Habits of Effective Disciples: Confession
Disciples confess their sins to God in order to receive forgiveness and restoration.
The completed work of Jesus secures our relationship with Him. However, our daily fellowship with God is affected by how we live. Confessing our sins and repenting from them allows us to maintain a close fellowship with our Father.
Sin does not reside in a particular destination, even though many people refer to certain places as "sin city". Sin resides in every city where men are because sin resides in our hearts. One of the most difficult issues we face is that we have tried in the modern days to reduce the gospel to simply sin management, trying to manage our sin a little better. It does not work. Under our management we still turn to sin and cannot remove it. How do we move beyond sin management?
Let's look at a beautiful psalm from the Old Testament and a wonderful promise from the New Testament.
A PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS - PSALM 51
The writer of 2nd Samuel tells us that David had overcome almost all his enemies. In the spring of the year David sent his army to conquer a remaining city and he himself stayed behind instead of going with his soldiers (2-d Samuel 11:1). David was out of position and was not where he should have been.
Temptation often strikes when we are where we should not be. Despite some good efforts, temptation will find us. On the roof of his palace David looked out on the city and saw a woman bathing and he did not turn away. He lusted after her, sent for her, and took her that night for himself. She was Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, Uriah. In a tangled web of intrigue, David tried hard to cover up his sin. He brought Uriah back from battle and told him to spend time with his wife, knowing now Bathsheba was pregnant. Uriah showed his decency by not doing so as his men were still in battle and he felt no comfort should come to him if they were still fighting and had no such comfort.
David then ordered him back with sealed orders to Joab, the commander, to place him in the most dangerous area and to withdraw and allow him to die. Joab obeyed. Now David was guilty of both adultery and murder, both allow a penalty of death.
David married the woman and she bore the son she conceived with David. After a year went by with no repentance by David, God sent His prophet Nathan to confront David, revealing to David that God had not forgotten his deeds of sin.
In Psalm 51, we hear David's open and honest confession.
Forgiveness is rooted in the very nature of God. God's mercy, love, and compassion brought David to bring his sin into God's presence and to ask God to hear and forgive it.
God did forgive David, but the consequence of his great sin remained. The son died, and violence and rebellion dominated David's house from that time forward.
WE MUST NOT CONCEAL SIN BUT MUST CONFESS IT TO GOD.
1'st John 1:9
John explains this principle found in Psalm 51 with a promise from the Lord. When we confess our Sins to God he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us completely. The full revelation of this portion of God's character is found in Jesus, and it is His atoning death that allows us to come directly to God and to lay our sins at His feet at the throne of Grace.
This is good news for us. The more we try to manage our sin, the more we manage to sin. What if we came under new management? We must move beyond the management of our own sin. Our gospel is far more than that. The more we know God's mercy and grace and great love, the more we find greater freedom to confess and thereby to find release from our sins. Because God is the way he is, he can change the way we are. So we confess because we confide in God and trust in Him to transform us by the continued work of His Holy Spirit.
Like Adam and Eve, David initially tried to conceal his sin and therefore caused his own soul to ache. He wrote of it in Psalm S1 and in Psalm 32:3-5: "When I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For night and day your hand was heavy upon me... then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover my iniquity.. and you forgave the guilt of my sin".
In Psalm 51 we are reminded that God is merciful, with love that never fails and has great compassion toward those who are His. David knew he had sinned against others but what was worse he had sinned against God. He further knew and admitted that his sin nature came to him by birth. Now he fully confesses and repents and is forgiven.
Confession leads to cleansing. John reminds us of God's character, that He is both faithful AND just. Because God is who He is we can confess our sin to Him and His great kindness toward us convicts us to fully repent to restore our fellowship with Him.
We can never lose our salvation once we are His, but we can grieve Him by our sin if we refuse to confess it. The fellowship is damaged when we do so. Restoration comes by confession with repentance.
There is one more item we must understand in this very important matter. Once confessed, repented of, and forgiven, our sins are wiped away forever.
Psalm 103:12
"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression from us".
Hebrews 8:17
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more"
NO MORE MEANS NO MORE. NEVER!
Therefore if our sins are forgiven after confession, and we find them constantly reappearing in our minds and hearts, the vision is not from above but is coming from below.
Satan loves to remind us of all we have done wrong and uses these sins to convince us that we are unworthy of God's love and grace.
So finally, after we have come to understand our own true nature and the precious path the Lord has provided to overcome sin, and we sincerely confess, repent and gain forgiveness, believers only need to ponder fours words to draw closer to God on the matter of sin.
IS ANY YET UNCONFESSED?
