“WE CONFESS – HE RESTORES”
PSALM 51:1-17

I. Introduction
Do you recall the first Bible verse you ever memorized? Or maybe should I ask, do you recall the second Bible verse you memorized, after John 3:16? I’m pretty sure mine was, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

That’s 1 John 1:9, and it is familiar to almost all Christians. In fact, in many discipleship programs, it’s one of the very first memory verses. That’s a good idea because it teaches the new believer something each and every Christian needs to know.

But, as is the case with so many of the most basic biblical truths, 1 John 1:9 is often mis-understood. Is God saying that you must confess every single sin you’ve ever committed or you won’t be forgiven? And don’t you need to be forgiven in order to be saved and go to heaven?

Well, 1 John 1:9 does say, “If we confess…God forgives,” doesn’t it? So it must follow that, “If we don’t confess, God doesn’t forgive,” right? Wrong! But isn’t that biblical double-talk? No, it isn’t.

John isn’t talking about our relationship to God. He is our Father and we are His child-ren, and that doesn’t change because it can’t change. What John is talking about is the condition of our relationship with God. He’s not talking about our eternal standing with God, but about our temporary and often changing state with Him.

The point of 1 John 1:9 is that when we confess our sins, our fellowship with God will be restored. We will sense our forgiveness and the removal of our guilt, and in that we will renew and refresh the joy of our relationship with our heavenly Father.

We need to recognize that the “we” in 1 John 1:9 means Christians. John is addressing the church. He’s not speaking to the lost world. So, Christian, for which of your sins have you already been forgiven? How many? The ones you’ve remembered to confess? Did Jesus die on the cross for the sins you have remembered to confess, but not the ones you have forgotten to confess? You can see the problem, can’t you?

So what is the context of 1 John 1:9? John is referring to our attitude about our sin. He is saying we must acknowledge the truth that we are sinners. If we don’t, we are only kidding ourselves; we have no fellowship with God, and in fact, we are saying that He is wrong. Therefore, we need to “be on the same page” with God when it comes to our sin. And this is especially true as we come to the communion table this morning.

In Romans 10:9-10 we find a word that doesn’t mean what most of us think it does.
The word is “hŏmŏlŏgĕō.” Let me briefly revisit something we talked about at our Com-munion service this past February. “Hŏmŏlŏgĕō” is a compound word derived from “hŏmŏu,” which means “the same,” and “lŏgŏs,” which means, “words – something spoken.” The word is translated “confess,” but it means “to say the same thing.”
*Romans 10:9-10
9 …if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;
10 for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

The words “confess” in v. 9 and “confesses” in v. 10 mean that we are to say the same thing about the Lord Jesus Christ that the Scriptures say about Him. That is, we must come into agreement with God about His Son.

So confession is far more than simply saying, “Yes, I did it.” With regard to our sin, admission is a part of what we must do to be saved, but it’s only a part.

Listen, you won’t agree with God – say the same thing about your sin that He says about it – if you haven’t already agreed with Him about His Son.

Therefore, the question is, “Do you agree with God that Jesus is Lord, and do you say so?” That is Romans 10:9-10. We must begin by confessing Jesus.
Philippians 2:10-11
10 …that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
11 and that every tongue should confess (agree with God) that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Biblical confession of sin means that we hear what God says about us, and we acknow-ledge and admit that what He says about us is truth. In that acknowledgement and in that admission we agree with God when He says that we are sinners. That is true confession as the apostle uses the word in 1 John 1:9.

John’s point here is that one way to know for sure that you are a Christian is that you are willing to confess your sin. You agree with God and you admit you’re a sinner. Hear me carefully, please. Merely agreeing with God about your sin is not how you obtain salva-tion, but it is about how you enhance and enjoy your relationship with God.

If, as Paul says in Romans 10:9, you do not believe in Christ and His resurrection from the dead, you cannot be saved. But when you do believe, you will agree with God, by saying the same thing He says about Him. You will confess Christ.

That’s Romans 10:10 – “for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. So confession is one of the primary ways you demonstrate, to God and to others, that you in fact, are a Christian.
One clear proof that confession alone – confession without belief, without saving faith – does not save is Philippians 2:10-11. Paul says, “…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

He is saying that the day will come when all the living – both believing and unbelieving – all the dead – both believing and unbelieving – all the holy angels, all the demons, and even Satan himself, will all bow down, acknowledge, admit, and agree with God that Jesus Christ is Lord. In doing so they will all confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, but they will not all be saved, will they?

