Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Disciplines of Repentance

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

We’re in a series on experiencing God. And we’ve talked about experiencing God’s presence in prayer, in guidance, and in suffering. But how do we get the presence of God in prayer, and in guidance, and in suffering?  Repentance is the secret. Repentance is the way to experience God’s presence in everything.  In Psalm 32, we look at experiencing God through repentance. In it, we see 1) the power of guilt, 2) the power of repentance, and 3) the process of repentance. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 23, 1997. Series: Lessons in Drawing Near. Scripture: Psalm 32. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What is the key to experiencing, really experiencing the presence of God? The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit dwelling within us is the key to experiencing God in our lives. In fact, it's the Holy Spirit's job to convince Christians that nothing can separate us from God's love. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller helps us understand the Holy Spirit's transformative role in the life of a Christian. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email

updates. When you sign up, you'll start receiving our quarterly newsletter with articles from Dr. Keller as well as other great Gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. The passage printed in the bulletin, which is the basis for our teaching tonight, it's Psalm 32. Blessed is He, whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him, and in whose spirit

is no deceit. 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. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to you

while you may be found, surely, when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. You are my hiding place. You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridal or they will not come to you. Many are the woes of the wicked. But the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him, rejoice in the Lord, and be glad, you righteous, sing all you who are upright in heart. This is God's Word.

Now, what are we doing here in the evening service? What we've been doing is we're looking at experiencing God, lessons on experiencing God. We've talked about experiencing God in prayer. We've talked about experiencing God in guidance, asking His presence in our decisions. We've talked about experiencing God in suffering and trouble and distress. How do we get the presence of God in prayer and distress in guidance?

Now, tonight, and really it will be the last in this series of looking at the Psalms for these things, tonight we want to talk about experiencing God through repentance. And in a certain sense, it's not parallel. It's not parallel. To experience God in prayer, to experience God in decision-making, to experience God in distress and difficulty, it's not exactly parallel because, for me at least, repentance is the way I experience God in prayer.

It's the way I experience God's presence and suffering. It's the way I experience God in my guidance. Very, very, very seldom does anybody seem to, if you read a book on guidance, very seldom, do they put up at the very front? The first thing you need to do, if you want guidance, is to repent. Look at your motives, look at what you're hiding

and look at the, you know, they don't say it generally. They don't say that very often about distress and suffering. Oh, they say, well, if the suffering was brought on by something you've done, you know, if you've worked too hard near for you, I've been also repent of working too hard. But no, I'd go further than that. Repentance is the secret.

Repentance is the secret to experiencing God's presence in everything. Repentance is the secret. Actually, I was reading an article in the New Yorker magazine some time ago, and it was an article of all, it was a political article, it was an article on Neo-Conservatives. And I don't know much about Neo-Conservatives, at least not enough to know if this is true. And I know they're only talking about political philosophy, but it really struck me. Because this was the opening line, or one of the opening lines, it said, it said, this is the only political party where the requirement is to admit that you had been completely wrong.

You can't be part of this group unless you admit that before and now everything you thought, everything you wrote, everything was wrong, and now you've turned around. And I don't know. First of all, I was talking about political philosophy, and I don't know if that's true of this particular party, but I do know this. The Christian Church is one place where the requirement is, you have to admit you've been completely wrong. There's no way in, unless you say, I have totally wrong about the way in which I've approached myself, approached God, approached the world, everything. Just for your information before we move in, this is one of the seven penitential songs so called.

They're not, it's not in the Bible, but over his throughout history, students of the Bible have noticed that in the songs, there are seven songs that are particularly focused on the issue of confession, repentance, and forgiveness. And this is the second of the Bible have noticed that in the Psalms there are seven Psalms that are particularly focused on the issue of confession, repentance, and forgiveness. And this is the second of the seven. And for those of you who want to know, the seven pens, the potential Psalms are Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.

