Right Confession

Justin said we've been um in the Psalms.

And what we've been exploring is this idea that uh we've been created to experience some pretty intense emotions, and what that reminds us of uh as image bearers is that God also uh has emotionality.

What I'm not saying is that we experience emotion and respond to it in the way that God does.

Uh what I am saying is that our expression and response to those emotions is in desperate need of redemption so that we might uh glorify God.

Uh like I mentioned, it's been about two decades since uh I've started a relationship with my wife.

Um if you know anything about relationships, it's a pretty uh streamlined uh uh kind of uh direction into experiencing uh some emotion.

Um one of the byproducts of that relationship with us has been children.

And if you have children yourselves, if you have been around children for about seven and a half minutes, you know that we don't come out of the box with this ability to respond to our emotions in a way that glorifies God.

So we have three boys.

Um, I have one that struggles to identify and even feel emotion and respond to that in a way that that is helpful sometimes.

I've got one who experiences all the emotions that his brother doesn't, times 55.

He feels everything really big and a lot.

I've got another son, uh, he's four.

Verdict is out on him.

He might be a sociopath.

Um, I don't know.

I don't know.

But but I I love all my kids, I relate to all of them.

Um, and and as her dad, it's imperative that I lead them to an understanding that it's what we do with these emotions, be it fear or despair or loneliness, uh, guilt, like we'll see with David today.

Uh, you get it.

As believers, it's what we do in response to those emotions, how we live well or poorly with these emotions that tell us about our posture to God.

And there's this lie that the Christians don't experience hard times, that if we're right in Christ, then it's just smooth sailing uh after that.

And that's just a lie.

The life of Christians is not marked by a lack of sorrow or challenge, but rather a life marked by a savior that we may cling to when we're in despair.

And our emotional expressions are reflective of our brokenness and in desperate need of redemption.

And that redemption only comes through a mercy that we can't manufacture or earn for ourselves.

So a few weeks ago, if you were here, you'll remember that uh we were in Psalm 13.

That was a psalm of lament, as David was uh feeling in despair, as if God was very distant from him.

Today we're gonna be in Psalm 51, as we've mentioned.

It's part of uh this group of Psalms called the Penitential Psalms, and it's not just a psalm expressing sorrow, but particularly sorrow over our own brokenness and our own sin.

And so uh before we go any further, let's read together Psalm 51.

I'll be reading on the ESV to the choir master, a psalm of David when Nathan, the prophet, went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned, done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the sacred heart.

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness.

Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I'll teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then will you delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings?

Then bulls will be offered on your altar.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

So I'll be clear, this may be one of the most well-known, most preached, most taught psalms.

I'm certainly not going to exhaust all that there is to pull out of this.

What I'd like to do, though, is particularly take a look at what this psalm says about how we ought to approach God in our sin and in our brokenness.

But before I do that, I think it's really important that we look at the context as to how we got to the David that we see making this plea before God.

And to do that, we're going to look in Samuel chapters, uh, 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12.

2 Samuel 11 · chapter mention

I'm just going to kind of uh uh give you the synopsis here, but for your reference, 2 Samuel 11 and 12, this is what you'll see.

David is in Jerusalem.

His army is actively in battle.

Uh David had a particular particular propensity toward uh or to women, um, and it just so happened from his rooftop he looked out and saw one such beautiful woman bathing.

Um, she wasn't just a beautiful woman, she was a beautiful married woman, and a married woman to one of those soldiers that was actively in battle on David's behalf.

Um, very unfortunately, um, and this is all stuff that David knew.

David, David wasn't under the impression that she wasn't uh married or or uh he knew exactly who she was and he wanted what he wanted.

He sent for her, uh proceeded to sleep with and impregnate um Bathsheba.

Um and upon learning this, uh, that he had uh made her with child, he did what we can all probably not relate to whatsoever and scramble and try to figure out how can I cover this up?

How can I make this not uh be look like what it is.

So uh his way of doing that was the call for Uriah to be pulled off of the battlefield.

He met with Uriah and he said, Listen, uh you've been uh you've been out there for a while.

I want you to take a load off.

I want you to relax.

I want you to spend time with your wife.

Of course, hoping and knowing, if you spend time with your wife after being in the battlefield for any amount of time, you're gonna sleep with your wife, and you know, then then it would just everyone would just assume this is Uriah's baby.

What David did not count on was that Uriah would show a faithfulness to his mission and to his comrades in the battlefield.

Uriah responded and said, So you'd have me come and eat your food and drink your wine, enjoy the touch of my wife while my brothers are out there spilling their blood right now.

I won't do it.

I won't do it.

And he slept on the doorstep of the kingdom.

He refused to do that.

And so, plan B for David, uh, in order to cover up, in a desperate attempt to cover up his sin.

