Snapshot of Repentance | Charles Zimmerman | Calvary Church

So, if you have your Bibles, your phone,

your iPad, you can turn there a while

and we're going to look at a snapshot of

repentance. And while you're turning

there, let me give you just kind of

flying at a high level something about

the Psalms. There are seven psalms that

are designated penitential psalms. There

are psalms of repentance. There are

seven of them in there. You can check it

out. If you go online, they'll tell you

what seven are. Psalm 32 is one of

those. But Psalm 32 is different than

the other six because Psalm 32 looks

back on that period of time when he was

feeling guilty. He's looking back when

he experienced forgiveness. And now

David is experiencing the freedom and

the relief and the blessedness that

forgiveness brings. The other

penitential psalms focus on the process

in the immediate situation of how do you

go about repenting. Psalm 32 looks back

on it. And uh that's what we're going to

look at today. So follow along as I read

Psalm 32. Not that long, just 11 verses.

So here's what David writes. Blessed is

the one whose transgressions are

forgiven, whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord

does not count against them. and in

whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept

silent, my bones wasted away through all

my groaning all day long. For day and

night your hand was heavy on me. My

strength was sapped as in the heat of

summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to

you and did not cover my iniquity. I

said, I will confess my transgressions

to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt

of my sin. Therefore, let all the

faithful pray to you while you may be

found. Surely, the rising of the mighty

waters will not reach them. You are my

hiding place. You will protect me from

trouble and surround me with songs of

deliverance. I will instruct you and

teach you in the way you should go. I

will counsel you with my loving eye on

you. Do not be like the horse or mule,

which have no understanding, but must be

controlled by bitten bridal, or they

will not come to you. Many are the woes

of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing

love surrounds those who trust in him.

Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you

righteous. Sing sing all who are upright

in heart.

David's looking back on that time in his

life when he was wallowing in guilt,

feeling like he's going under. He goes

through the process of repentance and

now he's experienced freedom and

deliverance that comes. That's what

we're uh going going to look at this

morning. The first thing I want you to

notice, even though it's not in order in

the text, I want you to look at the

power of guilt. Guilt's powerful. And

every one of us in this room knows

something about guilt's power because in

one way or another, we are guilty. We

experience that guilt. And David

actually describes that feeling. He

describes the power of guilt in ways

that we can all understand. Uh listen to

how he does it in in a couple of verses.

He does it in three and four, not one

and two, three and four. Here's what he

says.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away.

You know, sin, um guilt can make you

sick. And what's David saying? My bones

were wasting away. There were physical

complications, physical consequences

that were actually coming from his

guilt. And you know what it's like to be

under the pile of guilt and you know

there's a physical component. Maybe the

physical component is you're just

sleeplessness. Well then the next

morning you're tired and you can't

perform well at work. Or maybe it's more

than that. Maybe it's the stress of

knowing that knowing you're guilty

knowing you may be found out and that

stress weighs on you and there are

physiological consequences to bearing

that guilt. David knows that. He says my

bones wasted away. physical. But then he

says this, "Through my groaning all day

long, day and night, there's kind of a

an obsession with this." Earlier in the

week when I read that, I thought um I

thought of it years ago when our girls

were young. We went to Disney World and

we stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort.

You ever been to Caribbean Beach? And it

started out fun. They have these steel

drums playing all the time in the music,

right? And it's kind of cute at first. I

kind of like steel drums. That's good.

Right after about the third day, those

drums were driving me nuts. Right. Um

and by the fifth, and you know, we've

never gone back to the Caribbean Beach

because they're those stupid drums,

right? They never stop. Yeah. Guilt's

like that though, right? Um you may lose

sight of it for a while. You may drown

it out in one way or another, but in the

quietness of your heart, when you're

lying in bed, when your mind's not going

to something else, it's the drums are

playing, right? It's there. It's kind of

like that nasty horror movie you saw,

right? And you kind of laughed and put

it off when you lie in bed that night.

You can't go to sleep because all those

memories are coming back from the That's

what guilt's like. There's an obsession

to it. David says, "My bones wasting

away physical

day and night. There's an obsession to

it. And you can try to drown it out, but

when you stop drowning it out, it's

going to be there."

My strength was sapped. He said, "And

you know what sometimes happened? Think

about it if this doesn't happen for you.

Passivity can come from guilt, right?

