Recognizing Sin (02/22/2026)

Psalm 32: 3-4   With Psalm 32 as the background, we will focus on verses 3-4 today. We will ask the questions “What is sin?” and “How can I recognize sin in my life?” Though these are questions that apply to believers, it is THE question that must first be answered by an unbeliever before they can become a child of God. Unless they can recognize the sin in their life they will never get to the point of needing or desiring to be reconciled to God. Acknowledging the weight of our sin is vital for our spiritual journey; embracing it allows us to experience God's grace and restoration through repentance.

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Before we start today, I wanted to make a few comments. Uh we were talking about this on the way to church today, and it's something that as Baptists we don't normally observe, but Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, which was officially the start of the Lenten season. And so Lent is the 40 days before Easter. Now, if you're like me, you got caught by surprise because Easter's coming real early this year. It's April 5th. I think that's about the earliest in the year it occurs. Oh, it's been a March before. Well, it's no, I'm saying it's been at the end of March before, too. So, but this year it just came early and it really did catch me by surprise. And one of the things I like to do with my preaching is, especially with Lent and Advent, is they're leading up to two of the two most important holidays for Christians, is to uh do a short series dealing with some aspect of that. And so that's what I'm going to do. So I think even if you don't observe Lent, I think it's important to have maybe more of a focus on Easter and what it means and how it affects us and the world around us. Now, at the same time we're doing this, I think everybody's aware that Howard and I are going through this, it's not just Howard and I, the church is going through this regenesis process that Howard and I have been attending that is going to help us develop a plan for renewal in our community here. All churches, you understand a church is not a business, right? But anybody that's worked for any business, somewhere along the line, they've had to read the business's mission statement. This is why we're in business, this is what we're going to do. Well, even though we're not a business, the church worldwide has a mission statement. Matthew 28, 18 through 20, and Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That is the church worldwide. That's our mission. That's what we are to do. So the way we approach that mission here in Moulton is going to be different than maybe a church in Austin or San Antonio or Dallas or even China might, because different communities, different needs, different focus. So we have the same mission, but our way of approaching it here is going to be different than somebody else's. Not every church approaches that in the same way. And so we're going to have a strategy for supporting that mission. And the short form statement of how we're going to approach that is multiplying kingdom disciples as a Christ-adoring church. One of the things that Howard and I are going to be working on Tuesday is our homework for this latest session. And that homework happens to be you have a lost person here, you have a disciple here. How do you get from point A to point B? And you might think it's easy. Really not. But that's what we're going to be trying to flesh to flesh out is what are the steps it takes to get from lost person to disciple. And so I thought that in that process, that very first step from lost person to disciple, that very first step of getting from A to B is obviously salvation. Because you can't be a disciple of Jesus if you're not believing in Jesus. You can't be a disciple of Jesus if you love your life of sin so much you don't want anything to do with Jesus. So that's obviously the first step, and it's a big one. It was a big one for all of us. And so what we're going to do is we're going to spend the next seven Sundays, including Easter, looking at two different but totally related ideas. And so for the next four Sundays, what we're going to do is we're going to look at what it means to turn from being an enemy to God to being a child of God, going from lost to saved. The last three Sundays, we're going to look at what God gave us, what God provided us to be able to do that, which was Jesus' death on the cross. And so today we're going to be in Psalm 32, and where the topic for today is recognizing sin. How does a lost person, for that matter, how does a saved person recognize sin in their life? Next Sunday on March 1st, we'll still be in Psalm 32, and we'll be talking about repenting of sin. March 8th, again, we're going to be using Psalm 32 for these first four Sundays. March 8th is redemption from sin, and March 15th is renewed life. And then the last three Sundays, which is the three Sundays including Easter, we're going to look at and focus on Jesus and his sacrifice, but we're going to use the Psalms again. So March 22nd, we're going to be in Psalm 22, which is the Psalm Jesus quoted. He quoted the first line of it on the cross. Easter Sunday, Psalm 24. And so over the next few weeks, I would strongly suggest that you read Psalm 32 several times. And as you're reading it, see how you can recognize sin in your life. See what repenting of your sin entails. See