Well, good morning church and happy VBS week. You know, I know Josie already pumped it up a little bit, but I don't know if you have ever been here, uh, during a VBS week, but if you can, you need to do everything possible to be involved. I don't know, but it is about having about 2000 people in this church every single day. But the energy is incredible. So I was telling somebody earlier that it is the favorite part of anybody's summer, uh, other than the custodial staff. Uh, they're the only people that, uh, I'm not gonna say they don't like this week, but it's a rough week. Um, all right. So look, if you're not volunteering this week, do us a favor. Would you just pray every single morning? Would you just pray that God would show himself to so many of these sweet babies this week and they'll meet Jesus? It's gonna be a great, great week. Well, look, I know you just saw the bumper, but last week we actually started our new summer series that we're just calling the Summer of Psalms, the summer of P Songs with Here's what we're doing. We're actually walking through about eight of the 150 Psalms that are in the Bible, and the prayer is alright, here it is on the bottom shelf. The prayer is, is that our hearts would connect to God's hearts, our emotions would connect to God's character, and that we would begin to see all of the gifts that God has given us through our emotions like joy and happiness and forgiveness, and all of these things that we would begin to see them through the lens of that God has given them to us to give him glory and for our good. Alright, now, last week, okay, last week, we actually started in Psalm one. All right? We started in Psalm one last week, and this week we're going all the way to Psalm 32. All right? So if you've got a copy of scripture, go ahead and find that with me in Psalm one last week, just in case you weren't here, Psalm one. We started off by saying that God really does want us to be happy. Now, I fully realize some of you grew up in churches where that was the farthest thing from it. Amen. I mean, you grew up in a church where you thought God was an angry God waiting just to catch you in sin and to smoke you right to knock you down. But we saw last week that that is not God, the first word in the first book. I mean, the first Psalm is the word happy, and we saw last week this idea of happiness or this idea of joy is something God wants us to have as his children. But there's another side to it. The reality is, is that most of us, we really do want the happiness of God, but we chase it in the wrong direction. We chase happiness from circumstances in life. We chase happiness by kind of untethering ourselves from all of responsibility and all of the other things, and finding this ultimate freedom. But we walked out with this principle last week that if we want happiness in our lives, that we need to allow our thoughts, our behaviors, and our belonging to be fully rooted in who God is. All right? That was last week. All right? We said that we can chase it wherever we want to and some good may come out of that here and there. But if we truly want happiness, we find it in God and we find it through the Word of God and the people of God. All right? So that was last week. That'll save you a 40 minute podcast just in case you're at the beach. That is all we did well this week as we move from Psalm one over to Psalm 32, we're actually gonna stay in this vein of happiness. Alright? We're gonna stay in this vein of happiness, but we're gonna look at it from a different perspective and today's perspective. Here's what I can promise you, today's perspective. If you are a believer in Jesus, today's perspective is going to hit home with you. Now, I know that's a big statement, right? 'cause we're always taught, well, Matt, even this exclusive claims, these are really tough, I promise you, all right? As we get into it today, you're gonna see that today, if you're a follower of Jesus, that today's perspective of happiness will hit you right where you are. Why? 'cause today's perspective of happiness comes from this idea that our happiness is incredibly linked to the forgiveness that God gives us. All right? In fact, I want you to write a principle down here today because this principle deals with the joy and the hope and the freedom of God and the forgiveness that God gives. And this principle is actually gonna launch us into the text this morning here, write this principle down. One, maybe one of the greatest blessings of being a Christian is that God gives us second chances, all right? That that is kind of where we're gonna launch from today. One of the greatest blessings is that God gives us second chance. I thought I might get an amen in that, but maybe you're thinking you don't need a second chance. I don't know, but I do. All right, so I'll say it. Amen. There it is. No, I'm not sure anybody's ever told you this before, but God knows that you're not going to be flawless. God knows that you are going to fall short. God knows that you are not going to be perfect, and he actually knows where that non perfection is going to take you. He knows where it is gonna lead you, and God knows what that non perfection is going to do to you in the