You just don't feel like doing anything.

His strength was sapped. You know, maybe

it's a so what's the use? I can't do it

anymore. Passivity comes. There's a

physical consequence. There's an

obsession.

And there's passivity. It's no use.

Nothing I can do is going to matter. My

strength is completely sapped. Now, we

all know the power of guilt and we've

experienced it and in one way or

another, we experience it regularly.

Why? Because we're guilty. Now, there is

such a thing as false guilt. We're not

talking about that. We're talking about

the reality of guilt. We're guilty. God,

we said the last few messages in this

series, God loves us and he tells us how

we should live. When you live outside of

those lines, you're guilty. We rebel

against God. When you live outside,

you're actually guilty. And the power of

guilt has physical components. There's

an obsession to it and it never ends.

And it kind of makes you passive. Don't

feel like doing anything. Well, that's

just a thumbnail sketch of some of the

power. Well, before we look at uh what

the psalm says about the cure,

let's think a little bit about some

popular treatments. How do we often

treat our guilt? Right? And so we all

feel it. We know some of the physical

component, maybe not as severe as David

mentioned mentions. We know something

about the pacivity, something about the

obsession. Well, what do we do? Well,

we've got a whole ser a whole catalog of

treatments that we often use. Hey,

here's one. It's not my fault. It's your

fault. Yeah, I may have colored outside

the lines. I may be guilty, but I'm not

really to blame. It's really it's my

mother's fault. If you would to know my

mom, it's my father's fault. It's my

kids' fault. It's my boss's fault. It's

my parents' fault. It's somebody else's

fault. Regardless of who the somebody

else is, I'm not to blame. It's somebody

else. And don't raise your hand, but I

know this is true of you, as it's true

for me. As soon as you feel guilty, you

immediately have the person or the group

of people people's faces come to mind.

They're the real problem and if they

would get their act together, you would

not be guilty. Blameshifting. You ever

play that game? Yeah, we're we're

experts at it, right? And not just

blameshifting. Here's another one.

Redefining.

Well,

yeah, I'm not really guilty. I was just

following my heart. I wasn't rebelling

against God. I'm just living out God's

natural design for me. I'm going to

redefine what right and wrong is. And

according to my redefinition, I'm not

guilty anymore. Yeah, but when you stop

the drums play, right? You can play that

game all you want. The redefinition

is not going to work. Oh, here's another

one. Medicating. I mean, I don't only

mean alcohol, drugs, but they would be

too. We medicate to try to um silence

the drums a number of different ways.

I'll mention a few. I'm not thinking of

any of you in particular. Shopping.

You medicate. What do you do? You do

something pleasurable

to diminish the pain of the guilt.

Shopping's one.

Pornography,

scrolling, going on to watching movies.

I'm not saying any of those things are

necessarily well pornography would be.

I'm not saying movies are wrong.

Scrolling. What I am saying is why are

you doing those things? Is it to

medicate? Here's how medication works.

I'm feeling the pain. I'm bearing the

physical consequences.

I feel the obsession. It's regular. I'm

being passive. What do I I drown out the

pain or try to with something

pleasurable. And the reality is we all

have something pleasurable that we often

turn to. Sometimes those are called

coping mechanisms. The gospel is not a

coping mechanism. The gospel is not

something you take out to diminish the

pain. The gospel solves the ultimate

problem. But boy, we run to the coping

mechanisms easily. Oh, here's another

popular treatment. Gossiping. Now, how

in the world does that Oh, yeah. If I

can make the other people look worse

than I am, then I'll feel a little

better about myself. And so, you know,

do you know what she did? Do you know

what they do? You know what they did on

vacation? Can you? Well, if we can knock

these other people down a few pegs, even

though our lives don't change, we're

kind of head and shoulders above them

now, right? So, gossiping is tearing

them down. Here's kind of a weird one,

but it's often true. Overachieving.

I'm going to apply myself. I'm going to

be the best, hardest worker there. I'm

going to be the first one in, the last

one home. I'm going to work around. I'm

going to do all of these things. Now,

here's what overachieving is basically

doing. You're feeling guilty about what

what's happening over here, right? You

kind of But what do you do? You

overachieve and say, "Don't look over

there. Look over here. Look, maybe

you're overachieving is in generosity."

