New Year’s Eve Ps 32:1-7
1] Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
[2] Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
[3] When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
[4] For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
[5] I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
[6] For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.
[7] Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.
Leave the past behind: look joyfully to a future of forgiveness
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ Jesus,
There are two ways to look as we begin the New Year. We can look back or we can look ahead. We can relive our sins, our mistakes, the foolish choices that have changed our lives. We can wonder what would have happened had our choices been different! How often don’t most of us do that anyway? It is so easy to replay the past and say, “if only I knew then what I know now.” However, the past is just that – it’s the past. This is true even of funerals. Dear friends, don’t try to relive the past of those who have died. Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:60. The past can’t be changed and we have to live with the choices and circumstances of our actions. Knowing this, however, is no reason for despair. In fact, God tells that we can rejoice instead of despair. We can begin the year 2009 and leave the sins, mistakes, and foolish choices of all previous years behind. Thanks to the grace of God, we can begin the New Year with the joy of forgiveness.
King David wrote the words of our text. God hand picked David to be King over Israel. As long as he was devoted to God, nothing was out of reach. He defeated his enemies on every side. He chose wise counselors and ruled well. At the peak of his reign, however, David foolishly used his position and power to commit the most despicable sins. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, Uriah. He felt that he had to. If his subjects found out that Bathsheba was carrying his child, he would have been publicly disgraced. He cleverly managed to hide his sin of adultery and murder from the people, but that took its toll.
It was very difficult for him to keep a pious front as a king because the weight of what he had done was always on his mind. David tells us, “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 sapped as in the heat of summer.” Psalm 32:7. He couldn’t sleep. Night after night he would break out in a sweat as he grew weaker and weaker. During the day his conscience gave him no peace. He knew that what he had done placed a barrier between him and his Lord and he sincerely regretted it, but he couldn’t find the courage to lay bare his heart before God. Finally, God came to him. We read in the 2nd book of the prophet Samuel, “The thing David had done displeased the LORD.” 2 Samuel 11:27. Our Lord is not willing that any should perish; thus with divine compassion He sent His prophet, Nathan, to remind David of the mortal danger of trying to hide his sin. Now David, before Nathan. confessed his sin unto the Lord, and looked to Him for forgiveness. He said those familiar words that we say in church every Sunday morning, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; [then with a heart of faith, he went on] and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Psalm 32:5.
Like David, we may have private sins which we try to hide because we are afraid of punishment or what people might say. This is true of children as well as grown adults. How often doesn’t a child say, “I didn’t” when he really did. How often don’t we adults rationalize so that our sins begin to look like virtues? We must never forget that how we look before God is far more important than how we look before men. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:7. The consequences of our sin may remain. Bathsheba was still going to have a baby, and a loyal army officer was dead, but now David could face his future with a clean conscience, trusting his Lord to care for him and to see him unto everlasting life. He took his sins to the foot of the cross and left them there.
Tonight as we face the first day of another secular year, our Lord invites us all to acknowledge our unworthiness, and to receive the joy of forgiveness, and the peace and comfort forgiveness brings. God graciously forgives us because the punishment for our sin has already been carried out. Before the creation of the world God had already planned that Jesus would be the one to suffer for our sins. God sent His one and only Son to this world to be our Mediator, to go to the cross and die for the sins of the mankind. There is no sin left unpunished; Jesus has suffered for them all.
What does the year 2009 have in store for us? We are a nation at war. We are under the threat of terrorist attack at any time. As long as we live in a sinful world, we are going to have to deal with threats of violence. God tells us that we must go through many trials and tribulations before we enter the kingdom of Heaven. Satan never gives us rest. He wants us to question the goodness of our Lord. When we are faced with sickness or injury, he would have us say things like, “Why is God punishing me?” Brothers and sisters, God never punishes His children. God has carried out his punishment on his one and only Son. Jesus innocent death for our sins was the payment God required and therefore He does not punish us even though we deserve it. The punishment that we deserved was completed when our Savior said, “it is finished.” John 19:30
It is so difficult to believe that! While we live on earth our trust and confidence is often misplaced, often disappointed. We trust our physical strength, yet illness can make us weak. We work and save our money and then a recession comes to threaten our security. We trust friends with secrets only to find their hearts are false and that they use their tongues against us. Our ideals lie shattered, our goals unattained, our ambitions unfulfilled. In the end, we find that relying on our strength can only lead to disillusionment and despair.
Begin the new year, then, with a Bible in your hands, and with His word in your hearts. Through His word our Lord wipes away all our doubts and gives us the strength to trust Him to make everything in our lives turn out for good. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27. The greatest need we have is the need for forgiveness, for only through forgiveness can we make a fresh start on life. Come to the Lord’s Table, then, this evening and receive the personal forgiveness that is ours through precious body and blood of our Lord, given and shed for us on Calvary’s cross.
Our Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. How knows how easily we yield to our sinful flesh and fall prey to doubt Thus He gives us His very body and His very blood in, with, and under the bread and wine to guarantee our forgiveness and to give us the strength for a renewed life as we move forward into the year 2009. Thank God for the joy of forgiveness.