Okay? 102, 130, and 143. Okay? 632, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. And if you think, by reading those seven penicential songs, when you're done, you'll feel bad. If you feel that way, you do not understand repentance yet. I'm glad you're here. Psalm 32, you can break it down a couple of ways.

And here's what I like to do. I see in verse three and four, it discusses the power of guilt. And you know, we've got to spend a little bit of time talking about this. In fact, of all the penitential Psalms, this is one of the strongest statements of the power of guilt, power of our conscience,

the difficulty that we come into constantly with our conscience. Then verses one and two will jump up to that, secondly, because that shows us something about the power of repentance. Then, lastly, we can take stand back and sort of look at the whole psalm and take a look at what the process of repentance is, because if you look at the whole psalm,

there's a whole list of instructions, which you can go right on down, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, maybe, we'll see. So we see the power of guilt, the power of repentance, and the process of repentance. The power of guilt, 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. That's not extreme to you. The writer here is, first of all, saying that because of his guilt, he's having physical symptoms. My bones wasted away. Secondly, the second thing he's saying is he has, he's obsessed. There's an indelibility about guilt. There's an indelibility.

One of the authors, I spent a lot of time for this sermon looking through other literature and so on, and it's amazing. People have talked about guilt, boy, all the great writers, all the great thinkers have a lot to say about guilt. And when it comes to this, there's no doubt, one of the writers says this, it says there's an indelibility about guilt. Nothing is more characteristic of human guilt as its indelibility. It's power to assert itself with unabated poignancy, in spite of all lapses of time, all changes in self or environment, like that was T.S. Eliot. In other words, all day long, my grunting all day long, you try to get it out of your mind, you try to get it out of your head,

and you're walking along and something triggers it, suddenly the tapes play again all day long and suddenly there's a tightness in the chest. You know there's a kind of constriction in the throat, don't you know this? Guilt and then not only that it goes on a little further here and says not only is there physiological symptoms and there's a sense of obsessiveness and indelibility, a sense in which you're conscious in a very poignant way, continues to push it up in front of you, no matter what you do, no matter how much you change yourself, interesting, no matter how much you reform yourself, what T.S. Eliot's saying there, it says you can reform and reform and you cannot forget that thing you've done.

And you can change environments and you can change people and many years can go by and it's amazing, it's there. And David goes on and says, your hand was heavy upon me and see there, that's the third thing. You have a physiological symptoms. You can actually get sick, very sick, physically sick. It doesn't matter if you say it's psychosomatic, psychosomatic pain in the chest still hurts. You know, your body is still wasting away. It doesn't matter where it comes from. And then there's the sense of obsession we talked about. And then thirdly, a sense of separation from God.

If you have a specific and defined concept of God, you sense He's displeased with you. But I would suggest that if you don't, you still get a sense of alienation, a sense of not belonging here, of not belonging here. You know, Kafka gets, Kafka gets tremendous examples of how non-theistic people experience guilt. That's one of the most difficult things for non-theistic people. People who say, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in hell, I don't believe in judgment.

And Kafka tells the, you know, the member's story, the trial, if any of you have ever read that, it's about a man who basically wakes up one day and he's arrested and he's imprisoned, but he's never told what he's guilty of. He's as hounded and he knows he's under condemnation, but he's never told what he's guilty of. See, there's a sense of alienation. My hand is ever upon me. And lastly, my strength is sapped as in the heat of summer. And maybe that's just talking about the physiological,

but it could be a summary of the whole thing. It could be this almost is saying, there's a malaise, I don't wanna do anything. I have no desire for anything. Gilt saps me utterly. The literature is just filled with great examples of this. And even not so great literature. Have you ever seen the movie, which we like very much, but never really got off the ground?

It's the Fisher King. Here's a story of Jeff Bridges, who's a DJ here in New York, of course, and his career is on the ups. It's on its way up. And he's actually got, he's up for a part in a new television program, a sitcom, and he's probably gonna get the job, and he's practicing the lines for the audition. He's probably gonna get it.

