The Secret You’re Still Carrying | Pastor Chris Kouba

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to Psalm chapter 32.

Psalms 32 · chapter mention

Psalm chapter 32.

Psalms 32 · chapter mention

What happens in Vegas?

You guys shouldn't know that.

You know that, right?

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?

That's how they market their city.

It's a place that you can go to, it's a place that you can do whatever you want.

It's a place that nobody's gonna know.

And it's a place that you can just have as much fun without having any consequences whatsoever.

The idea is that it's a place that can hide all of your activities.

Katie Chang in 2012 was an artist, and she decided to do something a little bit different.

She rented a little bit of space on the Vegas strip, and she set up a confession booth.

This isn't like a religious confession booth.

This is instead a confession booth that was just a quiet room with wooden plaques and markers.

And the invitation was simple.

Write down something that you've never told anyone.

No names, no judgment, complete anonymity.

She expected that she'd get a few dozen people that might come and check out the booth.

But fifteen hundred people came and wrote something down.

Some of the responses were I stole fifteen thousand dollars from the company that I work for.

I've been married for 20 years and I've never felt love.

I had an abortion and I've never forgiven myself.

I'm the reason my brother won't speak to our family.

Somebody wrote, I'm terrified, I'm becoming my father.

1,500 people in Vegas.

The city where the whole point is that no one's supposed to find out.

Yet they lined up, strangers waiting in line to confess their secrets to no one in particular.

Why would they do that?

Because I want to argue today that I don't believe that people actually want to hide, they actually want to be free.

But they don't know how to do it.

They want to know that what they've done doesn't have to define them forever.

They're desperate for forgiveness.

They're just not sure that it exists for them.

We're starting a new sermon series today called Forgiven.

And what we're going to do is we're going to look at a topic that we've done in our Easter surveys the last few years, the number two requested item that we speak about as a church for the last two years running.

And it's by far the top two are spiritual or spiritual warfare and end times.

And then the next one, right underneath it, is forgiveness.

We know this is a topic that people want to hear about.

And so we're going to spend the next five weeks talking about this whole idea of forgiveness.

Now I need to give you a heads up, okay?

Church, I have been hard on you in 2026 so far.

If you've been to United City Church, I've told you not to eat and to give your money.

All right?

That's what I've basically been doing.

And now I'm talking about something that at the beginning you say you want to hear about.

It's so requested, but I'm just telling you, even in my own preparation for this message, what I've realized is that what we're about to talk about is really, really hard.

And there is so much good on the other side of hard.

I hope you've sensed that already in the fast.

That it's hard, but man, there's a lot of good on the other side of it.

I know you will experience that in the midst of the giving.

Whenever you make these commitments, you're gonna have all kinds of opposition.

But when you press through those oppositions, what you will see is the goodness of the Lord in ways that you've never experienced before.

Folks, I'm gonna be honest with you.

I have been, and I'm going to in this series.

I'm gonna meddle.

Like I'm gonna kind of go and poke the bear a little bit.

I'm gonna begin to try to deal with some things that you've worked really, really, really hard to make sure nobody knows and nobody sees.

You've worked really hard to try to make sure that in your interactions with other people, it doesn't come across what you're really feeling with just this low level of burden and shame and guilt and frustration and anger, either towards yourself or to somebody else.

But what I hope and I pray that you will experience in the midst of this series is a freedom like nothing else could possibly be experienced.

Why do we think forgiveness is so hard?

One, I would tell you, I think it's just hard because it sounds really good in theory, but it's not really that easy in practice, right?

And whenever you think about forgiveness, it's one of those things that's like, okay, I know the verses that I'm supposed to forgive somebody.

I know the Bible tells me that I'm supposed to do these certain things, I know what I've been told that this is gonna help me out, but it's like you lay up at 2 a.m.

and you're all you're doing is thinking about the way that somebody hurt you, and that's all that's all that matters in that moment.

It's like telling somebody that has a broken leg to walk it off.

How do you do that?

It's not that easy.

I think another issue with forgiveness is that oftentimes it's also misunderstood.

The assumption is if I forgive someone, does that just mean I gotta go back and act like nothing happened?

I mean, they really hurt me.

Maybe there was abuse or maybe there was some kind of uh abandonment or whatever it may be.

Like, I don't just want to go back to a toxic relationship.

Is that what you're actually saying?

Does the Bible just, oh, forgive, oh, just get away with it?

It's not the Bible's saying at all.

