How to Confess Your Sins – Dr. Gordon Wilson | Grace Agenda 2020

all right as people are shuffling in let's uh let's pray together father thank you very much for this uh wonderful time that we can meet together in relative normalcy in these crazy times thank you for the opportunity to proclaim your word to learn from your word to fellowship with one another i pray that your holy spirit would uh drive uh all of the things that have been taught from your word into our hearts and not just our heads i pray that you give us a hunger and thirst for righteousness and that we would be doers of the word and not just hearers in jesus name amen so how to confess your sins i toyed with the idea of coming up with a a different title and more in in keeping with the poster you know something like how to kill your dragon or or something like that but then i realized killing your dragon is not technically right because it confessing your sins is after the fact you've already made the mess the dragons already made a mess okay so in that theme it would be more like how to clean up after your dragon but but but regardless of whether you call it confessing your sins or cleaning up after your dragon this is a highly uh practical topic just like the last one um how to be free from bitterness and uh as my brother uh pastor wilson said it is something that uh we hear about we hear about confessing sins but it's one of those things that's just not maybe we just assume it and people just assume that well everybody does it it's in the con uh it's in the uh liturgy uh we hear it it's in awana verses and all of these things okay you know first john 1 9 we we spout these these truths but it's often not taught in a very detailed way similar to the bitterness thing and just like my brother said earlier my dad this is one of his signature talks for many many decades and it is um at least from his experience it's not just something that's new and fresh to a brand new believer he has in countless times have said i've given this talk to people who have been churched all their life and they look at me like this is brand new information and so it is very important uh to cover this and really get into the deep weeds of it it is for everyone nobody is exempt okay so it's ki it's you kids out there kids i guess anybody um i don't need to ask for a show of hands but if uh you're a kid and you're just at that age where you're starting to occasionally emerge from your coloring sheet and you look up it to your parents and say the speaker is speaking english pastor doug is speaking english you're just at that level where you're you can still color your coloring sheet but now you're starting to hear that we are actually speaking english and you can you can start learning and if you're a brand new christian uh many times you come here and everybody's talking bible talk and all these words and and you might be you think you're supposed to know all these things you don't know it's like and nowadays there's a lot of people that um haven't been church so we need to be uh ready for that that they don't know what covenant means they don't know what confession means they don't they're brand new they're hungry for the word but they don't know you know they don't know if abraham came after moses or before moses matthew mark bloop i had my drinking buddies from last semester i you know i don't i they don't know hardly any scripture and so this is for you but most importantly it's for people that feel like okay confession of sin i've never been there done that i know the verses i've read books on it i've written books on it you know that kind of mentality that is probably the most dangerous because the young kids the new believers they're they're eager but the people that have okay read their bible umpteen times read a bunch of books and they've they've sort of inoculated themselves from hearing it because they think they know it and that's the the trap that james talks about they hear the word but they're not doers of the word they're studyers of the word they're learners of the word they are readers of the word but that's a different thing than actually doing it so this is for everybody if you're an eight-year-old that lied to your mom or you're a junior high girl that is really really mean to other girls or real gossipy or some college student that is lusted or you're a pastor that has written books and knows the bible backwards and forwards knows greek and hebrew and could ace a doctrinal a doctrinal test or a bible knowledge test but just yelled at the kids and just said something unkind to his wife they're in the same boat as the eight-year-old who lied to their mom we're all in the same boat we need to come to the throne of grace the exact same way humbly ready to confess our sins and no amount of knowledge no amount of theological knowledge exempts you from that same humble confession so what is confession we're going to get get this drive this into the corners what is confession oh good knowledge knowledge knowledge homologo you know is he going to give me some new nuance to the semantic range of hope no you'll be disappointed homologo and i'm not a greek i don't know any greek words except the ones that have to do with biology homologo simply means you know homo means same ligeo means word speaking so it's speaking the same word in other words it's agreeing with god about your disobedience he calls it lust you call it lust he calls it lying you call it line he calls it laziness you call it lazy he calls it envy you call it envy it's saying the same thing it's agreeing with him completely about the nature of your sin that's all it means we somehow think it's some kind of weird penance or something no it's just confessing saying the same thing it's