His career is on the way up. And the character in this particular sitcom, whenever he gets missed, there's a punchline. Whenever he gets a myth or something, he looks at the person in the eye and says, well, forgive me. So, and that's gonna be the punchline, so he at the person in the eye and says, well, forgive me So he and that's gonna be the punchline So he's practicing it in the bathtub and all that one night Somebody calls into his call his calling show

He's a talk show host and he's a hot dog some guy calls it and says I can't stand women Or a particular woman has hurt me and Jeff Bridges just incites him. He says look you can't take this anymore You got to tell that person what's the, show that person. Don't take it lying down. Don't let her walk all over you. And that night, the guy goes into a crowded restaurant with a shotgun and starts shooting everybody.

People are killed. And Jeff Bridges' life is absolutely ruined. And you see a couple of years later, his life is ruined. He has no desire to do anything, his strength is saptos in the heat of summer. And that line forgive me, and that party never gets, but it becomes a very famous character on TV. That line forgive me becomes the theme of his life.

And then you have, it's interesting this week in the New Yorker, talk about great literature. The New Yorker, there was a very interesting article about Dostoyevsky's book, Crime and Punishment. And that crime and punishment is about a man named Raskolnikov, and Raskolnikov is an incredibly modern person. Here's a person who could live in New York City, absolutely. Raskolnikov decides that guilt is a petty bourgeois ridiculous trap. It's the idea of morality and guilt is ridiculous. He says no, he says I scorn accepted conventions.

I decide what's right and wrong for me. Nobody decides what's right and wrong for me. I decide it. Guilt is ridiculous. Actually, I think it's in Bullets Over Broadway where I was an at Rob Reiner, you know, plays a sort of a downtown artis type and he says, guilt is petty bourgeois crap. And so, you know, of course that's not great literature.

Rosconnacov, boy, that's great literature. He's saying the same thing. Guilt is petty bourgeois crap. Dusty Aski, at one point, has Rosconnacov decide to kill a woman to test his theory. A woman who is very mean, a woman that everybody hates, a woman who is a scourge on society, a woman who is making everybody's life miserable and he kills her and he's stained and he's soiled. And his bones waste away. And he's groaning all day long.

And when he finally confesses, he gets away with it. He does so well. He's a great detective novel. He does so well. He realizes he's gotten away with it. There's not enough clues that the police will never find him, but he goes and confesses to the police anyway. And when he confesses, he experiences such a joy that he feels like he'd never lived

before then. It's just Psalm 32. He experiences such a joy that he feels like he'd never lived before then. It's just Psalm 32. See, when I covered my sin, when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, then I acknowledged my sin and did not cover up my iniquity, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Now listen, guilt is inevitable. Somebody says, well, that's interesting, Jeff Bridges, Roscolma Koff, you know, all the great literary figures, but they are all the guilty of these very, very big things.

They're guilty of these very terrible things. That's not a problem for the rest of us. Yes, it is. Absolutely, it's a problem for the rest of us. You cannot live without guilt. You aren't living without guilt. Samuel Johnson, you know, the famous, Samuel Johnson, the biographer Bos guilt. Samuel Johnson, the famous Samuel Johnson, the biographer Boswell of Samuel Johnson,

the British kind of thinker, pundit type guy, he had a, he felt that he had failed his father. He remembered something that he did wrong. When he was a young boy, his father on market days kept a kind of a grocery stall in the public square at Adoxeter. And one day he asked Samuel Johnson to go and stay there for two hours and he never got there. Years later, that represented all so many of his failures. His failures to love his father's failures to respect his father. Years later, after his father

was dead, trying to deal with his own guilt. One day, Samuel Johnson walked to the spot on the public square at Adoxeter where his father's grocery stall father was dead, trying to deal with his own guilt. One day, Samuel Johnson walked to the spot on the public square at Otoxeter, where his father's grocery stall had been there for years and years and years ago, and in the pouring rain stood their bare head for two hours, trying to deal with his guilt. Couldn't do it. Well, that's not a very big sin. No, why is it that the little sins are putting people in the mental institutions? They do. Why is it? You can't live without guilt.