long run. So here's what God has done in his mercy and his grace is God has given us a way back. He's given us a way to come out of that non perfection and step back into his power. He's given us a way to turn that around, and he's given us a way to walk in him. But here's the thing. Here's the thing. We have to make a choice to do it, all right? We have to make a choice because just because God has offered a way back into his power, right? As a believer in Jesus, we are the ones that has to make the decision to walk in a way that is counter of the sin that's in our lives in. In fact, I, I kinda explain it like this. There is one of two things that you can do and that I can do with our sins. One, I can confess my sin and and I can turn from that sin. We're gonna see that in a minute, what that really means. And I can know the happiness and know the forgiveness, and I can know the joy of the Lord. All right? That's on on one side or the other side of that coin is that I can actually conceal it. I can conceal my flaws. I can conceal the sentence in my life and I can continually walk in what will become. Here's the promise. What will become a misery moment of that? Ultimately, I'm going to be found out anyway. There's a choice when it comes to sin. There's a choice when it comes to walking in God's power. In fact, listen to this first set of Deuteronomy and watch what God tells us. He says this in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19. He says, this day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you. Watch what he tells us that I have set before you, life and death. In other words, here's the choice, blessings and curses. Now, here's what God says. Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God. Listen to his voice. Hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land. Are are you seeing it right there? Listen, there is a choice. God says when it comes to sin, there is a choice that we can walk with him or we can walk away from his power. We can walk in his love and in his life or that we can, what did the Bible say? That we can actually choose what will lead us to death. But isn't it amazing even though that choice is there, isn't it it amazing how many times we choose death? I mean, isn't it amazing how many times we choose sin? Have you ever thought about why it is that we do that? Lemme tell you why just for a second. We do that because Satan is really good at what, what he does. That's why we do it. We do that because Satan is really, really good. He is no fool. In fact, he knows how to package sin in a way that looks like it will not cause us harm. You know what I'm talking about by that, right? Satan knows how to wrap sin in a candy coating that when it goes into the mouth it's sweet, but we don't know what it's really going to to do to us. Satan knows how to put us in situations that we really and truly feel like we are finding fulfillment in this situation. But take no believer in the long run. It never leads to that. Make no mistake, church, the Bible is very clear when it says that our sins will find us out. Now look, sometimes it happens in the moment and you get caught and praise God. One of my mama's biggest prayers for me growing up is that I would get caught quick, right? . And I didn't know what that meant until I got older . I was like, quit praying that. Right? But listen, it's true, isn't it? Our sins will find this out. Either we're gonna get found out in the moment or we're gonna get found out in a different season after a long run of misery. Make no mistake, the sin will lead us in a despair. So what do we do about it, right? What do we do about the sin problem? Here's, here's my mode in life. What I do when I recognize something is faltering in my life. What I do, when I recognize there's a problem that I'm not really sure how to deal with it, my, one of my go-to ways to solve problems in my life is that I find an expert in the subject and I study how they deal with something. Whether it's something that's just worldly, whether it's something workwise systems wise or Bible wise. One of the best ways to deal with a problem for me is to go to the prose, to go to the experts, to go to those that have walked out. What I'm dealing with in a great way, or what I would just call have already paid the dumb tax. You know what I'm talking about in that today, Psalm 32 is actually a moment that all of us can lean into as to what it looks like to deal with sin in our lives. He, here's what I mean by that. The the writer of Psalm two or 32 is David. In David's life, I don't know how much you've studied David's life. David is an expert in two different things in his life. He's an expert in sin, and we'll see that in a minute, right? And he's also an expert in God and his forgiveness. Alright? David's life, like so many of ours, is actually somewhat of a paradox, right? On this side, David is a man that is after God's heart, right? We see that all through the Psalms, beautifully written stuff. He led Israel well. But on this side, David on the other side, David is known for his adultery, known for his murder. We'll talk about it in just a minute. Even when you think of David's life, you always think of two names