how being redeemed from your sin is worked into that and what it means to have a renewed life. And then while you're doing that, I would also ask you to read Psalms 22, 23, and 24 together several times. Because Psalm 22 is the story of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Psalm 23. Everybody knows Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. But Psalm 23 talks about the life we have now as disciples of Jesus. So Psalm 22 is what he did on the cross. Psalm 23 is our life now as disciples. Psalm 24 is our future in the new heavens and the new earth with the king that has entered the gates before us. So the three of them follow. One more thing. Psalm 32 is one of the seven Psalms known as the penitential psalms. And these include Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. Each one of these psalms in its own way helps us to understand how we recognize sin, how we repent of sin, how we're redeemed from sin, and how do we live a renewed life? And so at the beginning of each service for the next seven weeks, I'd like to read one of those Psalms. And this morning, if you'll turn to Psalm six, that's the one we're going to read this morning. Bless you. Psalm six. You have been really blessed. O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are dismayed, and my soul is greatly dismayed. But you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, and rescue my soul. Save me because of your loving kindness. For there's no mention of you in death, and Sheol, who will give you thanks. I am weary with my sighing. Every night I make my bed swim. I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief. It has become old because of all my adversaries. Depart from me, all you who do iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping, the Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer. All my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed. They shall turn back, they will suddenly be ashamed. God, our Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for bringing back loved members of our congregation who've been out ill. Father, we thank you for visitors. Father, we thank you most of all that you are the God that not only created us and gave us life, but you're the God that loves us, even in the face of our sin and rebellion. And Father, as your children, we ask that you would continue to make us aware of the times in our lives when we do sin. Because you give us the opportunity to turn back to you in repentance and sorrow. And you will forgive us. And Father, as Jesus told Peter that he must forgive his brother that sins against him an infinite number of times. Help us to understand that there's nothing we can do in our life that you will not forgive. Far more than an infinite number of times. Be gracious to us today. Help us to hear, help us to learn. Help us to bask in the glory of your salvation. In Jesus' name. Amen. We will be in Psalm 32. And so, as I stated before we started the service, we're looking at what it means to take the first step on the road to becoming a disciple. And so the first step, especially for an unbeliever, is to recognize that they are a sinner in rebellion against God. They're rebelling against the God that made them, the God that loves them, the God that wants to be reconciled to them. Psalm 32, we know David wrote that psalm after he was confronted with the sin he committed with Bathsheba and Uriah. The stories in 2 Samuel 11 and 2 Samuel 12. 2 Samuel 11 is the story of the actual adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. 2 Samuel 12 is the story of Nathan the prophet coming and confronting David with his sin. There was at least a year between those two occurrences. And so for a year, David is trying to hide these things. Now David believed in God. If you remember, when God ripped the kingdom out of Saul's hand to give it to David in 1 Samuel 13, 14, God said, But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for himself a man after his own heart. And the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. And then Paul in the New Testament in Acts 13, 22, reinforces this and says, after he had removed him, talking about Saul, he raised up David to be their king, concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will. And yet David sinned and tried to keep it hidden. Now it's one thing for a believer to do that. But what about an unbeliever? And so with Psalm 32 as a background, we're going to focus on verses three and four today. The verses that say, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away. Through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I'm going to ask a couple questions. First of all, what is sin? Because honestly, sin's one of those things that we throw around, kind of like freedom. I could ask every person in here what freedom is, and I would get an answer from each one of you. And it wouldn't be the same answer as the other people. Everybody has their own idea. So we're going to start off looking at what is sin. And then we're going to ask, how can I recognize sin in my life? Both for a believer and an unbeliever, because again, that's where things start. So it applies to believers, but it is the question and the only question for unbelievers to get them started on this road. And so, unless people can recognize the sin in their lives, they're never going to get to a point to where they need or even desire to be