What is there about our hearts? But there it is. And before we get on to the, before I get off of this real quickly here, let me just suggest to you, if anybody thinks that this is unnecessarily negative. Say, well, you know what you can deal with, Gilp, if you go to a good counselor. Let me ask you a good question.

Are you saying all guilt feelings? All guilt feelings? Are false? Well, no, of course not. You know, look at Raskolnikov. He thought all guilt feelings were false and he found that they weren't. Now, let me ask you a question. If you don't say all goat fillings are false, some things are truly, you should be guilty for.

But you, on the other hand, you see that some goat fillings are false. Where do you draw the line? You just make up your own mind, go ahead, try it. You don't have to be as severe as Raskolnikov to find out. You can't make up your own mind. The conscience is there. You do not program your conscience. You honor it. You can't program it. You can't just redefine it out of existence.

What are you going to do? There's a lot of things to do with guilt, and we're all dealing with it. But here's a, let me just give you a quick list of all things except repentance, and then we'll look at repentance. Let me give you a list of seven things. Some of the things that you're doing with your guilt. One is you blame shift. It's not my fault.

My mother made me do it, my father made me do it, my friends made me do it. You know, I had these extenuating circumstances, blame shifting. Number two, define it away. Say it's not really wrong, or a skull-me-coff-way. Number three, dead in yourself to it. Medicaid it.

Go shopping. Get drunk. In other shopping, get drunk. In other words, medicate it, do pleasurable things to try to forget the pain. Number four, here's the very important one, criticize and gossip and run other people down. Get cynical. Why do you think?

There's an awful lot of talk about the fact that we don't trust politicians, but we still elect them back in. Why? I think it's important for us to feel that everybody's a crooked makes us feel better about ourselves Oh, absolutely it's important to say everybody's on the take more than me Everybody's sleeping around more than me everybody's breaking promises more than me. That's how you deal with it Why do we like gossip? Why do we like it? Why do we like TV and why do we like magazines that tell us the dirt? It's a way of dealing with your own guilt. Absolutely. Fifth, you try to achieve. You deal with your guilt by saying

look at what I've achieved. Six, you give incredibly generously. Don't you think so many of the guys, and I guess eventually it'll be the women too, some of the guys that have made partner in the big firms and they're on their third wise, and they've got bitter children scattered all over the world. Why do you think they want their name on a hospital wing? Why are they being so generous? See, so much of your anger is really guilt,

so much of your shame is really guilt, so much of your drive is really guilt, so much of your, uh, China's is really guilt, so much of your shame is really guilt. So much of your drive is really guilt. So much of your kindness is really guilt. So much of your bitterness, so much of your cynicism, so much that drives you is really your way of dealing with guilt. How are you going to deal with it? None of these ways work. Blame shifting, defining it away, dead in yourself to it, criticizing one of the people down. Overachieve, give generously, they won't work. And there's one more thing that won't work, and that's penitence.

What's penitence? Beating yourself up and saying, I know I did wrong, but I'm going to show what a good person I am because I'm going to make myself miserable and I'm going to make myself feel miserable in that shows that even though I failed here, I must be an incredibly marling good person or I wouldn't hate myself the way I do. That doesn't work either. What works? Repentance.

Take a look quickly at the power of repentance. Blessed is He who sins are forgiven, who sins are covered. Blessed is the man who sinned, the Lord does not count against him and who spirit is known to see. Now let me show you that the power repentance is what? Look at verse five and look at verse one. I acknowledge my sin and did not cover up my nicotine. That's verse five and verse one,

blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold it. Verse five says, I uncovered my sin and verse one said, and God covered it. Verse 5 says, I uncovered my sin. And verse 1 said, and God covered it. And that, if you want to understand the power of repentance, there it is. What is all this work about covering?