And so, don't look over here where I'm

guilty. Look over here. I'm giving an

incredible amount. I'm giving my time,

my energy. I'm volunteering at Kidfest,

not just in the service, right? Um, you

do need to volunteer at KidFest, but

what's the motivation? Is the motivation

Don't look over here. I'm not going to

do anything about my guilt. Look over

here where I'm overachieving and I'm

compensating.

Now, there's one other that I want to

mention. It's not on your outline. I

know somebody said, "Charles, there

wasn't another line." I know.

And that is

penance. penance. Now, the six psalms

are called penitential psalms. I don't

like that name because penance is

doing something painful

to try to wash away your guilt. So, the

gospel is not penance. We don't do

penance to get forgiveness. we repent of

our sins and experience the grace that

Jesus purchased. So, it's not penance.

Um, but boy, we often fall into that

trap, right? I'm feeling guilty. I've

done these. So, you know what I'm going

to do?

I'll make my life no donuts tomorrow.

I'll get a headache. No Starbucks. Um,

you do extra right. You're going to kind

of wait. You're going to make your life

miserable. somehow thinking your misery

can compensate and work off the guilt.

That's a popular treatment. That isn't

the gospel. And at the end of the day,

regardless of whatever popular treatment

you use, the drums still play, right?

Because none of those treatments do

anything with the actual sin underneath

your guilt. None of them. They're all

coping mechanisms that are superficial.

None of them solve the problem. Well, I

hope you're thinking, well, what's the

solution? Okay. Well, let's talk about

the power of repentance. Then we had the

power of guilt. Popular treatments. Now,

the power of repentance. Now, uh I'm

going to ask you to look at two verses.

So, if if you don't have your Bible open

or you don't have your phone or

whatever, you can listen, but if you

have them open, it'd be better to look

at this. Look at verse five.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and

did not cover up my iniquity. Okay. What

is the picture David uses to um have his

sin taken care of? What is the picture?

His sin is it's covered. Right? Look,

look, look back up in verse one. Blessed

is the one whose whose transgressions

are forgiven, whose sin is covered. You

see, this whole psalm is about covering

and uncovering. And David's using that

covering and uncovering language to help

us understand what the process of

repentance does. Um, and I'm kind of

guessing, I don't know, I'm going to ask

him one day. I'm kind of guessing maybe

he was actually thinking about

Genesis

Genesis 1:3

1:3.

And maybe he was thinking something like

this. Have you ever read those uh

chapters? Please check it out. Um,

Genesis 1:3, Adam and Eve are created by

Genesis 1:3

God. and they're created um naked. It

was God's plan. Wasn't my God created

them naked. Don't think about that too

long. Create them naked. Um and God

would show up in the cool of the day in

the evening every day and they'd kind of

walk together. Every day, Adam and Eve

are naked walking with God. In Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, Adam and Eve sin. Now they're

guilty. Now they're guilty. What do they

do now that they're guilty? They say, "I

can't believe it. We're naked." They've

always been, "We're naked." What do they

do? They take fig leaves and cover

themselves.

God shows up that evening and says, "Uh,

huh, I noticed we're wearing clothes

today. What's up with that?" Well, we

did that because we're naked. And I was

wondering why God didn't say, "You're

naked every day." Like, what? Why is

today any um what happens though as the

chapter goes on?

At the end of chapter 3,

God actually provides a more permanent

covering where he takes the skin of an

animal. Leather is a whole lot better

than fig leaves, right? And so he takes

leather and he covers them. Now, here's

the principle that you'll see throughout

the Bible. And you check this out and

let me know in the next couple weeks.

Here's the principle.

If you and I cover our sin

with one of those mechanism,

blameshifting, redefining, God, if we

cover our sin,

God will uncover it.

If we uncover our sin,

God will cover it. Boy, that's

counterintuitive, isn't it? The first

thing we do when we sin, when we're

guilty, we don't want other people to

know, right? And there are things in

your life, right? You don't want people

to know. Even you don't want your wife

to know some stuff. You don't want your

husband to know. You don't want the kids

to know. You don't want the parents to

know. So, we we cover, right? We try to

hide just like Adam. We're cover. We're

trying to cover our own sin. What's the

biblical principle? If you try to cover

your own sin, God's going to uncover it.

But what's this crazy idea of

repentance?

If you uncover your sin and come clean,

God will cover it. And when God covers

it, it will never be uncovered again.