Someone has asked the question, “Will there be any believers in hell?” The answer is, “Yes, every one of them.” They will all believe, but they will all believe too late.

So confession alone does not save us. However, for the believer, the practical application of continual confession of our sin is the real beauty of it – it clears our conscience and removes our guilt. And in doing so it restores our fellowship with the God who has saved us and given us eternal life. This is a relationship and a joy that no unbeliever can ever know. Conversely, it is a relationship and a joy that every believer should and can know.

Wasn’t King David was already one of God’s children when he wrote Psalm 32?
*Psalm 32:1-5
1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!
3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groan-ing all day long.
4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.
5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”; and You forgave the guilt of my sin.

I love these five verses. David hasn’t lost his salvation and is now working to get it back. But he has damaged his fellowship with God, and quite frankly, he wants it restored. So he acknowledges his sin, he quits trying to hide it or pretend it isn’t important, he con-fesses it, and Voila! God forgives David’s sin, removes the guilt and restores his joy! So do you see? God had not moved away from David – David had moved away from God!

Therefore, if David were to be found worshipping here with us this morning, he could come to the table and freely, joyfully, and guiltlessly join us in Communion with his Lord and Savior. That’s the lesson for you and for me as we partake in these elements today.

But before we do that I want us to consider David’s sin and how he initially dealt with it, what he did when he was confronted by it, and what God did to deal with it. Most of you know the story, but it’s always good to hear it again.
This is because it is a critically important teaching. We can see ourselves in it, and it is always good for us to see how God works in us.
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II. Text
*Psalm 51:1-17 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak, and blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, God of my salvation; then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
15 O LORD, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.
16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

King David was a man of prayer. Today we might call him a “prayer warrior.” And even though the Bible tells us that David was “a man after God’s own heart,” his prob-lem was that he was also a man of sin. This is not a contradiction. It is the reality of every single one of God’s children. While our hearts have been turned toward God, we are still in the flesh and our bent toward sin remains.

This bent toward sin certainly remained for David. He was the king of Israel. He had power and wealth and fame and he knew he could have pretty much anything he wanted.
And that was the problem. So one night, during the war with the Ammonites, David is walking on his palace roof. He sees Bathsheba, the wife of one of his loyal soldiers, Uriah the Hittite, bathing on a lower rooftop. David knows that Uriah is away fighting the Ammonites so He has Bathsheba brought to himself and, to make a long story short, she conceives a child.

When David learns of the pregnancy he tries to hide his sin by having Uriah called home to “spend time with his wife.” And so, one sin follows another. Hopefully, Uriah will think the child is his own. But Uriah is a man of character and he refuses to enjoy the pleasures of his marriage while his comrades are off fighting Israel’s enemy. And so, one sin follows another. In desperation, David has Uriah sent back to battle with the follow-ing order to Joab, Uriah’s superior officer. There’s nothing subtle about the order.
2 Samuel 11:15
15 “…Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

With that David’s sin of adultery is compounded by intrigue, conspiracy, and murder.
2 Samuel 11:26-27
26 Now when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
27 When the time of mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife; then she bore him a son. (“I got away with it. Everything is working out just fine.”) But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the LORD.

With that two other verses of Scripture leap out at me – one from the OT and one from the NT.
Numbers 32:23b
23b …you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.

Galatians 6:7
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

The king has been found out, and the king will reap what he has sown. God, through the prophet Nathan, confronts David.
2 Samuel 12:9 (Nathan speaking.)
9 “Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.”

Finally, inescapably, David is faced with the truth. He is a man after God’s own heart, yet he is a man who has sinned grievously. Now he recognizes his own sin, sees it for what it is, repents of it, confesses, and finds out what God is going to do about it.
2 Samuel 12:13-14
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has taken away your sin; you
shall not die.
14 “However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, this child also that is born to you shall surely die.”

Listen carefully, please. If you don’t think your sin affects others, you’re just not paying attention. These two verses in 2 Samuel should have a profound impact on all of God’s children. David is one of God’s own. His sin will not cause him to lose his salvation, but a price will be paid, and a steep price it will be. With the child’s death the consequences of David’s sin begin to play out.