What is all this talk about covering? This is getting back to the root of our problem. This is getting to the root of what guilt is all about. Do you remember the story? I mean, Bill Moyers is telling us about it. Everybody's into Genesis 500 different new translations. Go read Genesis 1, 2, and 3. It's hot. OK? You can even read Genesis on the subway. And nobody will look at you funny.

You'll say, oh, he is with it. OK? You won't have to be worried. And when you get there, you will see that admitties every single night met God naked, uncovered, and it was always okay. One night God shows up and they dive into the bushes and they hide and God says, what's wrong? And Adam and Eve say, I'm hiding because I'm naked. Now this is the best to have truth because I don't know why God didn't say this, but he

could have said, but Adam, every night you're naked. You're always naked. If you're hiding because you're naked, why haven't you hidden before? The variable can't be the nakedness, Adam. There's something else going on. And here's what it is. When he's sinned, he couldn't stand transparency.

When Adam and he's sinned, they couldn't take nakedness. What's nakedness? Nakedness is you don't control what people see. Nakedness is you cannot control. Makeup doesn't help nakedness. Have you noticed that? Makeup helps the face. You know, it's incredible.

Nakedness can't do too much about fat. Nakedness can't do too much about your naked body. Your nakedness means you have no control over what people see. People see all the way in. You've lost control. And until you sin, there's no problem with that. Why wasn't it suddenly Adam and Eve couldn't stand being looked at? They had a control what people saw.

They had a hide. Well, they had to cover up. Why? Well, I tell you why. What is sin? What do they do when they sin? They decided to be Lord of their own lives. Have you ever had a job that you're totally unqualified for? Have you?

You've had a job that you are absolutely underqualified for. You don't know this stuff, you don't know enough about it. You're going to be a nervous person. You're going to be a scared person, you're going to be a defensive person, you're going to be an intimidated person, and above all, you're not going to want anyone looking over your shoulder, finding out how you made the decisions you made. And you see, when you decide to be Lord of your own life, when you decide to be your own God, life, when you decide to be your

own God, you know in your heart of hearts, in your soul of souls, you are not qualified for this job. You know you've done wrong. The way the theologians put it, the reason that Adam and Eve ducked was because they had lost their clothing that they had before, which was their original righteousness. What do we mean by that? What do the theologians mean? Adam and Eve didn't mind what people saw, what God saw, what each other saw, because

originally they were clothed with moral beauty. Personal beauty, they knew they were beautiful. They knew they were morally beautiful, they knew they were beautiful in every way, and they did not mind being seen. But the minute they lost that righteousness, they couldn't stand being seen. And what do they have to do? They began to cover. The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God. Even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation, including death. In Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional book, The Psalms of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight.

If you have no devotional life yet, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time in study and prayer, reading and praying through every verse of the Psalms can help you discover a new level of intimacy with God. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the love of Jesus with more people. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

And one of the most profound things in the Bible is to understand yourself in light of Genesis 3. Look at your life. Why are you, some of you perfectionists? Why are some of you workaholics? Why are some of you so worried about your body, how you look? Why are so many of you actually spending so much time doing all the things we're talking about, blame shifting and running people down and being cynical?

