THAT’S A BLESSING

Psalm 32:1-2

Have you ever heard someone say, with a bit of a sarcastic sneer, “Well that’s a blessing.”?

I am not sure where I heard it first, but I know that, depending on who I am speaking to, I say it a lot.

Friday was April Fool’s Day and I determined very early in the morning when a lady who grew up in our church in Astoria announced that she was engaged, that it would be best for me to stay away from Facebook.

I forgot my resolution by the afternoon and bit a notice a preacher friend of mine made, that after years of pastoring where he was, he was beginning a new ministry.

Two things came to mind:

1. You are leaving?

2. I know a guy who would be a great new pastor there

Turned out it was an April Fool’s joke.

But in the process of our conversation he told me that one of his key families was quitting the church because he did host enough potluck dinners.

My response; “Well isn’t that a blessing?”

I shared with him a similar story or two of my own and reminded him that all of us, who are pastors, have stories like that.

I want to speak to you today about something that is a real blessing.

No sarcasm associated

King David was inspired of the Holy Spirit of God to write,

Psalm 32:1-2

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man upon whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose sprit there is no guile

I want to invite you to look at this passage with me under three headings:

First, 

I. SOMETHING ABOUT THE WRITER

The superscript says it is “A Psalm of David, Maschil”.

The word Maschil means “instruction”.

The one who was first instructed was David himself – we then benefit from what he learned.

I understand that this Psalm was written sometime just after David sinned by numbering the armies of Israel.

• David knew better and
• David was warned not to number them

But you know how you get sometimes, when you are committed to your sin.

• You know you shouldn’t
• You know it is sin
• You have been warned not to do it but

You are going to do it anyway.

That’s where David was with this sin.

I heard someone once say that sin will:

• Take you farther than you want to go
• Keep you longer than you want to stay and
• Cost you more than you want to pay

For sure that was true for David and this sin.

When he was convicted of his sin, and confessed it before the Lord, God offered him three choices:

• Seven years of famine in the land
• Three months of attacks from enemies or
• Three days of pestilence in the land

David humbled himself and cast himself before the mercy of God – he asked God to choose, the answer was three days pestilence.

Toward the end of the third day, David looked and beheld the death angel just outside of the city of Jerusalem.

David went out quickly to the spot where the angel was.

It was a piece of property belonging, not to a Jew, but a Jebusite, a Canaanite.

The Jebusite offered to give the property to David so he could build and altar and stop the judgment. David refused the gift and said,

2 Samuel 24:24 (KJV)

… Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

David 

• Confessed his sin
• Cast himself on the mercy of God
• Conceded the consequences of his sin

And in the end could testify, 

Psalms 32:1-2 (KJV)

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

That’s the difference between happiness and depression.

For my second heading I would like to mention,

II. SOMETHING ABOUT THE TEXT

Psalms 32:1-2 (KJV)

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

A. Here the Bible gives us the three most common terms for sin:

• Transgression (rebellion)
• Sin (to miss the mark)
• Iniquity (depravity)

If we were to look at these in reverse order:

Iniquity, or depravity, is our original condition. 

We were born in this world inheriting the sin nature. 

Psalms 51:5 (KJV)

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Sin is the fruit of a depraved nature.

We sin because it is our nature to sin 

Romans 3:23 (KJV)

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

We miss the mark of God’s righteousness.

Transgression is the climax of the sin nature.

All sin is wrong. I do not want to pretend it is not so.

But there are differing levels of sin.

• The child who can’t help himself and takes a piece of candy after his mother told him not to and
• Hitler, who ordered the extermination of something like six million Jews

Are on two different levels, are they not?

But I want to point out that if we ignore the child’s missing the mark, it can turn into genuine rebellion.

• There is fundamentally no difference between a child taking a piece of candy he was told not to and a young man stealing food from a convenience store
• And once he has stolen food, it is only a small step to robbing the teller’s cash register

It is only a small step between

• Drinking alcohol socially and
• Becoming a drunk

It’s only a small step between

• Losing two dollars on a lottery ticket and
• Losing your home at a casino

It’s only a small step between

• Throwing temper tantrums when you don’t get your way and
• Throwing you fist at someone because they make you mad

So the Bible gives us these three levels of sin.

B. Notice how God deals with each one

Transgression is forgiven

The word forgiven means “lifted” or “carried away”

Sin is covered

Covered means “hidden”

Iniquity is not imputed

The word impute means “to charge” or “put on account”

Look at this:

Those really bad sins, we hope no one ever finds out about? 

They are removed as far as the east is from the west.

Those constant, besetting sins we never seem to get victory over?

They are hidden in Jesus Christ. When God looks at us, He doesn’t see how badly we miss the mark, He only sees the Lord who saved us.

That sin nature we were born with?

God no longer holds us accountable or responsible for it.

Psalms 32:1-2 (KJV)

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

I want to end by giving you

III. SOMETHING TO TAKE HOME

We live in a world today filled with people who are

• Too wicked to confess their sins
• Too proud to cast themselves before God’s mercy and
• Too selfish to sacrifice much of anything to God

I my world as a pastor I might apply it by saying that today’s preacher would have called up the Sword of the Lord, or some other Christian magazine, to report the blessing of being given the threshingfloor for free.

David didn’t do that.

David

• Confessed his sin
• Cast himself on the mercy of God
• Conceded and paid the consequences of his sin

And in the end he could testify, 

Psalms 32:1-2 (KJV)

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

That’s the difference between happiness and depression.

• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists and
• Mental health counselors

Tell their patients that all of their problems stem from some source outside of themselves.

They say that the way to have joy and happiness is to blame all of those things on

• Their parents
• Their school system
• Their economic environment
• Their social class

And as we blame all of our problems on others, 

• We become less and less social
• We grow more and more angry and

Depression overtakes our joy.

But 

• When we confess our sin as our own
• When we take responsibility for the consequences of our sin and
• When we appeal to the mercy of God upon us and our sin

• He forgives us
• He changes our nature and
• He hides us in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ

So that we can be perfectly happy in Him.