that are associated with David. There's David and Goliath on this side, right? That is his heavenly perspective of when he is walking with the Lord. And then on this side, there's David and Bathsheba, right? We'll see that in just a minute. And that is when he fell into sin. And interestingly enough, today's Psalm actually shows us both sides of David's life. And it actually gives us a path, right? He's the pro he's gonna show us. He gives us a path back from an incredible moment of sin in our life. And he gives us a path from and to how we can get happiness into our life. So today's psalm, all right, when we're gonna jump into it, it's gonna show us what sin does. It's gonna show us how God brought David out of it, and it's gonna show us where it left David's life. Now, I want you to read it through the lens of David, but I also want you to see it through the lens of us and what it can do for us. 'cause that's why he actually gave it all. So I'm gonna jump into the text. I'm gonna give you a little backstory that's gonna kind of make it hit home. All right? Psalm 32, verse one. This is where we're gonna start. And I'm reading from the ESV version today. It's the cool kids version, evidently. All right? Just 'cause I like the way it puts this verse. All right? You'll see it in a minute. Here's what it says. David says this about sin. He says, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered just like last week. He starts with that first word. Blessed, right? Blessed is asray. It literally means happy. And David is laying out the purpose of this whole psalm, and that is to connect happiness with forgiveness. Now, we might not admit this out loud, but we know these two connect in our souls. I mean, we know it, right? We know as Christians that sin separates. Sin puts a burden on us. Sin drags us down, and sin distances us from God and ultimately sin. It robs our joy from us. It makes us skeptical of relationships. It moves God's power outta being the preeminent spot in my life. It makes me kind of shut down inwardly. It makes me paranoid. And listen, David knew this. He even knew that it can consume our thoughts and consume who we are. David knew this well, actually, this Psalm 32 and one that we're gonna look at in a couple of different weeks, Psalm 51 in, in a couple weeks, both of these Psalms or what I would just kind of call journal entries or after action reports of after David has come out of his sin and once he has realized that God in his mercy has forgiven them, he's writing these psalms to us to show us we don't have to stay where we are. That we have a God that is offering us hope, joy, and forgiveness. Now, these Psalms are actually written because of a season in David's life where he really blew it. You see, Matt? Well, well, how did he blow it? Well, listen, for those of us that have been in church for a long time, you know how David blew it. But first, some of you that are new, let me just walk you through the story for a minute to show you that probably like 99% of you are nowhere as evil as David was. All right? There's, there's that one of you that I'm just really not sure, but the 99 of you, right? You, you're not there. Let, lemme tell you where David was before he got to this king. David decided one season of his life, instead of going out and leading his army in war, which is where he should have been as the king, he decided to stay back in the palace. One evening he went on top of the palace to get some air. He looked upon his kingdom and all of a sudden looks onto a rooftop and sees a lady named Bathsheba taking a evening bath. Well, instead of job 31, right? Bouncing his eyes, David locked in, all right to this beautiful lady. He invites her as the king, which is not an invitation. It's a command to his palace. And to stay PG 13, he actually impregnates her kids. If you're young enough and don't know what that means, ask your parents. If that puts you awkwardly as a parent, take 'em to kids church. There you go. All right. He impregnates Bathsheba, right? He impregnates her. What does that mean? That means that she is going to now have a baby. Well, now David has a choice in his life. David can confess this before the king or before God. He can repent of where he is, or he can double down and come up with a plan of what to do about this. Well, David doesn't confess it. He actually decides, I'm gonna get out of this. You say, well, how does he get out of it? Well, he comes up with this plan in his life. He said, well, I'm gonna invite Bathsheba's husband back from war 'cause he's out there fighting with me while I'm with his wife, and I'm gonna actually get him very drunk. I'm gonna send him home one evening. He is going to do what married couples do when they ain't seen each other for a little bit. And he is going to be the one that thinks he got his wife pregnant. Well, that sounds like a good plan, right? Good scheming plan. Well, it doesn't work. 