Everything about the gospel is

counterintuitive, isn't it? We sin,

where we feel our guilt. We want to

cover. What does God say? No, no, no.

You need to come clean. Be honest. Come

before me. Don't try to hide from me.

Come before me and confess. repent of

that sin and I will offer the covering.

You actually see something similar to

that. And there are a lot of places in

the Bible, you see something similar to

that in the little book of Ruth. Now,

the book of Ruth, right, Naomi and Ruth

come back from Moab. Uh their husbands

are dead. They're living basically in

poverty. Ruth, um, the Moabitete, she

goes out and works in the fields trying

to earn a trying to earn enough grain to

keep the to keep her and Naomi alive.

She's in Boaz's field, right? Boaz owns

the field, a very wealthy guy. She goes

to the threshing floor and what does she

say? She says, "Boaz, will you cover

me?"

Huh? Same kind of deal. Lots of guilt,

lots of poverty, lots of problems, lots

of um um lines that are different and

separate from God's people. What say

Boaz? You're my Here's the language.

You're my redeemer. You're a kinsman

redeemer.

Will you cover me? And he covers her.

Those verses from uh Psalm 32 are

actually quoted in Romans 4, word for

word. David says in Psalm 32, what's he

say? Blessed is the one whose

transgressions are forgiven, whose sins

are covered. That's the picture. Now,

there are lots of metaphors for

forgiveness and how that works. But this

is one of the one of the ones that went

through the whole scripture. And the

principle stings a little bit, right?

When we feel guilty, the most natural

thing in the world is to cover. God

says, "Yeah, here's how this process

works. If you cover your guilt, God will

uncover it.

Maybe not even here.

But one day during that final exam,

if you try to cover your sin, God will

one day uncover it and your guilt will

be seen.

If you uncover your sin now come clean,

God will cover it and it will never be

uncovered again.

That friends is the gospel.

And it's not leather that our sin and

guilt is covered with. It's Jesus who

was stripped naked. So, he purchased um

righteousness given to us. We can put on

his clothing. All right. Well, let's

talk a little bit about the process

then. How's it work? You'll probably

figure it out by now. Uh, but rather

than leave you to your own devices and

the drums playing, I figured I'll try to

help you out here, right? And here's the

first one. View sin from God's

perspective.

You'll notice each of the items in the

in the process of repentance is going to

go against the popular treatments. So,

what do we do in the popular? We

redefine sin. You know what the process?

No, no, no. You accept God's definition

and you define it the way God defines

it. So, here's the reality.

You raise your hands on this one. How

many of you have one or two favorite

pictures of yourself? Raise your hand.

Raise you. Come on. You're not You're

not being egotistic. Yeah, you have

favorite picture, right? I know why it's

a favorite picture.

Because that favorite picture hides your

flaws,

right? That's why it's your favorite

picture. There's something about reality

that that picture is hiding. So, for

example, I'm not thinking of any of you.

Suppose you feel like maybe true you

have a giant nose. I got this giant

nose. Well, your favorite picture

miraculously causes your giant nose to

shrink a little. Maybe it's the angle.

Maybe you don't have a giant nose. You

got a giant belly, right? And what?

Well, you try to suck it in. But boy,

that one picture I'm turned sideways. I

look like, you know, I'm a bodybuilder

from somewhere. That's my favorite

picture. Maybe a picture makes it look

like you have hair again. No picture

could do that for Carlos. But um

may whatever your favorite picture is,

it hides reality to some degree. We hate

those pictures that emphasize re

reality. When you when you have your

caricature done, right? Those artists,

what what do artists do when they're

making a caricature? They take some of

your features and exaggerate them.

Usually a negative feature, they

exaggerate it. Well, the picture you

like diminishes or almost eliminates

those pictures. You know what I'm

saying? You need to view sin from God's

perspective. Get rid of the favorite

picture. Accept God's picture. Accept

God's definition of sin. No, God says,

"I was living out of bounds and I'm

guilty. I'm come clean." Remember,

uncover. If you uncover, God will cover.

You try to cover, God's going to

uncover. Uh second one just like the

opposite of popular treatment assume

full responsibility.

What's the popular treatment?

Blameshifting.

What's the process of repentance? Accept

full responsibility. What are you do

when you accept full responsibility?

You're uncovering. You're saying I am

guilty. I've done this. Now, in the

accept full responsibility,

you may say, "Well, Charles, you don't

understand.

