From Sinner to Saint: Sunday, February 10, 2008

From Sinner to Saint
Psalm 32: 1 – 11.


I. Introduction.

Have you decided who you are voting for? I had two church members tell me this week they had decided to vote for “None of the Above.” I think “None of the Above” would have won every presidential election I have voted in since 1988!

Several presidential candidates are running on a platform of “change.” If you are not satisfied with the way things are, you can make a difference by voting for the right candidate. Or, you can vote for “None of the Above.”

Perhaps we can make the world a better place to live by selecting a new president. But that won’t solve everything. We will still have the same jobs and live in the same families. We will wake up every morning and take the same pills and worry about the same health problems. We will even face the same temptations and struggle with the same spiritual problems. No. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can solve all our problems.

If you have spent any time watching television, reading the newspaper or reading Internet news, you have heard a lot of talk about the economy and the war in Iraq. Often, the television news is interrupted with pharmaceutical commercials promoting the latest pill for joint pains or bladder problems or depression or healthy weight loss or even prostate health. But when was the last time you saw an advertisement or a news story promoting spiritual health? It seems that Americans are concerned about everything else. But no one seems concerned about spiritual well being.

The truth of the matter is that most people are concerned more about physical health and economic stability than they are their spiritual condition. Let me suggest that we have things exactly backwards. Our spiritual conditions as individuals and our spiritual condition as a nation should be our biggest concern.

We don’t need a new drug. We don’t need the right president. We need a revival. We need God to change us as individuals and as a nation of people. We need to feel the Breath of God blow across our churches and communities in a fresh, new way. We need to experience the power of God and the joy that comes from having confident hope in our spiritual lives.

But how can this happen? Psalm 32 demonstrates the path to a personal revival, but get ready…You are not going to like this…


Read Psalm 32: 1 – 11.

Psalm 32 is one of seven Psalms, known as the “Penitential Psalms.” The most famous Penitential Psalm is Psalm 51. That is the Psalm of David we associated with his affair with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. In Psalm 51, David “comes clean.” He confesses his sin to God, and he experiences God’s forgiveness. The same thing happens in Psalm 32.

vv. 1 – 2: This Psalm begins with a “pronouncement of forgiveness,” in the form of a Beatitude. Some believe this would have been the words of a priest in a public worship service. The priest announces God’s willingness to forgive sins, then the worshippers respond by seeking God’s forgiveness.

vv. 3 – 5: Then the Psalm “moves” to the actions of the worshippers. The second movement describes the close connection between confession of sin and forgiveness of sin.

vv. 6 – 7: The third movement is a prayer for God’s protection.

vv. 8 – 10: The fourth movement is God’s response to the prayers of confession and prayers for protection. God’s is willing and able to forgive us our sins, AND God is willing and able to give us the protection we need. God’s protection comes by way of his instructions.

v. 11: The Psalm ends with joy and gladness. Worship—in this Psalm—is a joyful expression of what it feels like to be forgiven for all our sins.

In describing the movement of Psalm 32, I have used several words that are not very popular words in Twenty-First Century America. For example, when was the last time you heard someone talk freely and openly about “sin?” Or what about “confession?” One of the reasons we don’t hear people talk about confession, is because we don’t really like to talk about sin. Confession is about admitting guilt. And there are not many people in our culture who are willing to admit they are guilty. We might even have a difficult time finding a guilty person in the Huntsville (Texas) prison.



II. Three Words for “Sin.”

There are three Hebrew words that we translate as “sin.” The interesting thing is that all three of these words show up in the first two verses of Psalm 32.

Verse 1 a: “Blessed is he whose ‘TRANSGRESSIONS’ are forgiven…” This is the Hebrew word “pasha…”

Verse 1 b: “…whose ‘SINS’ are covered.” This is the Hebrew word “hatah…”

Verse 2: “Blessed is the man whose ‘SIN’ the LORD does not count against him…” This is the Hebrew word “avon…”

Hatah is a term from the world of archery. It paints a word picture for us. The translation would be something like “to miss the mark.” The archer takes careful aim at either a target or at his supper. He draws the bow string back and releases the arrow. He is doing everything in his power to hit the target or to kill the animal. BUT, he missed his mark. If we apply this to sin, then we can say that there are times in our own lives when we tried to do the right thing. We wanted to do the right thing. We might even have thought we were doing the right thing. BUT, we missed the target.