calling a spade of spade it's not a trowel okay and that is it so we're going to first talk about the progression sort of in a bullet point form of what happens when we sin i'm glad bitterness is taken care of because that usually eats up half of a confession of sin talk so i don't have to deal with that you may have heard of the analogy of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff have you ever heard of that so you can either have a fence at the top or a guardrail at the top and a ambulance at the bottom confession of sin is when you splat on the bottom of the cliff and you admit yourself into the ambulance and that's confession okay now step one in this this progression of sin confession forgiveness step one disobedience we don't want to do that but when we do step one we disobey god in some area that's clear-cut against his commands you've sinned against god or you may have sinned against god and others that's step one step two and this is this is uh you might think this is not a pleasant part of it and it's not meant to be it's conviction so in conviction i mean god has written his law in the hearts of many uh even unbelievers they they often have a conscience but a christian has a real sensitive conscience and um says in hebrews let's see here i've got these bookmarks all over the place um hebrews hebrews 12 6. for the lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he receives so when you get convicted you know you are you belong to the lord he chastises those he loves it's discipline it's it's part it's an indication that you are a child of god now what i want to do now just talk a little bit about the nature of conviction go to the psalms i want you to put maybe a finger in psalm 32 psalm 38 and psalm 51. i wanted to look at some of the symptoms and these are symptoms that will help you know that hey i'm a child of god um this is what conviction's like and these are these are great vivid descriptions you feel guilty psalm 38 4. let me look at that one psalm 38 4 for my iniquities have gone over my head like a heavy burden okay so conviction's like a heavy burden they're too heavy for me it's like a a backpack that's way too loaded up for you but don't stop there heavy burden wounds stink and fester so think of abscesses because of his foolishness utterly bowed down and prostrate so that has to do with the weight of the heavy burden go about mourning sides are filled with burning no soundness in my flesh i am feeble and crushed okay get the picture not a happy camper now in psalm 30 let's see psalm 32 3 this is when the psalmist keeps silent so again very similar imagery my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me so like heavy burden heavy hand this is not something that's enjoyable your my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer so imagine yourself in the deep south it's no i'm some of you from the deep south 95 humidity say 100 degrees out sunny you've got a heavy pack that's what the psalmist is describing this like and there's some skeletal references too my bones wasted away you know my another place uh in psalm 51 [Music] let the bones as it past tons let the bones that you have broken rejoice okay so crushed bones there's no soundness no health in my bones several other references to bones being crushed bone cancer that kind of imagery so you get get the picture that um you're just plain miserable okay loss of joy just plain miserable now that's step two so disobedience step two conviction confession step three this is the part where you're supposed to say the same thing as god you did this i'm convicting you confess and we often make go wrong with this we take it down all sorts of wrong roads and we're going to go through that but all confession is is admitting your sin to god with no excuses no qualifications no euphemisms you just lay it out on the table just the way god says it and that is hard for us to do not because it's hard to just say the same thing it's really easy to say the same thing technically last last you know but what makes it hard is our pride which is a sin we have to confess we don't want to admit that we're that bad so when we confess remember first john 1 9 or actually also in the psalms says the same thing psalm 32 this is wonderful i acknowledge my sin to you i said the same thing and i did not cover up my iniquity not hiding anything i said i will confess my transgressions to the lord and you forgave the guilt the iniquity of my sin and the famous new testament verse of first john 1 9 if we confess our sins these are skinny pages if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness but you have to say the same thing you have to confess your sins if you're spinning it if you're hiding it if you're excusing it if you're justifying it that's not saying the same thing if you say the same thing it's a promise he will forgive you and many christians don't experience a daily hourly joy of being forgiven because they just don't want to bend their knees and bend their neck and say i am wrong after you forgive remember look look back at all of those awful symptoms bones crushed hand heavy strength sapped in the heat of summer all the worst think of your worst possible day physically and and if you were a psalmist today you may write it differently like you know hot day mosquitoes you know whatever just think of the worst possible day that is conviction and when you come out of that imagine you you were you had a body cast bone cancer everything you've been in the hospital forever and then you just get healed and you come out and you're totally healthy and you walk out of the hospital can you imagine the joy even if you're a little wobbly you're totally healthy and mind and body the sun is shining the birds are