reconciled to God. And one of the things about sin is we have to understand the weight it has in our lives. If we acknowledge our sin and repent and confess of our sin, it allows us to experience God's grace and restoration in that repentance. So what is sin? Now we could spend decades wading through the theological definitions of sin. At its simplest, sin is putting ourselves and our desires before God's. That selfish nature. David in Psalm 51, 5 says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me, were born being sinful. And honestly, when you try and teach children to share and to be kind to others and to fight that sin nature, if you look around at a lot of the adults today, it doesn't seem to be a lesson many learn. So we know we're sinners from birth. But what exactly does that mean? If you look at verses 1 through 4 in Psalm 32, it says, How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. There's one right there, transgression, whose sin is covered, sin. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. There's your third one, iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. There's your fourth one, deceit. Transgression, sin, iniquity, deceit. So that first word, transgression, is from the Hebrew word Pesha, and it literally means a going away from, a departure, a rebellion, or defiance. Basically, a transgression is a Willful act of rebellion against God's sovereign authority and a refusal to acknowledge his right to rule the lives of his people. A transgression is not merely against other people whom a person may hurt by his sin, but it is always ultimately a treasonous act against God. The second word is the word sin or sins, depending on your translation, and that's the Hebrew word hata. This is the one that means to miss the mark, to miss the way, to go wrong, to go astray. This is a lot of times you'll hear in the New Testament the word for sin is hamartia. And they carry the same idea. It's an archer shooting an arrow that misses the target. We miss the mark. And that's what sin is: it's missing the mark of God's word. It's falling short of the standard of not measuring up. And the standard is the glory of God, the sum total of all his divine perfections, most specifically God's holiness. We fall short. What does it say in Romans? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The third word for sin or iniquity in my translation comes from the Hebrew word avon, which means corrupt, twisted, bent, perverse, or crooked. So the first word, transgression, really looks at sin in view of our relationship to God and others. And the second word deals with our relationship to God's word and his standard and his holiness. This word describes how sin affects us personally. All sin is self-defilement, self-corrupting. It twists your character, it bends your integrity. To a degree that a person sins, he becomes a twisted creature within his own soul. Martin Luther had a term called in curvatus in sequencing means we are turned in on ourselves. That's what sin does. It so distorts us that all we can see is ourselves and our wants and our needs and our desires. And it takes something miraculous to even allow us to look up to heaven to what God wants. And then the fourth word for sin is deceit, and that's a Hebrew word, remiya, and basically means a deception, as in self-deception. Right? It's precisely what occurred to David that entire year after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had Uriah murdered. He managed to deceive himself into thinking nobody knows, nobody cares. I'm good. Now those definitions came from a book written by Stephen J. Lawson. It's his commentary on the Psalms. But I find most of the commentators that I looked at agree with those. Transgression, sin, iniquity, and deceit. Now, for those of us that have already turned in faith to Jesus, we do have the indwelling Holy Spirit that makes us aware of when and how we sin. We still have that old nature that wants to just kind of brush it off. Oh, it's not that big a deal, don't worry about it, right? But at least we have God indwelling us. He keeps poking us and saying, hey, what about this? Hey, you need to do something about this. But what about those that are still lost, that have not come to faith in Jesus, that don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit. How are they going to recognize sin in their life? Well, God has to work in their life to bring them to the point that they recognize they are sinners. And so what we're going to look at in the verses we read earlier, verses three and four, is we're going to look at two ways that God does work in the life of unbelievers, especially, to bring them to a point of repentance. We're going to look at how sin weighs heavy on us and how it leads to a barren and fruitless life. Psalm 2032, 3 says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. Unconfessed sin burdens our entire life, body and soul. And it starts with spiritual and emotional stress that cause disquiet in our life, a feeling that something's just not right. And we can't quite put our finger on it. Constant nagging in the back of our minds that we say, oh, well, I'm stressed at work, or I've got family issues, or politics are just making me nuts. What we do is we blame it on all these things outside of us, understanding that it really is within us. We aren't going to blame ourselves. I'm not that bad a person. But even