May 13
#2-Blessed is the Man…
The Stolen Lunch
Ps 32:2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD
imputeth
not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
The little thief was caught red handed, while in
the act of stealing someone’s lunch. The school principal was anxious to catch
the culprit. There would be no stealing
in his building and now he could demonstrate what happened to thieves, even if
it was a third grade girl. She would be punished!
The principal had imputed evil motives for the
girls crime; greed, gluttony, dishonesty, selfishness, poor morals, etc. That
all changed when she was diagnosed with having diabetes. Proper treatment ended
her “crime spree” and the principal stopped imputing evil motives for her
actions.
Out text for today describes the blessed man
(double happy) that has sinned and been forgiven. In the 4th chapter
of Romans Paul tells us this is a psalm of David and repeats some of the
verses. Paul is making the argument that God can impute righteousness to a man
without good works. David is happy that God does not impute punishment to those
who have done bad works.
David had committed a long list of sins. It
started because he was not in the field with his army. He decided to stay at
home and was walking on his rooftop. He saw a woman bathing on another roof top
and instead of turning his eyes away he gazed upon her and his heart was filled
with lust for another man’s wife. He used his God given office as king to send
for her. What God had given him for good he used for evil. As a result of his
adultery with her she became pregnant with child. David sent word to have the
husband, Uriah, sent home from the battle. But Uriah would not enjoy the
comforts of home while his buddies were out in the field fighting.
When a person starts down the path of sin they
cannot know where it might lead. David’s gazing at a bathing woman led to lust,
adultery and now murder. David arranged for Uriah to be assigned to a very
dangerous place in the battle where he was killed. But it didn’t end there. Bad
choices cannot be separated from their bad consequences. When the child was
born it became sick and died. Then problems with his own children plagued David
for years. God forgave him of his sin, but the consequences remained. If you
make a bad decision and murder someone, God can forgive you. But the
consequences are still there. The murdered person is still dead.
David eventually was brought low for his
horrible sins, appealed to God for forgiveness and was forgiven. Psalm 51
details that event and is known as David’s penitential psalm. Psalm 32 was
written after David had been forgiven. No wonder he can say in verse 1 “Blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
The word blessed means more than just being
happy or even joyous. Blessed is translated from a word that is in the plural
form and could be translated as blessednesses, or double, or triple happy. I
usually read it as “double happy” or happiness upon happiness. Just as when a
person with a limited vocabulary wants to emphasize something they repeat the
same word, as in “I was really, really, really mad”, so we could say for
blessednesses “I was really, really, really, happy happy happy”.
David’s
joyfilled comments continue into our verse for today.
Ps 32:2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD
imputeth
not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
David already understood the grace of God. That God would
not impute, or charge against him, his great sins of adultery, murder and all
the transgressions connected to them. David knew what we as Christians take for
granted. It made him feel blessed.
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of
us all.
The new testament says it this way.
1Pe 2:24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body
on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by
whose stripes ye were healed.
Theologians speak of imputation, which is based
on the word impute and is best described as a bookkeeping function. Because of
Christ our sins are not recorded under our name but under His. He has borne our
sins on the tree. That should make us all feel blessed. But that is only half
of the story. Imputation does more than just place our sins under Christs
account, it also places Christ’s sinless perfection under our account, so God
sees us with the righteousness of Christ.
A wonderful hymn, Accepted in the Beloved, says it well;
“God sees my savior, and then he sees me,
In the beloved, accepted and free”
David had experienced unspeakable joy (double
blessednesses) of a man forgiven of horrendous trespasses against God. His
forgiveness was so complete he would be known as a man after God’s own heart.
Our meditation for today is to think of how
blessed we are that know Christ as our personal savior. We have been forgiven,
even as David, of our transgressions, sins and iniquity. Let us pause during
the trials and problems we may have today and smile the kind of smile that only
a double, triple blessed, forgiven sinner can understand.
Isa 53:5 But he
was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:
the
chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed
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