chirping and you walk out of the hospital there is reasons for joy and gladness and that's what it's like when you're forgiven but many times we don't get to that stage it says in a second peter this is not a typical verse i normally go to but um on this topic but in second peter it says ii peter 1 6 1 5 for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and so on notice only knowledge appears where does it appear after virtue okay another translation goodness add to your faith but what do reformed presbyterians do faith and we go straight to knowledge and we start reading our bible which is great reading big fat books great but if you go to knowledge first without the virtue what's virtue is it being a good idea no virtue is being zealous to obey god and when you fail to obey god you would confess it right away that is goodness virtue but if you put knowledge first that is a bad recipe if you just add knowledge to your faith only you've got i mean the disciples um they they changed the world because the virtue came first the knowledge came after okay so i'm all for knowledge but if i had to choose between the two goodness goodness goodness first then knowledge on top of that so that is the general sequence of uh the confession forgiveness oh yeah i didn't finish the joy and gladness it's just there's psalm 51 8 that is a wonderful it says let the bones that you've broken rejoice um in psalm 32 the very beginning blessed is the one whose transgressions is forgiven whose sin is covered blessed is the man against whom the lord counts no iniquity in whose spirit there is no deceit so blessedness joy gladness whiter than snow no conviction no guilt it is one and you have fellowship with one another first john 1 7. you actually can fellowship and sometimes we think that the the the way to fellowship is thinking the same as joe down the pew if i can get if we can just get on the same page doctrinally i'll have fellowship you can have fellowship with somebody who's a totally different denomination they're walking in light you're walking in light you have fellowship with one another even if you you know you're all over the map doctrinally but somebody that's really matched up with you doctrinally but your one or both is not walking in the light no fellowship don't go for doctrinal uh matching to get your fellowship that's icing on the cake but walking in the light is what is the basis for fellowship so what could go wrong well there's a lot of things that go wrong let's consider some roadblocks to confession like i said it's not a difficult concept this is the shallow end of the theological pool it's even in the kiddie pool but we get stuck on so many things because of our pride here are some roadblocks we know what confession is so we go through the motions especially kids who grow up you know in the church and and you may just like we've got the we've got the drill down we kneel here we do this we do that bloody bloody blah confess our sins and it's not sincere there's no brokenness there's no contriteness the holy spirit you need to be convicted okay you need to be convicted about your sin and you might need to think on that a little bit if you feel no guilt you might think am i am i saved okay even if you grow up in the church we must be born again and if you feel no guilt there's always that possibility you either calloused your conscience in a in a big way but if you have no guilt whatsoever and you're just going through the motions you might not be born again broken contrite spirit is something that's necessary for saying the same thing but just saying the words without the contrite broken heart not not good the next one number two hide this is something that um adam and eve did when they were in sin first thing they did is hide in the bushes and jonah caught a ship to tarshish he's hiding the even this is the most juvenile okay dogs do this you know dog you know did indiscretion on the carpet what does the dog do hide okay so when people hide you know that there is that is is a trying to get out of it they don't want to confront the problem and let's move on three you justify instead of saying yeah i was wrong you say i was right i was you say i was impatient or angry oh it was righteous indignation righteous indignation because i've told the children many times not to do that and we we now rename it to justify ourselves and there's all sorts of justifications depending on what kind of sin it is that justification of making it right is going to look different for different sins but we don't want to justify something when it really is a sin you might even be convinced that it's wrong you go yeah this is excuse number four you excuse it yeah i was wrong but and that butt means god's going to give me an exemption or you're trying to get an exemption i was wrong but i don't have to confess because she made me do it adam did this eve gave me the fruit and i took and then eve pointed at the serpent the serpent deceived me so it's blame shifting all over the place that's that's one type of excuse it might be pointing fingers at others it might not even be others it just might be your circumstances like i'm tired i didn't get enough sleep i've got a headache i've it's cold and i don't have a coat and i'm grumpy i'm hungry whatever you're looking at your circumstances and you say my circumstances are bad enough that i don't have to confess because i've got an excuse it's not an excuse there are no excuses for sin zero no excuses for their reasons there may be reasons that pushed you to that temptation there's no excuse for sin ever you can't say it was that time of the month you cannot say and i can't say it's my you know wacky hormones can go for both genders okay that time of the month my testosterone