You're covering. You're covering your nakedness. You're trying to patch up a righteousness to deal with a lost righteousness. You're trying to create a sense of beauty to deal with a lost sense of beauty and you're hiding desperately from what everybody sees, including yourself. And God says to Adam and Eve, if you cover yourself, I'll never be able to cover you. But if you are willing to uncover yourself, if you're willing to be naked to me again, if you're willing to show me your sin and admit it and make no excuses, then I will really, truly cover you again. If you cover yourself, I will have

to expose you. If you expose yourself, I will cover you. And the Old Testament is filled with these incredible illusions, incredible illusions to it, and metaphors. For example, God says, this is how I relate to His people, Israel, in In Exodus, in pardon me, in Ezekiel 16, he makes a reference to Israel, his people. And he makes an illusion to the fact that in those days, very, very often, when a baby was born, if it was a girl baby, it was thrown out. Just thrown out. And he says, let me tell you how I relate to you,

oh my people. He says, Jerusalem, on the day you were born, your cord was not cut nor were you washed with water to make you clean nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in clothes. No one looked on you with pity or head compassion on you, rather you were thrown out into the open field. From the day you were born, you were despised. And when I passed by and saw you kicking about in your own blood, I said to you, live, and I spread the corner of my garment and covered your nakedness.

And I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointment on you. I closed you with fine linen and your famed spread among the nations because of the splendor I gave you to make your beauty perfect. How can he do that? He says, if you are with me, he says, the abinieve, if you expose yourself, I will cover you.

I'll make you beautiful again. I'll give you back that beauty. You won't have to spend all of your lives trying to cover, trying to deal with that deep sense of shame. You know, T.S. Eliot has a very interesting spot, where he believes that children misbehave because they're already guilty. And they want to be punished to deal with that. He says, children aren't punished just because they mis already guilty, and they want to be punished to deal with that.

He says children aren't punished because they misbehave. They misbehave because we all have a primordial sense of guilt, and sometimes in order to get the attention, even punishment attention, makes us feel better. Interesting theory, but I'll tell you this. I don't know if you can apply it to child behavior, but I know in general you can stand back, and you can say, we have a problem here. It is very deep. In fact, you can look at your whole life and understand the strategies of your life as

you trying to, in a pitiful way, put together fig leaves to cover that sense of lost righteousness. And God says, I can give it back to you. Only if you admit you don't have it. At all. Only if you completely uncover, do I cover you? If you cover, I will have to expose you. How could he do that?

How could Isaiah talk about? Isaiah said, I will rejoice. I will rejoice for you have clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me with a robe of righteousness. How can he do that? Well Paul tells us in Romans 4, when quotes this psalm, this psalm 32, and this is what he says, to the one who does not work, but trust in God who justifies the wicked.

His faith is credit to him as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from good works. Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered, whose sin the Lord will never count against him. What Paul says in chapter four of Romans is, the reason David knows this, though, he doesn't understand all the reasons why,

is because the covering that God gives us is not a cover up, not a water gate cover up. He's not just saying, well, I'm just going to cover up the sins. He imputes them someplace. He doesn't count them to you anymore. He accounts them somewhere else. He sends them somewhere else to who? Jesus Christ.

Who was clothed in a sense with our sin. He was stripped naked. That was very important. Why? Did they cast lots for his garment? Why was the garment removed? He was made naked so we could be clothed. Now do you understand this?

Do you understand what repentance is at heart? If you look carefully, let me just go through nine things. Believe it or not, in the next five minutes I am going to give you nine things. But it's going to be quickly. But if you take, keep in mind what I'm saying, you'll be, when I just said about covering, then you'll be able to understand what real repentance is. Repentance is not running in, beating yourself. I'm just saying, I will change honest, honest, honest, honest.

No. Look, it goes like this. Let's just do it this way. Number one, verse two here, no deceit. First thing, be honest. No more deception. Number deceiving yourself, number deceiving everybody else. First thing, be honest. Secondly, use verse three and four and think of the danger of sin. Think about it. If you want to repent, admit to yourself that there is a guilt going on here that the reason for your bones wasting away,

in some cases, literally, the reason for the groaning that's going on, it really, the reason for your loss of strength right now, don't psych over-psychologize it. It could be underneath, it's a sense, of your right now, don't psych over-psychologize it. It could be underneath, it's a sense of your nakedness and a desperate desire to cover it over. Think of the danger of that. You're never going to be able to deal with it through blame shifting or overwork or all sorts of generosity. You're never going to be able to do that. So first, be honest, secondly, think of the danger of sin, but thirdly, oh boy, thirdly,

