March 23, 2014
Confession
- Psalms 51:1-19
- Rev. Scott Shelton
March 23, 2014
Rev. Scott Shelton
Scripture: Psalm 51
#digzpc | Confession
We continue our series on spiritual disciplines today and how they draw us closer to God. Today we are doing a fun one…confession! I actually chose this, Jerry did not assign to me.
But I want us to experience it, sort of like when we stood up in worship and met someone new. So, we are all going to come up and confess a specific sin, starting with Jerry, then on this next row right here! Just kidding!
But instead of hearing your confessions, we are going to hear of one of the great heroes of Israel, one of the heroes of the Bible, King David. This isn’t David as a boy fighting Goliath, or serving Saul, this is David as King. This is his prayer – this is his confession. It is found in Psalm 51. If you’d like to read along, please do.
Before we read, let’s pray. Lord may you open our minds to understand your Word, and move in our hearts to apply it to our lives.
Psalm 51 (New NIV)
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
The Word of the Lord, thanks be to God.
So David pours out this heartfelt prayer. What did he do to want to pray like this? Well, we can look at his words in 2 Samuel 12.
Nathan, a prophet working for David, the King, told David the story of one man who many sheep who took another’s man one sheep. It was the rich taking from the poor to get richer. David was furious, and said,
“As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!”
We like to hear “You da man!” But David did not like hearing it now.
Nathan goes on to say:
“9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’”
David had taken another man’s wife to be his own, then set it up in battle, for that man Uriah, to be sent to the front, and his troops pulled back – so he would be killed - which he was. So then David married his widow to have his baby, which she was already carrying.
Nathan says the sword will never depart from your house. David had a son later who tried to take over his kingdom, drove him out of Jerusalem, and there was much pain, anger, and even killing in David’s family line. Sin has consequences. We think sometimes, well my little sin doesn’t really hurt anybody. There is a good chance it does. Even if doesn’t affect anyone else, it separates us from God.
Several years ago, I made an honest mistake on our taxes. I didn't discover it until the next year when something didn't seem right and i went back and dug out the previous year's taxes. I had subtracted something in my favor that allowed us to get more money back. When i realized the mistake, i called a friend who was an accountant, he confirmed my error and advised i file an amended return and told me i would have to pay the amount i owed plus a penalty. Well i waited a while before acting because i was frustrated at my error. Eventually i called the accountant back to make sure i heard him right, and I had heard him right. I then amended my taxes and did get hit with a penalty, which we paid. It was my mistake and I had to pay for it.
Our mistakes have consequences. Our sins have consequences.
Now David was confronted by Nathan his prophet. Nathan worked for him, David was the King – incredibly powerful.
It appears in the story in 2 Samuel, that Nathan and David are alone when Nathan confronts him with his sin, and basically tells David, that his sin will have lifelong consequences. David had the power to punish Nathan, fire him, or even have him killed.
What did David do?
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
David confessed specific sin. Here’s the king, confessing wrongdoing.
Now that’s not the end of the story.
Nathan immediately says, ““The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.”
God forgives. But let’s say that again, David confesses, God forgives.
You might think, how did David come to be called a man after God’s own heart. A king who used his power to take someone else’s wife, have the husband killed in battle, how could he be close to God?
How is it possible? We see it in Psalm 51.
David is:
Overwhelmed by sin – has many names for it. Truly sorry and wanted to change
He calls his sin:
iniquity, his sin, transgressions, his evil, he feels his bones are crushed.
He is truly sorry.
He doesn’t make excuses, but confesses. This is a king talking!
Then he calls out for help from God, knowing still that his sin has consequences.
David says!
“Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.”
He goes on to say: “Create in me a pure heart, clean heart O God.
Restore to me your spirit.”
We might say, God I blew it. I completely blew it. I messed up. Please forgive me. Please help me, O lord!
Then David adds some wonderful words which help us all:
We see in Psalm 51, that God is a God who:
Desires a truly contrite heart
Gives love, compassion, mercy,
Forgives, creates a clean heart, restores our spirit.
God forgives. We need to confess too.
Years ago, I had a good friend who told me something in confidence. Later a mutual friend of both of ours asked me about it, and I told him what my first friend had said. I don’t remember even now what I shared, but I do remember two things. I felt terrible about breaking a friend’s confidence, and I need to tell him. I knew I could let it go and my friend might never find out, but I felt terrible and needed to confess and ask his forgiveness.