He sent orders, uh, the Bible says, uh, to be sent to the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then ordered the army to draw back from him that he may be struck down and die.

And it's it's interesting to note that the orders that would kill Uriah were given to Uriah to give to Joab, his captain.

He he literally took with him his death sentence, delivered it faithfully, and went to the front line of battle, knowing that it was likely going to be the end of him.

And he did it faithfully.

It's really dark stuff here.

Uh I want to pause briefly and just ask a question.

Have any of you ever felt that you'd let literally anything happen but be known for your mistake?

You literally ask for anything else to happen but to be exposed for the sinner or the sin that you've been living in.

I know I have.

I know I've made decisions that were so very destructive to myself and to others.

And my response wasn't first to cling to the cross and the promise of God that has rescued me, but instead to hide and meddle and make it worse on myself and people that I love.

So with Uriah out of the way, David took Bathsheba for his wife, who ultimately bore him a son.

The final verse in chapter 11 of 2 Samuel said, The thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

That is an understatement.

Uh enter Nathan in chapter 12, and I'm going to read this directly from the scriptures because it's too good not to, uh, and painting this picture.

Nathan comes to David and says in verse 7, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah.

And if this were too little, I'd add to you as much more.

Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

Thus says the Lord.

Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house.

I'll take your wives to be or wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of the sun, for you did it secretly.

But I'll do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.

David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

And Nathan said to David, The Lord has also put away your sin, and you shall not die.

Nevertheless, because this deed you have done, or you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.

Then Nathan went home.

I love the endings of these chapters.

The first one, the first one came to such an abrupt ending with it deple all this displeased God.

This one comes to an end.

Then Nathan went to his house.

And I like to think of that as like a clear drop the mic moment.

And before I move on from here, I want to pause and ask another question.

Do you have people in your life intentionally surrounding yourself with men and women of character that are willing to speak truth to you?

Ask you hard questions out of love for you.

Pursue you and say, I'm compelled to ask, are you and your husband okay?

I love you, so I want to kind of point out I I've seen you've been really dismissive of your children.

And I care about you and I care about them.

What's going on?

Have you surrounded yourself with people like that?

Oh, that we might invite accountability into the folds of our day-to-day.

That we might have healthier marriages as a result.

Raise godly children as a result, that we might see God's great kingdom expand as a result.

Proverbs says that faithful are the words of a friend.

Are you inviting those people into your life?

Find a Nathan.

It's hard.

You will be offended by God's grace and to his glory, and it will be good for you.

And this is where we find David.

Bathsheba's pregnant, Uriah is dead at his hand.

He knows his child will die.

He's acknowledged that he sinned against the Lord.

And as I mentioned before, this is just a super rich text that I'm not going to be able to pull everything out from.

But here's what I'd like for us to do today.

I'd like to examine this text instructionally as it was meant and try to distill down what I've put together as four components to a right confession.

The first component would be this, that we appeal to God's mercy.

The first component to a right confession is that we appeal to God's mercy.

And the main idea is this right confession starts with an appeal to the initiating mercy that makes us alive in Christ.

See, mercy is foundational to our right standing before God.

And this is where David's plea begins.

Verse 1 in chapter 51, he cries out, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

It's the first stop that we have to make if we are going to have right standing before God.

One verse, three appeals all to God's loving-kindness.

And what he understands here, David, is if not for God's mercy, we remain dead.

And dead people can accomplish exactly zero for themselves.

We require something outside of ourselves, a movement of something completely outside of ourselves to awaken us and make us alive again.

Ephesians 2 says, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, and then further carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature of children, by nature children of wrath.

Goes on to say, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

David understood his need.

He understood the helpless state that he found himself in.

He couldn't stand on merit because look what he just done.

He wouldn't dare call on justice.

That would not turn out well for him.

He called on the only thing, the only hope that he had, and that is this hope in a merciful God.

In Psalm 103, David will eventually remind us that God does not deal with us according to our sins, but rather and most mercifully as a father showing compassion to his children.

That's good news.

That's good news for me.

It's good news for you.

It was good news for David.

He's showing us in Psalm 51 that we need to see God rightly, and that's completely blameless.

And to see ourselves rightly, and that is completely helpless.

And it's only to God's undeserved mercy that we can hope for any peace and any restoration.

Second component to a right confession, that we appeal with a contrite heart.

And the main idea here is that right confession hinges on the acknowledgement that we are the problem.

Pleading for God's mercy, because we are the problem.

In verse 1, he says, according to your steadfast love, have mercy on me, but for what?

Have mercy on me for what?

He says, My transgressions in verses one and three.

My iniquity in verses two and nine.

My sin in two, three, four, and nine.

This juxtaposition of your love and mercy, my evil.

