is not just going to protect you from negative things happening in your life, but the shout of deliverance goes on to the shout of instruction. I'm going to teach you the way that you should go.

Verse 10 says, many are the sorrows of the wicked. Those who don't follow this pattern of Psalm 32, they don't confess their sin. They hide it.

They hold it. And it says many are the sorrows. But look at this, but the steadfast love surrounds.

This is the second time Psalm 32 uses the word surrounds. The first one is surrounding with shouts of deliverance. This one is we are surrounded now by the steadfast love of the one who trusts in the Lord.

We're surrounded by his steadfast love, his shout of deliverance and his shout of instruction and the shout of his love as well to those who trust in the Lord. Verse 11 closes, be glad in the Lord and rejoice. Why? Because he says this next two words, oh righteous.

Why rejoice? Why be glad in the Lord? Because he's made us righteous. We're no longer living under the condemnation of the three things that David had confessed. He was wrestling with transgression, sin, and iniquity.

He's had the gospel clearly made known to him. He's seen the deliverance that Christ brings, the shout of deliverance. He is now walking under the instruction of the grace of God, grace empowered obedience.

And therefore he's glad in the Lord. His faith is no longer a drudgery. It's no longer just duty.

It's no longer obligation that is tiresome, wearisome. No, it's entering into that great and glorious rest that God has for us. Be glad and rejoice, oh righteous.

And shouts for joy. At the end of the Psalm, David is inviting us to join in with the shout of Jesus. Jesus shouts these three things.

First, there's the shout of the law. That's difficult. But then he brings the glorious shout of the gospel.

Then he brings the shout of deliverance and the shout of instruction into our life. Now he says, join me in shouting. Shout praise.

Shout hallelujah. Shout the wonders of God. Let it be known.

Let your own heart know. Speak to your own heart what God has done for you, that you're free, you're delivered, you're clean, you're holy. He's healed you.

He set you free from what verse five calls the iniquity of my sin. He's forgiven me. He's caused me to have the righteousness of Christ.

He's instructed me in truth. And I'm not going to wallow in despair and condemnation and guilt and shame. No, rather I'm going to stand up and praise the Lord.

I'm going to stand up and shout hallelujah to him. All you, he says. Oh, shout for joy.

All you upright in heart. You should have joy in your faith. I pray that you're not a Christian who is defeated, that you're not a believer who's downcast, that you're not one who began to dabble in the gospel, but then returned to the law.

And you're back under that, the hammer of the law. I pray that you found the glorious grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray that you found his righteousness being given over to you so that you could stand pure and holy before God.

I pray that he's instructing you in the way that you should go. And you're following the instruction in such a way that it brings joy and delight to your heart. And your life is appraised.

You don't have to wait for that. Your favorite song, just anything about Jesus, or even without a song, just the song is in your heart. Even without the music, there's a constant when you're in your car, when you're walking, when you're with your family, when you're grocery shopping, there's this joy because of all that Jesus has done.

The more you remember what Jesus has done for you, that he's cleansed you, that he's imputed his righteousness, that he stands before the Father, constantly calling you acceptable in his sight. And lastly, he gives you that instruction to walk in grace and power and obedience. And you're overcoming all these areas that try to tear us down.

God bless you, grace and peace to you. Let me pray for you. Father, I pray that these words today would be words of not only encouragement, but words that would heal, words that would cleanse, words that would accomplish the work for which it has gone forth to cause us to be the people of God, to understand the law is not what would enable us to be right with God, our own strength, our own bootstraps, our own power.

But you have done this work for us, and then you'll preserve us and instruct us. We thank you for these great, great gifts of God. It's all of you and none of us.

And we give thanks for that in Jesus' name. Amen. God's blessing on you, grace and peace to you.