'cause actually Uriah comes home, sleeps in front of the king's gates with all the other soldiers 'cause he's a good soldier. David should have confessed in this moment, should have begged for forgiveness, but he doesn't. David doubles down. Instead of sending Uriah back and coming up with a different plan, he actually sends Uriah back to war. He sends a secret note to his commander for his commander to put him in the front of the war, the tip of the spear, and when fighting, got the fiercest withdrawal from him and have him killed. This is King David. This is a man after God's own heart. Amen. What happens? Uriah dies. They do exactly what David says to do. Well, David thinks now he's gonna get away with this idea. He's gonna get away with this plan. He has solved the problem. Ever been there in sin and it just kind of got deeper and deeper and deeper. And then you thought, Hey, maybe I did it. What does David do? David now being a good king invites Bathsheba in and marries her as the king's wife. He's doing a good thing for this widow, right? He thinks he gets away with it until one day this prophet named Nathaniel walks into his life and he's like, Hey David, I got a question for you. I need to pose for you as a king. David's like, shoot, need to hear it. What is it? You're a voice of the Lord. He says, there was this guy that that that was very poor and had one sheep, right? Had one lamb, really love this lamb. But then there was this evil ruler who has lots of lamb. He has lots of things in his life. And the the the one that had lot went over and took the one that only had one and took the lamb from this guy and made it his own. He says, David, what should we do with this guy that took this lamb? David looked at him and said, well, that guy should be killed. That guy should be murdered. Nathaniel looked back at David and he says, David, you're that guy and this is what you have done. And listen, it was through that conversation that was actually from the Lord and through Nathaniel's life that David began to see his sin for what it really was. And Nathaniel said, listen, there's gonna always be murder in your home and this is always gonna happen in your life. And it was that moment being called out before the Lord that David's heart began to change. It was a season of change. It was a moment of change. But that change, listen to me, that change is the backdrop of what we're about to see this morning. That yes, there's hope. Listen for some of the some. Somebody sitting here right now thinking, there'll never be hope for me for because of what I did. Listen, I'm pretty sure that you're not an adulterous murderer. Amen. David came home and lemme show you what happened in his life, in this battle, in this moment. And he's saying, if you will just follow the plan, you can too. Lemme do it really quickly. Here he goes. Psalm 32, verse one through four. Here's what it says, blessed, here's how you get your happiness back. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and whose spirit there is no deceit for. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away though 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 summer sah. Now this word sah, this is actually why I use the ESV in this version actually. So a little bit of a question of what this word means, but it actually means stop and think. So anytime you see this word in the Psalms, it means pause for a minute. Look at what you just heard. In other words, what you just heard in this verse, what you just heard in this chorus, if this was a song he would be saying, think about the verse you just sang. In other words, think of it like that moment when the worship leaders up here just kind of do that deal where there's no words on the screen and we don't know what to do with our hands. We don't know what to do, what to sing. That's this moment, right? It's like, think about what you just heard. So that's what I wanna do with David for a minute. He wants us to think about our sin, think about what we've done, and watch what God has done in him. So I wanna pull a couple of thoughts out of this and watch David's get his joy process. All right? I wanna watch his get his joy back process because he's gonna tell us how we can as well. Here's the number one thing he wants us to see. Number one, if you want joy in your life, you have to realize that not all guilt and shame, not all guilt and shame is bad. You gotta see this. Now look, if somebody does something to you that that shame is not a good thing, that's not what I'm saying, but the guilt, the majority of our guilt in our life, listen to me. We gotta see this as a gift from God said a gift. Matt, why would it be a gift? We've gotta be thankful that it's where. Why? Because guilt is kind like physical pain. It is there to actually help us. I want you to, I want you to remember something about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit when he convicts you in life, alright? It is not to drive you away from God. It is to drive you back into the heart of God. Alright? Just like physical pain. All right? Physical pain in the moment, it seems terrible, but a lot of the time, actually, most of the time, physical pain is actually protecting you against something that is even worse. You go home today, you begin to cook up some lunch. You put your hand on the stove and automatically, as soon as you touch that stove, what do you do? You rip your hand off of it. Why? 