He's illustrating that he is comprehensively desperate and absolutely guilty.

John MacArthur said that this is David demonstrating that he sees himself as guilty by every definition of the word.

And that is us two.

That's me too.

By acknowledging his very clear brokenness, David's modeling contrition.

Because penitence begins with genuine remorse, and we can't be genuinely remorseful until we acknowledge our errors.

And we've seen this done poorly.

Right?

Wives don't put up your hands.

But we can look at Genesis.

The first place we saw this, God had given Adam and Eve everything in fullness, out of love for them, out of abundant love for them.

With one condition, one stipulation, they ignored it.

God confronted Adam and he said, I am sorry.

I am sorry that you gave me this broken woman.

Eve said, I listen, I'm sorry too.

I'm sorry that you put this deceiver in my garden.

And I'm just as bad.

If you come up to me after this and you say that this kind of didn't hit the mark, I'm gonna say, I'm sorry.

Justin asked me to be here.

I'm not I'm not better.

If you're with us when we went through Psalm 50, you recall that God was pretty straight up with us and said, Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you.

Your burnt offerings are continually before me.

Every beast of the forest is mine.

If I were hungry, I'd not tell you.

For the world and its fullness are mine.

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble.

I'll deliver you and you shall glorify me.

The crux of everything is of all that we're reading is this no offering that we bring will suffice outside of that which God accomplishes by his grace.

Basically, God's saying, You can't fulfill a need in me.

I don't eat like you.

Everything you bring me is mine already.

I'm not impressed.

When we look at chapters 50 and then 51, we see that God is really calling for a sacrifice of thanksgiving, a thankful heart that only comes from a place of penitence.

Again, acknowledging that we're dead but for God's mercy, and empty, but for but for the joy that only He can ignite within us.

And David's tracking with that in verses 16 and 17.

He says, You will not delight in sacrifice as I would give it.

You'll not be pleased with the burnt offering, and then that a broken and contrite heart, God, you will not despise.

Third component to a right confession is that we would seek renewal and refreshment.

And the main idea is this right confession seeks the only fount from which true joy flows.

David's clearly suffering under the weight of immense guilt, anguishing in the reality that he is imparted.

But where does this lead him?

He's called for God's mercy out of a fully contrite heart, but for God to do what?

We see David initially plead for God to blot out his transgressions.

And then in verse 9 to blot out his iniquities.

Blotting out essentially refers to wiping away or making obscure, destroying it.

In Isaiah 43, it says God blots out our transgressions for our sake.

In the next chapter, 44, he says, God has blotted out our transgressions like a cloud and our sin like a mist.

But David doesn't stop at the blotting out.

It's not enough simply to blot out that sin.

No, he's seeking to be cleansed, washed thoroughly, as verse 2 says.

This idea of cleansing and washing has a rich history in the Bible.

In Exodus 19, 10, God tells Moses, Go to the temple and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day.

For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of the people.

Numbers 19, 19.

The clean person shall sprinkle it, it meaning water, on the unclean, on the third day and on the seventh day.

These ceremonies were aimed at keeping the temple undefiled, keeping us undefiled in God's presence.

So this cry for cleansing is essentially saying, I am fully broken and fully defiled in your sight.

I need you to cleanse me.

It doesn't stop there either.

Verse 7 purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

And just quickly, hyssop is uh a branch that when bundled together was used in these uh in these ceremonies to sprinkle water to cleanse.

What we see is David comprehensively addressing his brokenness and appealing for God to comprehensively eradicate the sin.

He's saying, blot it out.

Wash me, cleanse me, purge me, wash me again.

Go ahead and blot it all out again.

Spurgeon says that David views this as one great pollution.

And it's as if the Lord is saying, If washing will not do, try some other process.

If water avails not, let fire, let anything be tried, that I might be purified.

And here we find ourselves at quite possibly the most famous portion of this letter, verse 10, often serves as the title to sermons that are preached through Psalm 51.

He's saying, I'm standing before you but an empty vessel.

David paints a picture of the old being gone and God ushering in a new creation.

When he says, restore in me, it lends us to believe that he once had joy, that he's asking to be restored.

Also note, he did not plead for his salvation.

There's an incredibly comforting reminder that though his sin was great, his security was not shaken.

He was pleading for the joy that that salvation brings.

Also, notice the order: purity of heart first, then joy.

David's teaching us that true joy is only found in him, and we're only in him as he has extended us the mercy that we can't earn.

It's something echoed throughout the scripture, Psalm 16, 11.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

Nehemiah 8.10.

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

And this joy is regardless of our environment or circumstances.

Paul in 2 Corinthians says, I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.

In Colossians 1.24, he says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.

And David says very similarly in verse 8, let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Another pause.

Have you ever prayed that terrifying of a prayer?