make sure, look at verse 5, that you really uncover, but with a view to verse to number six, hiding in God. You see, in verse 5, it says, I acknowledged my sin, I did not cover up my iniquity, but I want you to know that that is more than just saying I admit my behavior. Down to verse 7, you are my hiding place now. Here is what I mean. If you really want to repent, it's not enough to say I did something wrong. You have to ask yourself, why did you do it wrong? And the answer always is, not just simply, I broke a rule, but I'm trying to cover my nakedness. I'm hiding in something. I'm trying to close myself with something, and only he can be my hiding place. Only he can be my clothing. Only he can cover my nakedness. Only he can make me beautiful again.

Only he can make me beautiful again. Oh, it would be very, very. If you have lied, for example, don't just say, oh Lord, I lied, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please help me. Why did you lie? You lied because something is your hiding place. I don't know what it is, who knows, you have to tell me. It's because something is a way for you to clothe yourself and I'll tell you something. It's possible for people to go into repentance and actually try to cover themselves in a sense, create figlies by being so breastfeeding.

Say, oh Lord, I want to show you how miserable I am over this sin. In a sense, you're trying to cover yourself instead of letting him cover you. What you've got to do is not just see Christians do not just repent of their sins, Pharisees repent of their sins, religious people repent of their sins, but Christians also repent of their righteousness. You heard me say that before? We'll put it to you again. The difference between a moralist and a Christian, they don't just repent. Christians and moralists repent for their sinful behavior, but a Christian goes underneath

and repents even for the things that you're doing as efforts to create a righteousness of your own instead of relying on what Jesus has done for you. And that's the reason why the sin underneath all the sin is always to repent against, sinning against the grace of Jesus, the love of Jesus, repenting over not loving him enough. You know what's so interesting is there's a repentance that says, oh Lord, I blew it. I'm going to get it. Oh, please help me.

As repentance that says, oh Lord, I have not been willing to admit how much you love me. You see, the minute you do that, it melts you. It makes you feel bad. But the minute it makes you feel bad, it also lifts you up. You see, the minute you do that, it melts you, it makes you feel bad, but the minute it makes you feel bad, it also lifts you up. You see? And therefore, what you really got to do is not just uncover your sin by repenting for the action, verse 5, but you have to hide in him. You have to say, where have I been hiding? It's not in you or I wouldn't have done this. So be honest, think of the danger, uncover the behavior, but look at your motivation.

Basically repent of not hiding in him, hide in him. Now that was 1, 2, 3, 4, right? Let me keep going. And how do you do that? Look at this, number 5, verse 10. Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. How can you be sure he'll forgive you?

His unfailing love. Unfailing love. You have to think about his oath, you have to think about his promises, you have to think about his covenant, think about him, think about the promise he made to Abraham, walking going between the pieces, saying, I will bless you even if I have to be ripped to pieces like these animals. Think of Jesus on the night in what he was betrayed. He said, I will not eat or drink of the fruit of the vine until I eat and drink with you in the kingdom. That is an oath by the way, friends. In the old days,

if you said, I'm going to do something and you made a solemn value, said, I will not eat again until the battle. I will not eat again until I've done this. You, if you said, I'm going to do something and you made a solemn value, said, I will not eat again until the battle. I will not eat again until I've done this." You know, they said, I will not eat or drink people in the book of Acts that they would, they swore not to eat or drink till they kill St. Paul. Now those are serious oaths. I will not eat or drink till I have done my duty. And when Jesus says, I will not eat or drink, he says, I am committed to you. I'm going to die for you. I'm not going to eat or drink again until I've done it. You know, one of the most moving things I ever read,