those who are not children of God have an innate sense of right and wrong. We know that. Romans 1, 18 through 20 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. You know there's a God, no matter how hard you try and deny it. Romans 2, 14 and 15 says, For when Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience-bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them. Everybody has a conscience. Everybody knows right from wrong. But that's why unbelievers are actively suppressing the knowledge of God. They don't want to have to admit there is a God and that I'm not God. And they want to base their morality, their sense of right and wrong, by appealing to society or some philosophical greater good. Or when you get to even the worst part of it, it's all subjective. What's right and wrong for me is not right and wrong for you. I have my truth, you live your truth. They want to be their own God, and they resist with every fiber of their being having to acknowledge that they are not. So what do we do? Well, we look to therapists or psychologists or alcohol or drugs or mysticism and on and on and on, right? That old country and western song looking for love in all the wrong places. We'll do anything but admit the truth. And that takes a toll. Because living in a constant state of unease and stress not only affects our emotional and spiritual state, eventually it takes a physical toll on us. And isn't that what David just said? The American Psychological Association says that physical stress manifests through headaches, muscle tension, digestive issues, fatigue, skin rashes, and a weakened immune system. Chronic stress causes elevated heart rate, high blood pressure, and insomnia. Long-term effects include heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. And how do we deal with those in our society? Give me a pill. You have chronic muscle tension leading to aches, pains, and jaw clenching. You have increased heart rate, rapid breathing, heightened risk of hypertension, heart attacks, or stroke. Upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea, constipation. This sounds like a peptobismol commercial. And conditions like GERD. Everybody knows what GERD is? Reflux? Yeah, me too. Your immune system has weakened defenses, making the body more susceptible to infections and illnesses. Skin and hair, you can have acne, hives, eczema, and hair loss, reduced desire, fatigue, irregular or missed menstrual cycles, insomnia, constant fatigue. I mean, the list pretty much is endless of what stress does to our body. And isn't that what David is telling us? He is physically wasting away because of his unconfessed sin. And David's a believer. How much more does this affect somebody that's not? Sin is sin, pure and simple. And it will be brought to light at the judgment seat. Everybody's going to give an account. But it also manifests itself in your life now. You either acknowledge it and turn to God in repentance, or you live with it and the problems just get worse. And so that's why the first work of the Holy Spirit in the life of an unbeliever is to make them aware of their sin and the problems it causes. And only by recognizing that sin can anybody get to the point that they repent of it. And then in verse 4 it says, For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah. What's that telling us? It's telling us that God does not let sin go as if it's no big deal. If there is sin in your life, the hand of God will be on you, and he will constantly remind you of your sin. Psalm 38, 2 through 4 says, For your arrows have sunk deep into me, and your hand has pressed down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation. There is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they weigh too much for me. Do you realize it's a mercy from God that He allows you to recognize your sin? Because in that recognition, you have the opportunity to repent and turn from your sin. There is nothing, nothing that will ever be more devastating than when God finally says to someone, okay, you have it your way. That's why Romans 1 is so frightening. God has allowed people to wallow in their sin like pigs in the mud. And it allows them to reap all the pain, disease, and destruction that brings. And if you continue in your sin until the day you die, you not only reap the disastrous effects of sin in this life, but you reap eternal damnation. C.S. Lewis said, there are only two kinds of people in the end. Those who say to God, Thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, Thy will be done. All that are in hell choose it. Without that self-choice, there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock, it is opened. The ultimate in the penalty of sin is when God looks at you and says, Okay, go for it. Now God is not trying to make us feel worse than we already do. He's not some cosmic killjoy that gets pleasure out of our misery because of our sin. What he does know is that the only way we can find peace and relief is through recognition of our sin and repenting of our sin. If you remember Jesus' words in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in art, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So if God is working in your life to rid it of sin, he will let you know he is working. But once again, for the unsaved, God's got to get them to recognize their sin and then run to understand that the only path to peace and rest is