was high i have an excuse you cannot blame your circumstances you can't blame your hormones you can't blame your anything anybody else you have to take it you have to take responsibility for that sin this is relating to excuse or justifications but use euphemisms which are basically making it sound less than it actually is like my bad my bad is not my sin we don't want to say i'm sorry i sinned against you we want to say i apologize because it sort of dials back on the intensity the sin we don't want to really it sticks in our throat to say i sinned against you would say i was just a little grumpy sorry about that my bad remember a confession is saying the same thing not spinning it to make you feel like you're doing something less procrastination number two so euphemisms five procrastination put it off you just don't want to deal with it because your life is busy i don't have time i don't have time to confess i'm just going going going going going do you have time to sleep do you have no actually no you have time you have time to sleep you have time to eat you have time to brush your teeth you have time to you know you well some people don't even give time for that but if you have oral hygiene that is important so your teeth don't rot out of your head but you want to have soul hygiene you need to confess your sins and you need to loosen up your schedule so that you can get alone with god and sincerely confess your sins don't put it off don't say it was too many don't say it can't remember them all sit down and start confessing nobody's perfect number seven nobody's perfect that's like saying everybody else is just as dirty as i am so why take a shower we don't grade on the curb we don't look at other people's state and how much they obey or disobey or how much they confess you don't if you're dirty you take a shower it doesn't matter if you're living with a bunch of cavemen that don't okay take a shower and don't be going on what the don't be calibrating your sin meter on what everybody else says is wrong or right because sometimes there's a lot of christians that do a certain thing and it's wrong but you get acclimated to it everybody's doing it nobody thinks nobody everybody just winks at that so you get to thinking oh it's okay and you need to recalibrate your sin meter by scripture not by what other christians say is okay always be in the word and always be looking at what god calls sin not by what the church may be doing or not doing i'm not i'm going to do it again this is number eight so why confess that's similar to the last one it's like saying i'm going to get dirty again so why take a shower it makes abs neither one of those make any sense at all and this one's number nine is very very and i've alluded to it already pride runs through all of them i can't face the shame if it's just me and god and i'm sinned against god then okay i'll confess that because it's just god understands my frame and and i and he he knows all and i'll confess to god but if i have to confess it to somebody else i can't yes you can you must because you say but and there are people that actually want to live their whole life with bones crushed bones wasting away hand heavy upon them strength sapped as in the heat of summer they would rather do that than have a little bit of shame in front of somebody that they think would go you did what we can't handle that and why can't we handle that it's pride and we have to confess the pride of not willing you say but okay if i'm a brand new christian yeah i'll fi i'm i'm i'm humble if you're kid you're humble but when you have got you're a say a established churchman say and you're say a preacher you're a bible scholar and you have to go and say i did this thing and you have to make it right horizontally to somebody else that takes humility and if you find yourself getting stuck confess the pride and do it because we need to be very very earnest and diligent about making things right i'm not going to do bitterness because that's been done yahoo but if you're bitter confess that make it right by the way don't if they don't know you're bitter they happily think you've loved them for the last five years and you know you've been bitter then just confess it to god don't go don't go to them say you know i've hated your guts for the last five years will you forgive me no that's that's uh not necessary confess it vertically but do confess it horizontally if you if if it is they know you've been bitter they know you've hated them you've got to make it right horizontally number 10 worldly sorrow leads to death second corinthians okay godly sorrow leads this is a paraphrase because i don't want to be messing with my skinny pages um second second corinthians 7 10. for godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret whereas worldly grief produces death men there are christians that feel like yes i have come under conviction my bones are crushed strength sapped weight heavy but that's not enough i am such a worm and i'm going to naval gaze and i'm going to beat myself up and i'm going to introspect and flag you know self flagellation whip myself and gnaw and gnash my teeth because the conviction of the holy spirit isn't enough i'm going to beat myself up i'm going to put myself in the dog house and i'm going to wallow around in my sin good and hard and then maybe god will forgive me that is insidious if you feel like you're adding to the holy spirit's work that is works righteousness that some kind of weird penance thing going on there is only one atonement and that is the blood of jesus it is not your self-flagellation your self-loathing god that's worldly sorrow and you must not do worldly sorrow at least to death stop it some kind of protestant penance it's it's it's it's