FELLOWSHIP GROUPS

 – AUTUMN 2002

WALKING WITH GOD - Reflecting on the Psalms

Sept 24/26

September 24/26

(2) PSALM 32: IN NEED OF FORGIVENESS

We can’t be long on the Christian path, seeking to walk with God, without coming to the place where we experience the need for forgiveness. Such times are critical times for us spiritually. David, the psalmist, shares in this Psalm the deep lessons he learnt – about both the perils and pain of hiding one’s sins and the joy of forgiveness when, at last, one has turned and confessed and been forgiven.

• 32. 1-2: HIS HEARTFELT CONVICTION – what he’d learnt!

David had had a great truth powerfully brought home to him by painful, personal experience! Here he expresses the conviction he has arrived at.

• Put in your own words, David’s conviction.

Can you detect a note of joyful excitement in it?

• Sin takes many forms:

David uses three different words for ‘sin’:

 ‘transgression’ = act of rebellion

 ‘sin’ = missing (usually intentionally) God’s known will

 ‘iniquity’ = intentional, ‘crooked’, wrong act.

 Do these words give you an insight into the state of our mind and spirits when we are

 caught up in sin?

• Forgiveness brings many blessings.

David also uses 3 different words for ‘forgiveness’

 ‘forgiven’ = ‘carried away’

 ‘covered’ = atoned for, price paid, sinner reconciled

 ‘not counted against’ = (God’s attitude): nothing against

How do these words bring home both the results and consequences of sin and the joy of being fully forgiven?

32.3-5: HIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE - How he learned it!

• David’s experience of the results of unconfessed sin:
• How does he describe the affect on him of not facing up to his sin? (Try to describe how it affects us in our everyday lives)
• Can guilt undealt with, really be so very destructive?
• David’s experience of the results of confession:
• What were the consequences?
• What does confession involve? (What 3 words does he use to describe his ‘coming clean’ about his sin?) How hard is this to do? What is it that can drive us to do this hard, humbling thing?

32.6-9: HIS NEW-FOUND WISDOM – How to escape trouble

• The wise action (6-7)

What ‘Life-lesson’ has David learnt?

(How does he express it in verse 6-9 as he talks to God?)

• The divine assurance (8)

 What promise and assurance does he have from God? (What 3 things will God do?)

• The salutary advice (9)

 If you had to put into one word the attitude of heart and mind that David urges in verse 9. What would it be?

32.10: HIS FINAL CONCLUSION – What to remember!

• How does David summarise the lesson about life that he has learned? Express it in your own (modern) terms (- terms the man on the street would understand).

32.11

: The joy of heart there is in the life of forgiveness and peace with God.

SHARE TOGETHER Anything you have learned this week, or that has come home to you heart in a deeper way.

THEN, IN A TIME OF PRAYER, TALK BACK TO GOD ABOUT IT.