She's 80% to blame."

Look, I don't know. I'm not the judge of

that. Um, maybe she is. You're still

guilty for 20%. Own the 20%. Whatever

the percent is actually true, own that.

Reflect and own the full responsibility

you have for whatever it is, take full

responsibility. No blameshifting,

no redefining process is look at it from

God's perspective

and assume full responsibility.

You know how those first two things

work? Um,

every once in a while,

um, does your, uh, does your fire alarm

ever go off in the house like like if

you're cooking? We were on down the

shore last week and during one breakfast

where I was cooking with the boys, the

smoke alarms kept going off, right? And

they opened the doors and they're

fanning the things and um there was no

fire. We had it under control. A lot of

smoke, but there was no fire. We were

making pancakes, Mickey pancakes. We

were having a good time. Eggs, pancakes,

sausage. We're having But the fire the

smoke alarms kept going off. Um, you

know what we need to do? If you're going

to look at look at your guilt and sin

from God's perspective and assume full

responsibility

underneath that, this goes all the way

back to week one in this series. We need

to calibrate our conscience

according to God's standards. You know,

often those smoke alarms need

recalibration because they go off too

often or when the batteries have to be

redone. Um, calibrate your conscience.

Calibrate your guilt monitor not to what

you think, not to what you feel, not to

what your parents think, not to what

your kids want. Calibrate your

conscience, your guilt monitor to what

God says and then you can assume full

responsibility and you could look at sin

from God's perspective.

Thirdly,

reflect on whose heart you've broken.

Um,

now we've talked about this before, but

it's probably a good place to say it

here.

There is a sin

underneath all the sins.

You see, we all commit a whole bunch of

sins. Repentance isn't just confessing

all the sins up here. Repentance is

recognizing what's driving and

motivating those sins down here. In

Psalm 1, we looked at the tree, right?

The fruit is produced by what's unseen.

The roots. Well, what are the roots

underneath?

It's rebellion. Underneath you're saying

to God, I know better than you do.

Underneath is saying, "Lord, I hear what

you're saying, but I understand this

better than you. I love me more than you

love me. Therefore, I can't do what you

want or my life will be a mess. I need

to do what I'm going to." You see,

underneath the sins is the sin of you

thinking and following your plan rather

than God's plan.

But it isn't just that. The good news is

we need to remember God's promises. Now,

I'm going to read verses nine or 10 and

11, and I want you to see a couple

things. So, at the beginning of the

psalm, David's looking back. David

acknowledges his guilt, right? He's

uncovered and God has covered. Right?

That's what the psalm's about. So in the

beginning, he's guilty. Goes through the

process of repentance. Now he's

experiencing the blessedness and

abundance that comes.

Look at what he says in verse 11.

Rejoice and be glad in the Lord,

you righteous.

Huh?

Who would that be?

It's certainly not David.

It's certainly not you. It's not me.

Yeah.

All those who were upright in heart

are those who have uncovered through the

process of repentance and allowed God to

cover that guilt never to be uncovered

again.

Now, I need to say at the end,

your repentance does not bring you

forgiveness and covering.

It's not how well you do it. It's not

what you that that's not how it works.

Jesus life, death, and resurrection for

you is what brings that forgiveness.

Repentance is how you actualize what

Jesus has already done.

So Jesus has accomplished the forgiven.

Jesus has accomplished the covering.

The only question is, will you accept

the covering that he purchased so you

can be covered? So what's repentance?

Coming clean and uncovering not as an

end, as a means to allowing God to

cover, never to be uncovered again.

That's the gospel. That's what Jesus

purchased. David in Psalm 32 looks back

on his own sin, but he looks forward to

the ultimate covering that happens in

Jesus. The son of David still a long way

off when he wrote Psalm 32. Let's pray.

Father, we give you thanks for the

Psalms, for Psalm 32, for the other

Psalms. Lord, thank you for the process

of repentance, for how counterintuitive

it is. We often want to uh cover our

guilt so others don't see. And sometimes

in our wildest imagination, we think

that even um you won't see it either.

But Lord, you tell us as we uncover,

you will cover. Lord, help us not just

today but regularly every day to

practice the process uncovering our sin

and guilt so that Jesus can cover our

sin and guilt with the garment that he

purchased, the garment of righteousness

that will never be removed from us

again. We pray in his name. Amen.