I think though a lot of things that I want to deal with today, specifically, though, a reason we struggle with the idea of forgiveness is because we wonder this question can God really forgive me?

Like for what I've done, for what I've thought, for what I have done to another person?

Like, there's no, like, is this something that I can actually begin to experience in my life?

Over the next five weeks, heading up to Easter, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at all the different angles of forgiveness.

We're gonna look this week at what does it look like to receive forgiveness?

Next week, we're gonna look at what does it look like to give forgiveness to somebody else?

We're then gonna look at what about all the what ifs?

Because many of you right now, when you're thinking about forgiveness, you're like, yeah, but what about this situation?

Or what about this, or what about this?

And we're gonna go there, we're gonna address all of those.

Then we're gonna look and see, okay, what does it mean?

Like I was like, I I live with my wife, I live with my kids, I live with, I work with other people like that that constantly require me to have to put this into practice.

How does this look in daily life?

Like, what does this mean?

Not just the big stuff, but like the little everyday stuff.

How do I live in that way?

And then ultimately on Easter Sunday, what we're gonna do is we're gonna look and we're gonna see what the what the God is, who the God is that makes all of this possible.

Today, though, I want to start with this question.

Have you actually received what God is offering?

If we were to set up a confession booth in the lobby, and you were able to walk in there, pull the curtain behind you, and honestly write down what it is that you need to confess, what would you say?

I want you to take a deep breath.

We don't have a confession booth that we've set up in the lobby while you've been in the service, and you're not gonna have to walk out and do that.

But I'd like you to.

I'd like you to be able to go there.

What is it?

What is it that you maybe have been hiding?

What is it that you've been covering?

What is it that you've been neglecting to deal with, acting like if you just ignore it long enough, it'll go away.

The thing is, you and I both know it has not gone away.

What I want you to do is see what David discovered years ago, which is the main point for this message today.

Write this down.

The path to freedom isn't hiding, it's receiving.

The path to freedom isn't hiding, it's receiving.

It's you embracing what God has already made available to you.

Psalm chapter 32.

Psalms 32 · chapter mention

We're gonna walk through verse by verse.

Uh, I want to just uh begin to read this.

Let me read it to you slowly, verses 1 and 2.

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.

The word is used there twice in verse 1 and verse 2, although we can imply that it's used twice in verse 1, whenever it makes that comment with the comma there, the word blessed.

We generally all want to be blessed.

We want to experience blessing in our lives, but we usually associate blessing with something that we do.

For example, blessed is a man uh who meditates on God's law day and night, Psalm chapter 1, verse 1.

Psalms 1:1

Okay, we we hear blessed in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the peacemakers.

We associate blessing as something with us being giving something in response to us doing something right.

But notice what David does here.

He doesn't say blessed are the ones who get it all right, he doesn't say blessed is the ones who've never messed up.

He says instead, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.

Blessed is the one whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.

What he's saying is this there's a big difference.

David isn't talking to people who are avoiding sin, he's talking to people who've been forgiven of their sin.

Please hear me.

The blessing isn't in your perfection, the blessing is in your pardon.

I want you to feel the weight of the words, particularly of verse 2.

He says, There, blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.

This is about to become tax season.

I did my taxes late last year.

Uh, we had moved and we'd switched some stuff around, and so therefore I got a notice in the mail that basically said that my taxes for 2025, yes, 2025, or no, 2024 rather, were not right.

That I had to basically go to the IRS office and I had to prove who I was.

And by doing so, I had to bring all of my debts and I had to bring all of my credits and I had to bring all of my numbers and had to bring it all there and show all of my record.

And it wasn't until they looked it all over and made sure that yes, in fact, he did pay his taxes, and yes, in fact, he is who he says that he is, that my books were now closed for 2024, and therefore I was able to move on and file my taxes now for 2025.

So many of us believe that our relationship with God is like a never-ending, I gotta prove who I am, and I gotta prove that I've done what I've paid for what I've what I what I've done.

And that God is up there always checking, sending you notices saying, Hey, you're not gonna be cleared, you got to come and prove yourself.

Notice what the scripture says: Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.

Please hear me.

Your books are closed.

That's what God does for you.

That's what God does, He desires whenever you forgive.

When you when you confess your sins to the Lord and He forgives them, then guess what?

Your book is clear.

Notice what it says.

It gets blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no deceit.

You know what it's like.

If you've got unconfessed sin in your life, then you're always trying to keep the game up.

You're always trying to make sure that you act apart.

Here's somebody, because of their confession, what does it say?

