What Do I Do When I Do Wrong

Introduction

Well, good evening. It is a pleasure to be with you once again this evening. For those who are our guests tonight, glad that you are here, part of our worship. Now, into the part of our hour where we’re getting into our Bibles. We’re going to be in John or Psalm 51 here in just a few minutes. We’ll look at another section in scripture as we move into our time together. But have your Bibles ready. I certainly want to make sure that you get in front of you what it is that we have ourselves focusing on in the text because of the topic.

It’s critical, a very important topic. In fact, thank you, Matt, for the song choices. If you thought, well, these are all invitation songs. Yeah, they fit well with where we’re headed because our discussion tonight is what to do when I do wrong. And I think this is just one of those that we take a few minutes of our time to examine and reflect. Perhaps you might be asking that very question and maybe it’s one of those that maybe that you have some insight to or at least are inclined to give answer to and knowing what to do in the case when you do wrong.

But we’re going to get right to what the scriptures do teach and what we do have assurance in and also maybe to just be reminded of and that’s always a good thing for us. So the goal tonight is simply this that whenever we sin we can honestly return to God. There’s not something that’s going to refrain from having us to do that, setting us back other than just our own will and our own desire to stay in sin. But we can honestly return to him, seek his cleansing, and learn to walk faithfully if that’s what we desire to do.

And I want to take the time to consider that this or this evening. And as we get into that idea, I want you to just think back to the beginning, Genesis 3, Adam and Eve. So the scene is the garden of Eden. We know by way of just perhaps we haven’t read it in front of us directly maybe, but if you haven’t, it’s a great thing to read and know that there is a lot that happens in that very first sin with man that we can learn a lot about. And one of the things that you begin to see in this scene is that God had told them not to eat from a particular tree, but they listened to the serpent and they ended up eating.

Now they had done what God told them not to do. But what happened next? Whenever they heard God approaching in the garden, what they ended up doing in that moment is that they hid. Seemed that they were scared. We learned that they’re ashamed, but they hid. And then whenever God questioned Adam, Adam, do you remember what he did? He pointed to Eve and then he even mentioned that God had given her to him almost as if to say it’s kind of you two as your fault God in a way.

I think that’s there. And whenever God questioned Eve, she pointed to the serpent. So it’s just a bunch of fingerpointing. But they found themselves hidden. God called them out from behind the tree. And then so what you see here right off the bat, you get blame. You get people who hide. You get lying. And then ultimately as it starts to unfold some more, you get people start making excuses. And the only way that you can continue this is to just continue lying, covering up the dishonesty, pushing aside the shame, putting aside the idea that my ego or my pride might be directly affected in this moment if I don’t continue to try to elevate what I might find myself having to surrender to, which could be punishment.

And so all this to say, did hiding change anything? Nope. Did any of those things on the screen change anything? Nothing. Their sin was still the very thing that they had to answer to God for what they had done. And we recognize these responses on the screen, don’t we? A lot of like of what we maybe have done in our time. We definitely see this in the lives of parenting with our children and maybe just other areas of our life. We begin to see this stuff start to take place. But look at the question again now.

What do I do when I do wrong? Because that’s going to be the focus. These things that we see on the screen might help someone avoid being found out for a little while, but not a single one of those things on the screen is going to make you right with God. Each and every one of those are going to keep you in a further and further deficit with your debt to sin. And none of it’s going to make you right. Not a single one. So, as we think about all of those excuses and setting them aside, I want our attention to be brought to David.

And that’s where Psalm 51 fits in. There’s a popular part of David’s life. This is 2 Samuel chapter 11. This is in the highlight or the prime, maybe not so much the prime, but it’s when everything is going great with David and all of a sudden you have this dark spot. And that’s the scene of David’s sin, his great sin. And it happened on the roof when he was supposed to be out at war with the other kings who were at war. And he committed adultery, committed murder.

And all of this cover up began to unfold, a process that had him in a position where we then get to see a heart that unfolds itself to total surrender to God. And that’s Psalm 51. after he tried to do the concealing, after he tried to after letting his guard down, cover up what he thought might not affect him, God sent Nathan, who was a prophet. Another way to just put that in mind, a man of God came to the king and approached the king with the truth as if to say, “You’re someone who needs to deal with the sin because it’s affecting everything that’s going on in this life, your life, and everything around you.

And so Nathan the prophet approached him. David finally admitted his sin. And that’s where Psalm 51 lets us hear his prayer. So what we’ll do, we’re going to follow that prayer. We’re then going to read what Christians are taught to do whenever they sin. And then notice for a few minutes there how David stops hiding and brings his heart honestly before God. And that’s what I want us to consider tonight. How we tell the truth. That’s where we’re going to start here.