one of my heroes, Jonathan Edwards, when he was dying and he was in a delirium, he got smallpox and he was in a delirium. One of almost the last things he said, when he was really out of his head, he started looking around the room and he started to say, and now he said, where is Jesus of Nazareth,

my true and never failing friend? In a delirium, you know? You know, when you're in delirium, what's in your heart of hearts comes out. And he looks around and he says, where is Jesus of Nazareth, my true, and never failing, my unfailing friend? Jonathan Edwards had meditated so long

on what all those promises meant and what the Lord's supper means and what the what the promise to Abraham means. God is saying I will not fail you. Why are you acting like I will? I love you. Why are you acting as if I don't? That's the sin. You're not hiding in me, say. You have to look at the covenant. You have to look at that. You have to build yourself up. I've lost count. Here's one more thing. Verse number eight, because I got to stop.

In verse eight, this is God speaking to the penitent. He says, you are my hiding place. You will protect me from trouble. But in verse eight, suddenly, it says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding,

but must be controlled by bit and bridal, where they will not come to you. That's God speaking. And what God is really saying is, don't be like a horse. Now, in other words, why are you here? Are you here because of consequences? Are you here because the consequences of your sin?

Real repentance is not being sad about the consequence of the sin. Oh, I screwed up. Now my life is all messed up. Real repentance is for the sin. Why? Because the consequence of the sin is what's hurt you. But the sin is what's hurt God, the one who died for you. And if you fill your mind enough with the unfailing love,

you will find yourself in repentance going to Him. The way you know a person who understands the gospel is repentance is not an isolated incident. It's not something that your tortures you. It's not something that you hate. It's not something that's not. I notice a number of religious people for whom repentance is like to stop breathing.

Because for them, the day and day out of what really relates to the God is being good, and when you repent you have to admit you're not good. And it's almost like they stop breathing to repent. It's tortured, it's anomalous, it's bad, it's hard. But if you're a Christian and you understand the gospel, repentance is like starting to breathe again. Repentance is like starting to breathe again Repentance is like getting back to your roots and saying, oh, that's the reason why I have a relationship with God Not my performance his performance not my promises his promise not my past his past not my record his record see And therefore when you get repentance

When it says I'm not really sorry for the consequences of sin, let it come. I need some consequences. I need some accountability. I'm sorry of what I've done for the one who loved me. And that means that you're not like a horse or a mule being dragged to God by the consequences of sin. But the person who understands the gospel is a person who repents quickly,

repents joyfully, repents immediately, repents constantly. All of life is repentance. You're looking forward to it. When you meet somebody like this, boy, you know, they're so teachable, they're so accessible, they're concentrating on you, they're not self-absorbed. You can talk to them and criticize them, and instead of either beating themselves up or getting real defensive, they say,

oh yeah, and you find yourself getting closer and closer. Blessed is the man who sins are forgiven, who sins are not counted against him, who sins are covered. God says, cover and I'll expose. Expose and I will cover, and then you will lead a life of blessedness. Hear it, do it, let's pray. Our Father we ask that you grant that we

know these things but now we should do them. There's a place where Jesus says, though you know these things now, blessed are ye if you do them. And for many of us, we've been at Redeemer for a while. We've heard about repentance before. And for most of us, we really don't see it as the first thing we should do. It's always a last resort. It should be something we're eager to find,

instead of being forced on us. We don't want to be like a horse, like a mule, by bitten bridal, forced to repent. Teach us to repent at the drop of a hat, teaches to repent joyfully, teaches to repent, and be more and more like your son who was willing to humble himself. And the more he humbled himself, the more exalted he was.

We ask that the more we repent, the more we will find, ironically and paradoxically, our joy being filled. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to Gospel in Life and Dr. Keller's teaching on the Holy Spirit. You can get more content like today's teaching when you connect with Gospel in Life on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2013. The sermons and talks you

hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor, Everdeemer Presbyterian Church. you