There's somebody who stopped pretending, who stopped hiding, who stopped performing.

They've come clean and now they're living clean.

They're not perfect, but they're honest.

And David calls that person blessed.

I love these verses because what it does is that it gives you four different words for all that you have been forgiven of.

Let me show you the four words.

They're word transgression.

This word means to rebel, to revolt.

It's a willful crossing of the line.

This is whenever you say, I know this is wrong, I know this is sin, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

The second word is the word sin.

This is a general term which means to miss the mark.

These are the sins that you commit that you know you're committing, and these are the sins that you commit and you don't even realize that you're committing them.

Then there's the word iniquity.

This is more than just an action.

This is actually a bent.

It means twisted or crooked or perverse.

It's it's not just a single act, it's this pattern of corruption where you basically kind of have this bent towards sin.

All of us know exactly what this is like, okay?

Whenever you you you kind of just find yourself naturally leaning towards one area of sin, the last word that is used there is the word deceit.

This is the distortion that always accompanies sin.

When we sin, we stop thinking clearly, we rationalize, we convince ourselves that we'll be fine, even though we've crossed God's line.

Here's why this matters.

Whatever category you fall into, whether it's the rebellious choice, whether it's the careless mistake, whether it's the deep-seated pattern, or whether it's the self-deception, all of it, it's covered.

David uses four words here to be able to show us that there's nothing that you've done that has ever fallen outside of the reach of God's ability to forgive.

But here's the problem: knowing forgiveness is available and actually receiving it are two very different things.

Look at what he says in verse 3 and 4.

He says, 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 the summer.

Most scholars believe that David wrote this psalm when he was reflecting on the incident that took place before, whenever he committed adultery with Bathsheba.

And if you remember, he not only committed adultery with her, but then he also arranged a situation to where her husband could come back from battle a little bit early and would ultimately be killed.

And then he took her as his wife.

And look at what it says.

The Bible, we believe, scholars suggest that this psalm was written a year later after that incident took place.

At the beginning of the verse, for when I kept silent.

One full year, David was living his life as the king and nobody knew.

For one full year, David's going to the temple and he's worshiping God and nobody knew.

And on the outside, it looks as though everything is great.

But here's what's happening on the inside.

It says my bones were wasting away.

I was groaning all day long.

He's saying, Look, on the outside I look great, but on the inside I am falling apart.

He says there that my strength was dried up by the heat of summer.

You know what it feels like to walk outside about three o'clock in the afternoon in Houston in August?

Where immediately the second that you walk out there, you're just like, oh.

Folks, that's what it feels like to walk around with unconfessed sin.

You know what I'm talking about because you know that's exactly what you feel like.

Where basically you're spending so much time trying to juggle everything, trying to keep the game up, trying to keep the coup up to make sure no one knows this and no one sees this, and on and on and on.

You're juggling all of these things all the time.

What's happening is that you're withering away.

And I want you to see this.

This is so important.

God isn't letting us reveal this to us to try to punish us.

What instead I want you to see is that God is showing us this because the very fact that you're feeling it the way that you do is actually an invitation to come to Him.

David's misery wasn't punishment, it was actually provision.

The heavy hand of God wasn't crushing him, it was pressing him toward freedom.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 5 and 6.

Hebrews 12:5

Listen to what this says.

Please hear me.

You may assume that the wound that you are walking around with due to your unconfessed sin is something that you're trying to see as God punishing you for.

And then whenever you realize that God comes to you and he presses in on that wound, you think, oh, God's just trying to rub it in.

What you don't realize is that God is pressing in on that wound so that he can heal it, not so that he can judge you.

He's inviting you to come to a place where you no longer run from him, but instead you realize that he is actually safe, that you can run to him.

Look at verse 5.

Look at what David does.

I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Do you see it?

The path to freedom isn't hiding.

He says there in verse 5, it's receiving.

He no longer covers his sin.

And what does it say God does?

God forgives him.

So what happens is that when he exposes his sin, God covers it.

You cover your sin and it stays exposed before God.

You expose your sin and God covers it completely.

Verses three and five, he's wasting away, trying to keep his sin covered up.

Verse five, he begins to confess it.

He tells it to the Lord, and what happens?

He begins to experience freedom.

Notice complete how complete David's confession is.

In verse five, he uses the word my four times.

My sin.

My iniquity.

My transgressions.

My sin.

He is not blaming anybody else.

He's not like Adam in the garden who's like, God, is that woman you gave me?

She's the reason I did it.