'cause it hurts. Is that pain bad? Well, if you look at it from the hurting aspect, yes. But if you didn't have pain, imagine what would happen to your hand after you left it there for five minutes. You see that's what guilt and shame is in our lives as a believer. As a believer. Guilt and shame is the Holy Spirit pressing into us to keep us from going in a direction even farther so that it doesn't get any worse. Guilt can be God's messenger and God and his mercy and grace many times, listen, many times He starts with bringing us to this realization that we're wrong. Look at the verse. Look at verse three and watch what it says about David. It says, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long and day and night. Watch this. God, your hand was heavy on me and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. On one aspect, you're like, God, why would you put a heavy hand on me? But on the other aspect, you gotta see, listen, believers don't dismiss the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It's a gift. It's a gift. Which actually leads me to number two of this process. Number one, don't only just see guilt for what it is. But number two, here's the second in the joy process. You gotta know that before you can clean up what is torn up, you must come face to face with what is broken. You want, you want joy back in your life. See guilt for what it is. Secondly, you have got to see what is broken in your life. Here's what that means for us as believers, that means we gotta quit hiding our sin. We had to quit hiding our sin. Man, aren't we good at hiding sin? We're like pros at it. Amen. We were pros at it. Do you know why We're pros at it? Because human beings have been doing it ever since. Genesis chapter three, since the first sin on the first day of this planet, as Adam and E were together. We have been perfecting the covering of our sin. Started in the garden, right? Soon as they sinned against God. What did Adam and Eve do? What did they do? They tried to cover it up. They covered it up by hiding and they covered it up with some fig leaves. Now look, we're not covering our sin with fig leagues 'cause it's different, right? But we're covering up with denial and justification. We're covering it with comparison. But watch what David says is instead of covering up our sins, watch where we should be if we want joy. Look at verse five. It's gonna be our theme verse for almost the rest of the message. He says this, he says, I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord and forgive the iniquity. Uh, and you forgive the iniquity of my sin Sayah. What did David do? He didn't hide it. He didn't jump into the bushes about it. No. He acknowledged it. He uncovered it and he exposed it to God, which by the way, God already knows. To which he would say, well Matt, why do I need to tell God about something that he already knows? 'cause it's the process and it's you beginning to see, why am I being convicted? It's you beginning to see what is broken in my life. Listen to this principle I thought of this week. Write it down. If you cover up sin, God will eventually expose it. It'll be found out. But if you expose your sin to God, God will cover it. I mean, that's what he came to do. Did he not? He came to cover our sin, but how do we do it? How do we do it? We're already on the train, right? We're already on the get my joy process. We're realizing that guilt is not as bad. We're realizing what is broken. And here's number three thing that David would say to get our joy back, we're gonna see it in verse five. He says, number three, quit blaming others and own your sin. Quit blaming other people. Now, I want you to look close at five verse five again, because four times in verse five, David doesn't use the word they or them. He uses the word my. Alright man, we're good at this. Watch what David does. We're good at the opposite of this. Watch what he says in verse five again. He says, I acknowledge my sin. There it is. First to you. I did not cover my iniquity. There it is. Secondly, I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of what my sin. Are you seeing it? Are you seeing? What is David doing? He's not justifying his sin. He's not unloading his sin on somebody else. He's not blaming his sin on anybody else. He's saying, listen, this is on me. I did it. I did it. This is my doing and I am responsible. David learned that he will never be happy until he faces his sin and he knows that he is the one making the choices. You remember back in Genesis chapter three, the first time sin entered the world, was this how Adam did it? No, it's not. In fact, Adam tried to blame it on everybody. Remember, he never owned it on the first round. Remember what Adam did in Genesis three When God confronted him, remember what he did? He actually played the blame game, right? He played the blame. He was like, well, God, if you wouldn't have put that woman in my life, right, I would've never done that. God, if you'd have never put me in this situation, I would've never done that. And then he said, ultimately, God, this is all really just your fault for making it a choice anyway. Now, we don't say it like that, but we say it like this. God, they did it. They led me. The crowd did it. They drew me in. They put me