Avon is a term from the world of shepherding. It also paints a word picture. The translation would be “to stray off the path.” Think about the nature of sheep. Individual sheep do not consider the needs and desires of the rest of the flock. All they think about is themselves and what they want or need at any given moment. And what is a sheep’s most immediate need? Usually, it is food. A shepherd cares for the flock and provides food and water for the flock. He also wants to keep the flock together, so they will be easier to protect from predators. But the sheep don’t think about things like this. Individual sheep only think about eating the grass in front of them. A sheep might put his head down and move from one clump of grass to the next without ever paying attention to where he is going or where the rest of the flock is. After moving from one clump of grass to the next, a sheep might look up and discover he is all alone. He has strayed away from the path and is separated from the rest of the flock. Again, we can apply this to sin in our own lives. We might move closer and closer to the boundaries, thinking, “I’m not hurting anyone. What I am doing is really not sin. This is the Twenty-First Century. No one follows those out dated rules anymore.” Then one day, like the sheep, we look up to find ourselves all alone. We strayed away from God’s will and purpose. And we wonder, “How did I get to where I am now? How did I become this person? This is not who I am!”

Pasha is a strictly moral term. There is no word picture associated with this type of sin. Its translation is “willful violation of God’s standards.” Another word we might use here is “rebellion.” We know what the right thing is, but we don’t care. We know what the Bible says, but we ignore it. We seek to please ourselves and satisfy our own desires with no regard for what is right. If you want a word picture, we might compare this to an angry bull that charges and injures others. He does not care about your feelings or your pain. He only cares about himself.

We could build a case here for what we might call “Hebrew parallelism.” This is a poetic device often found in the Psalms and other Hebrew poetry. The author repeats himself using similar words and phrases to communicate one idea multiple times. However, we could also build a case for a comprehensive view of sin.

Such a comprehensive view would mean that all sin separates us from God. It does not matter which kind of sin you might commit. You might have TRIED to do the right thing and failed. You might have WANDERED away from God’s plan. You might have REBELLED against God willfully. It doesn’t matter. Sin is sin. Any sin—no matter how small you think your sins are—needs to be forgiven by God. And the pathway to forgiveness is confession.


III. Confession.

Again, let me point out that confession is not very popular, because at its very root, confession is an admission of guilt. We cannot be forgiven if we never admit we are guilty of sin. That is the first step to confession. Confession is the opposite of pride.

The second step is to say it out loud. You cannot keep your confession of sin inside. Notice how David was struck with physical ailments as long as he kept his sin inside himself (verses 3 – 4). God has already told us he is willing and able to forgive our sins, so why would we remain silent? Are we trying to hide our sins from God? It is like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Once they realized they had sinned against God, they hid from God. But God knew about their sin and confronted them. God already knows about our sins. God has already told us he is willing to forgive. We should have no reason to remain silent out of fear.

The third step of confession is to be specific. We are not told to pray, “Lord, forgive us our sins and wherever we have failed you.” Let it out. Start naming the ways you have sinned against God. If you want to be forgiven, you must tell God what you want him to forgive.



IV. The “Godly” Person in Verse 6.

Notice how David changes the way he views himself in verse 6. Up to this point, he has described himself as a “sinner.” Now, he has taken a huge leap and describes himself as “godly.”
What does it mean to be godly? Does it mean that we are perfect? No. It means we are forgiven!

The godly man or godly woman is the one who admits he or she is guilty and comes to God for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the pathway from sinner to saint.





V. Conclusion.

If you want the world to be a better place, vote in the election, take your medicine, but don’t forget to take care of your spiritual health. You and I cannot fix our sin problem. We will deal with it for the rest of our earthly lives. But God has given us a spiritual prescription. The human path to forgiveness is confession. The forgiveness is up to God.