He's not saying, David's not saying, well, if Bathsheba hadn't been on that roof, then I wouldn't have done it.

Or if my childhood had been different, then I would have maybe done something better.

Or compared to other kings, you realize I'm not all that bad.

No, David owns it completely.

This is my sin.

I'm responsible.

I'm the one bringing this up to you.

And look at what happens.

This is so amazing.

Look at the look at the end of that verse, and you forgave.

What tense is that word in?

Past tense.

It doesn't mean if you do good enough, then we'll see if one day we can forgive.

He doesn't say that there's a potential, it's likely, but I can't guarantee it.

He says, Oh no, no, no.

Whenever I confessed, he forgave.

Pastence.

Complete.

Done.

Finished.

Now here's the question we have to answer.

Why?

Why would God forgive?

David committed adultery.

He murdered a man.

He abused his power.

Why doesn't God just say, hey, this is the bed you made, you get to lie in it.

Here's what we have to understand: forgiveness is never free.

Like someone always pays.

When someone wrongs you, a debt is created.

And when some they take something from you, your trust or your dignity or your peace or your security, that debt doesn't just disappear.

Either they pay for it or you have to absorb it.

Think about it like this if somebody was to crash into your car and then they drive away.

You're either going to find that person who drove away and you're going to get them to pay for the damage that they've done to your car.

Or you're going to have to pay for the damage yourself for your car.

Or you're going to file an insurance claim and the insurance company's going to pay for it.

But somebody is going to pay in the same way when David sent, he created a debt that he couldn't pay, a life was taken, a marriage was destroyed.

God's law was violated.

Justice was demanded.

So how could God forgive?

Go back to the garden after Adam and Eve sinned, and they it says they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves.

God did something unexpected.

Genesis tells us that God actually killed an animal and he used the skin of that animal to cover Adam and Eve.

It was the first death in the Bible, and it happened so that guilty people could be covered.

That moment in that in Genesis was pointing all the way towards something much greater.

Taking place thousands of years later, when God would send his one and only Son to die on a cross, not because Jesus had any sin of his own, but because he had a debt that we couldn't pay.

And on that cross, Jesus absorbed that debt.

He didn't dismiss our sin.

He didn't pretend like it didn't matter.

He paid for it.

The debt that should have crushed us ultimately is what was used to crush him.

And that's why forgiveness is possible.

Not because God lowers the standard.

Not because God doesn't think your sin isn't that serious.

But because the price has already been paid.

The question isn't whether forgiveness is available.

The question is whether you will receive it.

People who attend church regularly who say they follow Jesus struggle to receive forgiveness for something that they've done.

That means that one in five of us knows what it's like to be forgiven theologically, but we don't know what it's like to be forgiven experientially.

Maybe it's because of pride.

Maybe you think, well, I don't really it's not that big of a deal compared to other people.

I don't need forgiveness, and so you're not experiencing it.

Maybe for some of you it's shame.

I don't think God could actually forgive what I've done.

I'm just telling you, if I wrote what I've done on that confession booth, people would roll their eye.

Like they would, they would, they would, it would, it'd be a thing.

People would wonder, who did this?

And your assumption is because that's the case, God's not going to forgive you.

Maybe forgiveness has been misunderstood.

There's confusion around it.

You think you've got to earn something before you receive it.

Here's what I want you to hear that pride is lying to you, that shame is lying to you, that confusion is lying to you.

The verse one of Psalm chapter 32 says, Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.

Psalms 32 · chapter mention

Not blessed is the one who earned it, or blessed is the one who deserved it, just blessed is the one who receives it.

I want you to look at how David describes life on the other side of receiving forgiveness, verse six and seven.

Think about what he was like in verse three and four.

And now listen to what he says in verse six and seven.

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 you.

You are a hiding place for me.

You preserve me from trouble.

You surround me with shouts of deliverance.

Do you hear the difference in his voice?

The same man who was wasting and groaning and drying up with the heat in verses three and four is now saying that he is surrounded by shouts of deliverance.

God isn't his judge anymore.

God has become his hiding place.

This is what forgiveness does.

It changes your posture towards God.

You stop running from him and you start running to him.

You stop seeing him as the one who's going to expose you and you start seeing him as the one who's going to cover you.

Corey Tin Boom survived the Nazi concentration camps where her sister died.

And after the war was over, she spent some time traveling and speaking about forgiveness.

And she used to say this, I love it.

She said, When we bring our sins to God, he casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.

And then he puts up a sign that says, No fishing allowed.

Some of you keep fishing.