through Jesus. And that's how it happened in my life. I grew up in the church. I knew there was a God. And that's about as far as it went. I also knew that all the things I was supposed to do, I couldn't. And all the things I wasn't supposed to do were real easy. And I spent years like that until God brought me to the point to where it was just me and God. He stripped away everyone that I could possibly even slightly think of as a friend. He stripped away everything that I thought was bringing me joy. And he brought me to the point to where I had to understand that yes, there is a God. But the way to that God is not by keeping the checklist. The way to that God is through repentance and faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That's when I came to God. And I know every one of you in here would laugh at me if I told you it's been a better rosa since. Because it has not. Even though I was saved, I still had some sins that I enjoyed way too much to give them up. It took a long time. And I'm still working on some. Right. We're all working on something. But one of the things that, again, makes it easier to bear is knowing that I don't have to bear that burden of sin myself anymore. That I do have the opportunity to turn to God and say, I'm sorry, I repent, please forgive me, and let's try again. That's something an unbeliever doesn't have until they take that first step. Steve Lawson again in his commentary says, ultimately, every sinful attitude, thought, or act is ultimately a revolt against God. It is a direct defiance of God's rule over a person's life, no matter what the sin is, whether large or seemingly small, seen or unseen by human eyes. Sin is a conscious choosing to rebel against God's authority in order to go our own way. It is an uprising against heaven, a conspiracy against God. Transgression, sin, iniquity, and deceit. It's an apt description of our lives before we placed our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And that life is a burden far too great for us to bear. And that's why, if you're not saved, you look for anything you can find to unload that burden, only to discover you can't get rid of it. The only way to get rid of that burden is through God's mercy and grace through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. The problem is, in our sinful state, as an unbeliever, it's not only the last place we look, we never look for it. God has to work in our lives to bring us to that point. It does take the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of an unbeliever to even get them to the point to where they can say, Yes, I'm a sinner. And as I heard oh so often growing up, recognizing the problem is only half the battle. Because once you recognize it, then you got to do something about it. And so recognizing that we are sinners is just the beginning to the road to reconciliation with God. But that recognition is crucial because without it, our lives continue to be lived in active rebellion to God. We reject God all our lives, only to find out when we die that we can no longer turn to Him. We will live for all eternity, rejecting Him and in turn being rejected by Him. So praise God for those He has brought to the point that they recognized their sin. And for those that once they got to that point came to repentance and understood their only hope was in God. Because that is our only hope. And what we will look at next week is that second step. Once we've recognized our sin, we need to repent of our sin. So like David, who tried to hide it for a year and suffered the entire time. And then when he was confronted by Nathan, what did he do? Did he say, oh no, that's not me? Right? Or, well, you know, I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't done this and they hadn't done that. Or, you know, who are you to say something like that about me? I'm the king. No. He fell on his face and repented. So, believer or unbeliever, we have to acknowledge the weight of our sin in our lives because it does affect our spiritual journey. And so embracing the fact that we are sinners and knowing that we are sinners, it allows us so much more to experience God's grace and mercy when he restores us through repentance. We know that sin is something we constantly battle. But Father, what we do know also is as believers, the battle's not ours, it's yours. And if we would completely and fully trust in you, and if we would completely and fully commit ourselves to you, you will win that battle for us. You have won that battle for us. Sin was defeated on the cross, death was defeated at the resurrection. We no longer need fear either. And for that, we're eternally grateful, God, that your grace and mercy came through, that the Holy Spirit worked in our lives to the point where we understood we are sinners, we must repent. We need Jesus. And Father, for the ones we know in our lives that haven't come to that point, we continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will one day work them into the position that they understand. They are sinners. They must repent. They need Jesus. Father, your grace, your mercy, your love are so overwhelming we can never completely understand it. But we praise you and glorify you and thank you that in your grace, your mercy, and your love, you did not leave us in our sinful state. And we thank you in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit that works in our lives. Amen.