into this position. But church, listen, it's only when we accept responsibility, hold ourselves accountable as the chief decision maker of our life, will we begin to see God's forgiveness? Will we begin to see God's power and God's joy begin to move back in our life? One author, I think it was Tim Keller, said it like this, life changing sin and repentance and forgiveness starts where blame shifting ends. Listen, some of us are so deep in our sins because we've never owned them. We've always thought it was somebody else's fault. Are you watching the process? Man, we're feeling the conviction and we're recognizing it's the Holy Spirit. We're moving in a direction where we see something's broken in our lives and that brokenness is because of what I've done in my life, not with somebody else that's necessarily done in my life. And then watch what happens. Speaking of sin number four, David would say, if you want joy back, number four, he would say this, just be honest. Just be honest and just call sin out for what it is. Call sin out for what it is. Now listen to me. Lemme teach you something. Sin is not just a mistake. Sin is way more than a mistake. Sin is way more than just breaking some cultural norm in our lives. No, no, no. Sin is this the, the kind of most basic definition is sin is a thought or an action that goes against God's character or commands. All right? It's a thought or an action that goes against God's character or commands. And listen, what is it saying right here? We've gotta be honest about what it is. We gotta be honest about what it is. It's way more than a mistake. In fact, watch what David does In verse five, I told you it's kind of the theme verse of the morning. Da David, actually in verse five gives us three different words for sin. There's 15 words for sin in the, in the whole Old Testament, but he uses three of them to describe that is way more than making a mistake. The first one he uses in verse five is just actually the word sin, right? He, he says, I acknowledge my sin to you. Right? That word just means he that we're missing the mark, that God put a target, we took the shot and we missed the mark that God wanted us to hit. All right? That's it. We, we made it how we wanted it and not how God wanted it. That's the first word. That's what the word sin there means. The second word is actually the word iniquity for sin. Watch what he said and I did not cover my what? My iniquity. That's the second word that he uses here. And this actually speaks of not just missing the mark, but this is a perversion or a crookedness. That's what iniquity means. If you've never been taught that, that's the word iniquity. It means that whatever God made straight, I have taken it and I've made it crooked, or I've pointed it in a different direction, or I've mended it or bended it towards where I want. It would probably be bent, but it sounded better the other way, right? I've made it go in the direction without consideration of where God wants it. I've made it where I want it. Alright? Are you seeing that? The first one is, I missed the mark. The second one is I bent it to where I wanted it and not where God wants it. Then the third word is actually the strongest word. The third word is transgression. In verse five, he said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. Alright, transgressions. Transgressions. Here's, here's this one. This one's strong actually is a deliberate defiance. That's transgressions. Transgressions is a deliberate crossing of a line that God has put or a willful sinning against God. Another word, it's kinda like that toddler, this run into the road. You said Stop. They looked back at you with that smirk. 'cause there's always the smirk, right? They knew there was a consequence coming, but what did they do? They chose to take another step. Church. That's what sin is, and that's where we've gotta get, when we start thinking about sin in our lives, that it's a missing of the mark. It's a bent something that God made straight. It's a taking a step against the line that God has put in front of us, and it's way more than just a mistake. It's a choice and a movement and a direction away from God. I can promise you this, until you treat sin seriously, God will not begin to heal you and put his power back in your life until you realize what it is. So what does David say to do? How does David say to get in the direction of moving? Trust me. David says, I know about the sin business. Watch what he said. He says, so therefore, here's number five. Truly, if you want your joy back, truly confess your sin and change course. Truly. He says, confess it and change course. Now, I said truly for a reason. All right? 