Now he was such a good guy, nice guy, I thought he would say that’s ok, forget about it. But he didn’t. When I told him I had broken his confidence and told someone else what he had told me, he was pretty upset. He questioned me pretty hard on why I did what I did, and I had no good answer. He was upset. I felt even worse. Sin has consequences.
But he did forgive me. And it took some time, but today, I’ve regained his trust and we are good friends. We need to confess knowing that God will forgive.
How do we go about this confession thing?
We can learn some from David here. Author John Ortberg outlines some steps as well.
Ortberg says,
First, Prepare your heart. We see David is ready to admit he’s wrong by Nathan preparing him. For me, I try in my prayer life to offer God praise first, then I am in a right place with God, who God is.
Second, Examine your life. David examines himself and ask God to do so. In the 139th Psalm David says, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
This can be a time to be quiet and reflect on what is going on in your life. In my own prayer life, I realize I still need to be more patient in this area.
Third, Confess to God. We see David do that throughout this Psalm, Psalm 51, telling God he had sinned. I need to say, I blew it, God, I messed up, I have sinned. As you did with David, have mercy on me.
Fourth, accept that God forgives you. David believes it. He asks for it. We need to believe it and move on.
I also have a few friends, in my life, that I consider accountability partners. I know I could share things with them if needed to confess. I trust them and can share with them and ask them to pray for me.
James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
Then God forgives. God can forgive anyone and anything.
Our world wants to downplay sin. But the reality is we are all sinners and we need confession.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy….He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone.”
So, confession is to God – nothing stands between you and God and your confession of your struggles with Him. However, there are certainly times when we need to confess to someone else so that we are not alone in our sin, but can get it out.
It can be like getting a secret out of your body, or getting some poison out of our inner life, so that we can become healthy again.
When you confess, Richard Foster, says, to confess to someone who can handle it. There are those in the world who might take what you say and broadcast it – don’t share deep stuff with them. Then there are those who might be horrified at what you share and not handle it well. Share instead with someone you trust, who is mature, who is a Christian.
When someone shares with you a confession, you should be prepared to receive it.
Tell them that in Jesus Christ they are forgiven. You can simply say,
“God forgives through the work of Jesus. You are forgiven.”
Paul says about Jesus: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.”
What good news! The God who created the world, gave his son that when we confess our sin he forgives us! Amen!
Or you could say this from 1 John 1:9 which says:
“If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Amen!
So, back to David.
David is truly sorry to God for his action, he really cries out to God, he realizes that he is truly a sinner, and tells God that several times.
We also see that he trusts God can forgive him. David asks for mercy for his sin, he asks God to cleanse him, to create in him a clean heart, to restore his spirit, and to restore to him the joy of his salvation.
David I think gets it, that once you have confessed, once God has forgiven you – once you have that forgiveness, then you can move on with your life.
We see that David is described as a man after God’s own heart. God loves David, forgives him.
A few weeks ago at the Great Banquet, I heard a great quote: “God gives us a big windshield and a small rearview mirror.” We don’t forget what lies behind us, we learn from it, and we are looking ahead to a bright future with God.
One of the things I love about the Bible and it gives me great hope for myself and for all of us, is that God uses men and women who are ordinary sinners to do great things.
He used hated tax collectors, prostitutes, rough fisherman, teenage unwed mothers like Mary, to do incredible things.
If God can use them, he can use me, too. God can use you. God forgives you, gives you second chances, and wants you to follow him.
John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, was once involved in the slave trade, converted to Christ and over a period of years in the mid-1700’s he got out of slave trade, became an Anglican priest and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.
“I am not what I ought to be,
I am not what I want to be,
I am not what I hope to be in another world;
but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”
― John Newton
John Newton also said, “Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”
John Newton, like David, was a sinner…and was a man after God’s own heart.
God used sinners like John Newton and King David who confessed the places where they failed and turned their hearts towards God.
God can use me and can use you too!
To get started on this journey, and to continue in our spiritual disciplines,
You have a homework assignment.
Here’s a card. The ushers will have these on the way out. On the back, you can post some of what you are doing or learning on social media or at zpc.org.
This week:
Write a prayer to God explaining the habits, behaviors, and sins you want to die to and keep it with you this week, reading it several times a day.
Let’s sing our closing song – sing the words with meaning.
9 – amazing grace
10 – we fall down.
Pray – benediction.
10 – cong. meeting!