But David’s repentance is real and his confession is genuine. And we see that God’s grace is amazing. It’s recorded in Psalm 51. When you seek forgiveness it is one of the best places to look in all of Scripture to guide you in your prayers.
*Psalm 51:1-2
1 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

In v. 1 “transgressions” means willful disobedience. “Iniquity” means twisting and perverting the truth. “Sins” speaks of missing the mark of God standard of perfection. David is pulling no punches. He is speaking truth.
*Psalm 51:3-6
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against You, You only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.

Can you relate to what David says in v. 3 – “…my sin is ever before me.”? I can. Until you deal with it, your sin hangs around your neck like a millstone, doesn’t it? Then in
v. 4 he says something that surprises some people the first time they come upon it. He says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned.” What about Bathsheba? What about the dead child? What about the rest of David’s family? And what about Uriah?

“Against You, You only, have I sinned,” states a fundamental truth that we very often miss. We miss it because we don’t understand the seriousness, the gravity, and the enor-mity of our sin and who is really offended by it. Of course, David’s sin had profound ramifications for all those I’ve mentioned. But the ultimate crime was not against them. It was against God and His perfect and holy law. It is only when we begin to grasp that truth, that we begin to see our sin as God sees it.

Then in v. 5 David admits he has had a sin nature since the moment of his conception. This is what is commonly called “original sin.” It is what so many liberal theologians deny and what so many modern preachers refuse to talk about or attempt to minimize.
*Psalm 51:7-12
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me a way from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.

David asks God to, “Make me pure, wash me, make me glad and joyful, don’t look at my sins, erase them all, clean out my heart, renew my spirit, don’t send me away, don’t go away from me, restore me, and sustain me – that’s all I ask.” Wow! David is asking for an awful lot, isn’t he? Does he deserve any of it? Of course not! Do you and I deserve any of it? Of course not!

But he and you and I get it all, despite our sins, if we will go before God, humble and broken in spirit and ask. It’s called GRACE! What does the hymn say? “Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within! Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin!”
*Psalm 51:13-17
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will be converted to You.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, You of my salvation; then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
15 O LORD, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.
16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

There is some controversy as to what v. 13 actually means, but I think David is saying that any Christian who has experienced deep conviction of his or her sin and has received God’s forgiveness can more easily lead others to repentance as well. When he speaks of “bloodguiltiness” in v. 14, he is referring to capital punishment.
Isn’t capital punishment the just penalty for his murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah?

Finally, David says that if he could do a good work, or offer up some religious ritual, or sacrifice anything at all to please God, he would do it. But he knows he can’t. His only hope begins with humility and ends with God’s forgiveness and grace. (King Saul?)

And so it is with us. There are many great lessons to be learned from David’s sin with Bathsheba. The one that strikes me the hardest is really two-fold. First, a true Christian, even one who commits a heinous sin, cannot lose his or her salvation. That’s the good news. Second, if you are a Christian and you commit such sin, you can be forgiven, BUT there is a price to pay in this life. There are consequences.

But David is in heaven. The very throne that Jesus will occupy during the Millennial Kingdom is the Throne of David in Jerusalem. Yet we must know that God punishes sin. He must punish sin because He is a holy and righteous God. So David and many of those he loved suffered great consequences either directly or indirectly because of what he did.

The child born from the illicit union died. Later God raised up adversity against David from within his own family. That family was torn apart. And maybe worst of all, God’s name was blasphemed. Yet with all of the grief and sorrow David’s sin brought upon himself, he is in heaven. God’s grace!
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III. Conclusion
Are any of you in need of dealing with your sin? Are any of you struggling with anxiety or depression? If so, could be the result of unconfessed sin? Think about it. Is there anything you need to “get off your chest,” as it were? If so, let me urge you to confess your sins. Agree with God about them. Let Him remove the guilt that wears away at you. Let Him restore your soul.

Lastly, let me urge you to write down the following references in your Bibles, or on a sheet of paper you can keep with your Bibles, or somewhere. They will help you to keep a right frame of mind about confession and forgiveness.
Numbers 32:23b
23b …you have sinned against the LORD, and be sure your sin will find you out.
Galatians 6:7
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we will confess our sin, He will restore the joy of our salvation. Will you confess this morning? Will you agree with God about your sin? Then join me at the table.