'cause I want you to stay in verse five, and I want you to look at the confession that David makes here. Look at it again. Let me read it to us again. He says, 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 sayah. Now, I wanna key in on this word confession here, because I think this one word confession steals more joy from believers in Jesus than anything else that we think of here. Here's what I mean by this. When David uses the word to confess here, it is way more than most of us think. Here's what I mean by that. In English, I can confess something and not align my heart in a different direction. You see, Matt, what? What does that mean? That means I can, I can look at you and say, I did this. I stole the cookie. I hated you. I can say that in in a lot of ways I punched you, right? I can confess that. But is that a change of heart? No. All that is, is me speaking something outta my mouth. You see, some of us think that that is biblical confession, but it's not. Biblical confession actually has two other steps to it that most of the time we don't think about. You see, when I come to you and say, I offended you, that doesn't mean that my heart has changed and that I have any remorse towards it, or I'm gonna move in a different direction. You see, biblical confession means that I speak it to you, but I also have a change of heart, a change of perspective, and a change of direction. It means I'm saying this to God. God, I'm sorry for this. I did it. God, I was wrong. Help me walk in a different direction. Can. Can I tell you, I think some of us are stuck in our sin because we have never known that confession means that I'm seeing things through God's perspective. I'm changing my perspective, and I'm beginning to move in a new direction. Until you do those things, you have not truly confessed anything. Amen. You've just spoken something back to God that God already knows, but David gets it. Why? Because David has seen his guilt for what it is. He has owned his sin. He has seen what sin really is. He's began to confess it to God and watch what he says to do next. After you've done that, number six. Here's the last one. He just simply says, Hey, why don't you just start hiding in the presence of God and not the world? If you want your joy back, he says, just start hiding in God's presence. If you want joy, read it carefully. The what I say, start hiding in the presence of God. Notice I didn't say start hiding away from the presence because that's where we go most often in sin. Is it not? That's where we go. When we sin against God, our first move. Our first move. Most of us, our first move is to run away from God. Why? Because we begin to feel something in our heart. We begin to feel the conviction in our heart. We begin to feel this moment in our heart. But listen, all God wants us to do is to realize what that sin is done. Realize how that sin is broken his heart. Realize what that sin is doing unto us and begin to move ourselves to hide in his presence. Now, look, I realized that when I was five and I did something and I needed a whipping, I would would run away from my parents' presence. Amen. But if we do that spiritually, God will never heal us. He'll never move in our souls. He says, quit hiding from God and start hiding in God, even in the sin. What? Watch what David says in verses seven, I love, this is so beautiful. He says, you, God, you're a hiding place for me, you God. Watch what he says. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. Look at this last word again, Sayah. In other words, think about it. You see the difference in attitude. He says, God, you let me hide in you. You preserve me, God, you're surrounding me believers. Listen, God has already seen you at your worst. He's already seen you at your worst. He's already died for you when you were at your worst. The Bible says that even in the moment of God's death, he has already done what He has already shouted a shout of deliverance over you by saying that it is finished. And now that he has seen us at our worst, he's looking at us going, listen, I didn't forget about your sin. I paid for your sin. I didn't just wash your sin out. I was the sacrifice for your sin. And now I've given you a way to know me. I've given you a way to experience me. I've given you a way to know my power. So quit running away from me and run to me. Quit running away from me and fall in my arms. And when you do, and when we do, and when I do look at the promise in verse 10 and verse 11, look at the new joy that I find when I follow the process. He says, this, many are the sorrows of the wicked. Here's where we're closing, but the steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice. This is a guy that was a murderer. This is a guy that was an adulterer. This was a schemer. This was an evil man that met the Lord that walked the process. He says, be glad in the Lord. There's hope for you. There's hope for me. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice why? Oh, righteous shout for joy. In other words, it wouldn't matter where you're from. If you walk the process, you can shout for joy no matter what's happened. You can shout for joy and watch what he says. All you upright in heart. You know how you can have an upright heart. You can confess before the Lord what you've done. You can call upon the name of the Lord and ask him to forgive you. You can ask for God's power. You can ask for his presence. You can turn from where you are. You quit hiding who you've been, and you walk into the presence of the one that has already shouted over you so you can shout for joy. That's biblical forgiveness and the joy the God wants to give you. But once again, the choice is up to you. You can choose life, enjoy or choose death.