not protestant it's more catholic i got to beat myself up that is not that that's adding to you're trying to add to the atonement and that is not good you say but what if i miss something is this is like some kind of rotten easter egg hunt and and i'm what if i forget something holy spirit convicts in psalm 139 it says what sir psalm 139 23-24 search me o god introspection is what search me o me search me o me i am going to do this analysis i'm going to inspect my heart i am going to grub around and look for my dirt look for my this is a rotten easter egg hunt and the holy spirit is going ha ha he didn't find that one rotten egg and he's going to have to live with it no the holy spirit convicts you of your sin you don't have to look for them search me o god and then once he says this is your rotten easter egg this is your rotten egg then you confess it and then he throws it into the deepest part of the ocean as far as from the east is from the west but what is the the penance form you crack the rotten egg and smear it all over yourself and go oh i'm such a wretch no just confess it and then receive his forgiveness that's godly sorrow that leads to repentance so and 12 lack of clarity and specificity don't be vague with god don't say forgive me for whatever i've done wrong in the last month yeah he knows but we are to confess our sins not we we don't we don't confess that we are sinners we don't say yes i am theoretically a sinner can forgive me for whatever no confess him specifically confess the lust confess the lie confess the laziness confess the anger confess the bitterness confess the hatred confess the anxiety confess the envy confess the covetousness confess the gossip confess the grumbling and complaining confess the stealing and on some of those it's just between you and god but on some of those if it's stealing you have to make restitution which means you have to this is the pride thing i would i would do all of this if i didn't have to humble myself before people i cheated i'm i'm there i'm an outstanding student and i cheated three years ago how could i go to my professor and say i cheated that would be just too humiliating you want to be clean go okay there's a story on that but maybe that could be on the q q a um so those are most of the the roadblocks to sin confess them specifically so let's just conclude with a brief recapitulation confess your sins to god humbly sincerely honestly and regularly when they happen two don't justify don't excuse don't hide don't spin your sin don't procrastinate don't be vague be specific confess even the sins that many christians think are acceptable make things right vertically be between you and god and horizontally if necessary by going to whoever you were you wronged whether it's cheating or stealing restitution three and this has to do with killing i've been talking mostly about cleaning up after your dragon this next step is related but it's killing the dragon put to death the sins in your life so confession is the ambulance at the bottom putting to death the sins in your life is going you know i seem to be going off the cliff hourly um i think i will maybe i won't have to always be doing the ambulance thing maybe i'll put a guard rail at the top so that is um dealing with sin that guard rail the top or you you kill the dragon you say i'm tired of cleaning up these i've got 25 dragons running around the house imagine like the how to train your dragon but you're treating them like pets get the lust dragon the lie dragon you got run them running around the house and you're constantly cleaning up after them confessing your sins confessing confessing confessing guess what when they're sound asleep in their kennel put a bullet through their head kill it you'll find that you won't be cleaning up as much so it's killing your dragon if you like a horticultural analogy yes confessing sins is plucking up weeds right when they pop up but you see that 15 foot weed stalk next to your garden that's showering weeds across your whole garden plot all day long cut it down get rid of the source get rid of the source of the seeds don't just be running around 24 7. yes if if your weeds are popping up 24 7 confess them but get rid of the source and then lastly it's not just getting rid of the source that's killing the dragon that's putting the fence at the top of the of the cliff but one more thing and that is replacing the sins and doug mentioned this a bit ago it's replacing god in the in the bible we always see that it's not just it's not just um getting rid of the bad it's always replacing with good says hate what is evil cling to what is good don't be drunk with wine be filled with the holy spirit there are so many examples of replacing philippians 4 8 whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is praiseworthy whatever is lovely what is admirable whatever is excellent whatever is praiseworthy think about these things so once you've killed all your dragons bring in good pets okay bring in good pets on this on the horticultural analogy bring in crops don't just be full-time plucking weeds fill in your soil with crops which is all the good things in life because if you leave your soil empty weeds are just going to come back in full force and lastly for remember forgiveness is a gift that's already been paid for by the blood of jesus don't try to atone for your sin by wallowing in that is works not grace let's pray father thank you very much for your word thank you for uh your love for us i pray that you would be uh applying that we your spirit would apply this in our life for the rest of our lives in jesus name amen you

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Length: 47min 2sec (2822 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020