That by any means necessary, God make me new.

And if it hurts me, which it probably will, help me praise you in that hurt.

By any means necessary.

See, church, true joy is found only in the one whom all blessings flow.

May we seek refreshment and renewal in the only true fount.

The last component to a right confession is that we resolve to make much of God and his glory.

The main idea is this.

Right confession has one aim, and that's to glorify God.

David has so far appealed to our only hope in God's mercy, presented himself fully guilty and contrite, employing for a cleansed heart and a right and joyful spirit, but for what purpose?

Why?

Let's look at verses 13 through 15.

Verse 13, I'll teach transgressors your ways so that the sinless may return to you.

Verse 14, my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

Verse 15, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

David reminds us that we cannot make much of God without a broken spirit and contrite heart that ultimately allows us to see our sin rightly.

When we see God rightly and our sin rightly, and therefore ourselves rightly, we can pursue lives that give glory to Him that deserves it.

Earlier we looked at Psalm 50.

God said, I'll deliver you and you shall glorify me.

Here in Psalm 51, we see that we're utterly dead in our sin.

So the mercy he extends to us, the joy that he imparts in us, they work together to enable us to praise the glory of his good name.

And none of that did we accomplish.

The big picture is this: that God is rightly after his glory.

Remember in Psalm 50, he said, I'll deliver you, and you shall what?

Glorify me.

God is not glorified in our begrudged submission.

God is not glorified in our empty offerings, and God is not glorified in the complacent confession of sin that we don't truly lament.

So as I wrap up, it's good to remember something that I mentioned earlier.

And the mark of the believer is not that we do not sin or despair, but in how we respond to that despair in our sin that rightly brings us to Christ.

Perhaps you're here this morning and you spend far too many nights staring at the ceiling with your gut churning, agonizing over a sin that God has an answer for.

The Bible says in Matthew 11, 28, come to me all who are weary and burdened.

I'll give you rest.

In 2 Corinthians 12, 9, God says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

We can take note that David clung tightly to this and don't miss the good stuff.

Remember, he pled for renewal and hearkened back to this cleansing ceremony.

Do you remember that?

In Exodus, God said, Get the garments ready for the third day.

In Numbers 19, God said, Those unclean will be sprinkled by the clean when?

By who?

The third day by the clean.

Let us remember there's only one clean.

There's only one that's truly clean.

Friends in Christ, praise God that we can cling to that third day too.

Praise God that he found us wanting and wretched and came and did something about it.

Praise God that though Uriah perished and stayed dead, we cling to a greater warrior in Christ, who took the orders boldly forward, fully aware of the demise that lay before him, who mercifully laid down his perfect life and brought that third day finality to Satan and sin and death that allows a murderer like me, an adulterer like me, a liar and a thief like me, allows me renewal through his grace.

Praise God that we can cry out under the shame that we've earned.

And he says, Child, I've responded through my beloved son.

You are crying out for water.

Take of me and thirst no more.

Friend, there's renewal for you, and make that we may make much of him in his kingdom.

There is hope as many of us present ourselves with a broken and contrite heart so that he may restore us and gaze upon us without the contempt that we've earned consistently, setting us free so his kingdom may thrive.

And we all join to sing the praises of his glory.

Maybe you're here and you're thinking, bro, I sleep fine at night.

I don't worry about this stuff.

Maybe you don't wrestle with sin.

You don't think anything of your folly or fallen nature.

Listen, I'm not a pastor here.

I know we've got a pastor who would love to talk to you about that.

I love you enough to know, or to say, you are broken.

You do have a need, whether you know it or not.

And David acknowledges this too, that he was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did his mother conceive him.

He's not saying he was an illegitimate child.

He wasn't.

What he's acknowledging is that we entered this world under the curse of the fall.

That from the start he was a sinner.

Understand what we see about what we see about us when we see ourselves rightly, especially as we see God rightly, is that but for God we choose death every single day.

But for God's intervention and rescue of my pursuits, my heart chooses death and destruction and remains deceitful and wicked every day.

And we live in a day right now where we're encouraged to honor every single one of our fleeting emotions with the reverence that only God deserves.

We're taught that we need to be true to ourselves and every emotional whim.

May God rescue us from such folly.

May God enable us all to see ourselves rightly before his glorious gaze and resolve to make much of him as we seek his much-needed, scandalous mercy over us.

Let's pray.

God, thank you for uh for David's brokenness spilled throughout these scriptures.

Thank you that he's modeled for us how we might approach you rightly, God.

We pray that you awaken in us a deeply or a deep hatred for our sin, knowing that your power is made perfect in our weakness.

God, thank you that you are constant in the midst of our wavering, and that we may always cling to the joy found in you and only in you.

It's in your son's name that we pray these things.

Amen.