Have you ever woken up in the morning and said, “Man, today I think I’ll expose my deepest, darkest secrets to the public by writing them into a catchy top-40 song” ?

Or that you’d spill your guts to that nightshift dude behind the counter at the 24-hour bodega?

What about in a national newspaper?

That sounds fun, am I right?

You know, it’s pretty obvious why the gossip magazines occupy the same aisles as candy at the grocery store – they love placing the stuff that rots your brain next to the stuff that rots your teeth. Proverbs calls gossip “choice morsels” that destroy you from the inside out like plaque does enamel. It’s tacky and terrible to expose secrets like that. So gossip magazines are one thing, but what about when someone comes clean of their own accord?

Remember when Alec Baldwin did that whole piece in New York magazine? He got painfully honest about living a life under the microscope of the paparazzi and his anger.

And yet…

Isn’t it interesting that all revivals and Great Awakenings in history started with (1) prayer and (2) public confession?

Isn’t it weird that the best small groups are the ones filled with people who know each the dark pasts of one another? Now there’s a one another Bible verse for you: “lay your souls bare to one another.”

Does it unsettle you when Paul talks about the day when God will “judge men’s secrets in Christ” ?

There once was a king named David who screwed up. Bad. Like national news bad. And he came cleaner than if Baldwin turned that New York mag piece into a dark top-40 song. That song became the liturgy for millions of worship services when the people of God have gathered.

It’s called Psalm 51 and we’re exposing it Sunday.

Beat us to the press by reading it today.