Some of you keep going back, confessing to God the same sin a hundred times just because you don't believe that he actually forgave you on the first time.

Some of you, your struggle is okay, I hear what you're saying.

God can forgive me, but you haven't been able to forgive yourself, so you just hold on to it.

You bring it back up and you remind yourself of it over and over and over again.

Now realizing that God has cast it into the deep so far down that even if you tried to fish for it, you couldn't find it.

First John 1 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He is faithful.

That means that he won't change his mind.

He won't bring it back up.

He won't hold it against you later.

When God forgives, he forgives you completely.

Let's give down with me to verse 10 and 11.

He says, Many are the sorrows of the wicked.

But 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.

There are two ways for you to live.

You can carry your sin, you can hide your shame, you can manage your guilt, you can be surrounded by sorrow, or you can bring it all to God.

You can receive his forgiveness, you can be surrounded by his steadfast love.

Notice David doesn't call them perfect or the ones who got it right.

He calls them the righteous.

And the upright in heart.

And here's the beautiful part they're not righteous because they've never sinned, they're righteous because they've been forgiven.

The uprightness isn't self-made, it's received, and that can be you today.

You remember those 1,500 people in Vegas who lined up to confess their secrets?

They were looking for something.

They were hoping that if they could just get it out, that they'd feel free.

But here's what a confession booth can't give you actual forgiveness.

Like you can tell your secrets to a stranger, you can write them out on a wall, you can whisper them into the void, but none of that can cancel your debt.

There's only one person that can do that, and he's not waiting for you to clean yourself up first.

He's not keeping a record to try to throw back in your face when the time comes.

He is instead a God who forgives completely, freely, and forever.

Because the path of freedom isn't hiding, it's receiving.

What you receive from Him today, would you bow your heads and would you close your eyes with me?

For every person in here, no matter your background, no matter your issues, no matter how big, no matter how little your sins are that you've committed.

All of us have fallen short of his standard and his glory.

That doesn't have to be the end of the story.

Because God sent his son Jesus to give up his life as a sacrifice for you by dying on the cross and by paying for your sins.

He rose from the dead three days later, and by doing so, he overcame sin and death, and he now offers you forgiveness and life.

But you have to humbly humble yourself and receive it.

You gotta know this, God knows every sin that you've already committed, every one of them, and he still wants to save you today.

If you've never received Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I want to ask right where you're seated, just to pray this simple prayer with me.

Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I believe that you died on the cross for me.

I believe that you rose from the dead, and right now I receive you into my life.

Would you forgive me of all of my sins?

Would you cleanse me and make me new?

You continue to keep your heads bowed and your eyes closed.

If you just prayed that prayer faith with me in just a moment, we're all gonna stand.

That's gonna be your cue.

So just step out from where you are and just declare publicly your faith in Jesus.

Our team's gonna be at the bottom of the steps, they're gonna be at the front of the aisles here in front.

Just come and tell us.

We'd love to pray with you, we'd love to celebrate with you.

Others of you need to come and join United City Church.

God's leading you to make this your church.

A place that you're gonna plug in, belong.

Not just believe what we believe, but you're gonna be a part of who we are.

God's leading you to join United City, which you lead the way today.

Maybe others need to be baptized, giving public expression of your faith in Jesus.

Would you come?

Let us schedule your baptism.

Maybe others need prayer today.

I just want you to take a moment before we begin to move in this time of invitation.

Just ask the Holy Spirit of God.

Search me, oh God.

Know my heart.

Try me.

Know my thoughts.

See if there's any grievous way in me.

Lead me in the way everlasting.

Would you just right now take just a few seconds?

God, what do you want me to confess?

There's nothing too big.

There's nothing too small.

Just right now where you are.

Confess to the Lord.

Father, in Jesus' name, we come before you.

Broken people.

People who need you.

People who want to see your face.

God, I pray that we would be a people who are an honest people.

May our story be not that we have lived a perfect life, but instead that we have been forgiven by a perfect Savior.

Lord, would you reveal things in us that we need to get out?

And Lord, may we have the boldness and the courage to be like David, to own it.

This is my sin, my transgression, my iniquity.

God, let this be a moment when we do business with you.

God, for those that need to respond today, who've given their lives to you, I pray God give them boldness and courage to respond publicly.

Those that are joining the church, for those who need prayer, God, would you just move in these final moments we have?

Lead people to respond to you in faith.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

We can't wait to see you next week for any of our services at 8 30, 10, 11 30, or Espanol at 1 o'clock.