1. We Tell the Truth

So Psalm 51, let’s read the first two verses. Listen to the thing that first comes from David. The first thing that David asks for, he says, “Have mercy on me, oh God, according to the your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. So, let’s think a minute on what go David is asking God to do here. We could camp out in this for quite some time. Even reading it out loud, more just seems to pop out.

But the first idea is having mercy. David can have as much justification within his own thinking. He can try to conceal what he can still can. But it’s not going to make the difference. He knows that God knows God’s the one who also provides mercy. And so, as we see, he asks wash to be washed to be cleansed. And notice how he says it. Wash me thoroughly. Not just wash me, but it’s almost as if like make sure that this is done in such a way that there’s no concern that anything’s left.

That’s kind of what I’m getting from that. Wash me inside and out kind of idea. in those words that he’s using, the transgressions, his iniquity, his sin, all of this describing what he’s done. And he knows it’s right there before him. He can’t he can’t hide it from me and it any longer. And what David knows is that David needs God’s help. He’s gone on with this long enough. It had been months at least. And what we see is David needing God. So notice what he appeals to.

He appeals to God’s steadfast love. It’s there all the time. Whenever we think we have someone we love and it’s just forceful and passionate and nothing could ever change our minds since there’s our love for our children, God just succeeds that beyond our comprehension. And David is calling on that. And it’s steadfast. Think of a boulder that doesn’t move. If you try to shove it out of the way, the rock is standing there firm. That’s the idea there.

So, he’s calling on that love because God’s promised that he’s unchanging. And then you also see him calling on that abundant mercy. We maybe have heard the psalm, your mercies are new every morning. You can think of the rising of the sun, how it’s promised. There’s no one who’s never seen a a sunset not happen. It’s a guarantee. It’s going to do what it’s always done. So will God’s mercy. And if you’re not aware of that promise, fall in love with that because it’s going to save your life many a days when you’re hanging by a thread in despair and wondering how you’re going to get through this next day.

Remember that God is merciful and it’s unending and he wants you to receive that. Don’t forget that it’s going to save your life just like it did here with David. So David doesn’t begin by listing all of these things that he’s done since the sin has happened. Maybe how he’s cleaned up his life. None of that is in David’s mind. The only focus here is what he needs from God. That matters for us. Because whenever we do wrong, you and I might want to explain why we are still a pretty good person.

or remember that time that I slayed Goliath and saved a nation. None of that’s there. But our good deeds don’t make the wrong disappear no matter how much we do. So, we need to bring the wrong to God. And that’s where I would say underneath this, take responsibility. Take responsibility. Own up to it. Have that be part of what you come back to. Because listen to what David says in verse three and verse 4. A little word that David repeats here. Notice, “For I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

So that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” So whose sin does he talk about? His he owns it. And he then he recognizes God again and again and again calling on him to be the one that’s going to be able to take res to handle what he’s now going to be approaching him with, which is his transgressions. God, I’ve sinned. I know it. God, I need your help. And that’s where we are right here. He’d certainly hurt other people.

His words about sinning against God don’t erase any of that. It’s still going to be by way of what had happened. He’ll still suffer consequences because of those things. But he recognizes that the wrong he did to those people was also this disobedience to God that he needed to have wiped clean. He felt as if he couldn’t move forward because of that. And so he can’t make things right by continuing to hide from him. And that’s what we see here going back to Genesis 3. Shifting the blame will never work.

Putting the weight of your transgressions off to the side as if well maybe that’s just that’s just in the past now and I’m going to try to forget about that. It’s going to still weigh. God is the one who is merciful. He’s the one who will cleanse us. So think about which of these statements would tell the truth back in Genesis 3 for a moment if we had this idea of well I shifted the blame because you were going to get mad or I shifted the blame and I own that.

That’s on me. I’m wrong. Things would have changed dramatically. One of those owns the choice. The other one tries to explain it away. And that’s the thing. We can do that as much as we can try explain what happened without using the explanation to push onto somebody else as their responsibility. It’s not working. And that’s what confession is all about. That’s what truly being responsible is about. We honestly admit our sin because God knows what happened.

2. What Christians Are to Do: Confess Our Sins

And that confession is whenever we stop hiding and come to agree with him about it. And that’s the first big idea here is we tell the truth. So let’s go into this idea for what Christians are to do. John says in first John, this is a very good verse to come back to especially for those who find themselves needing to figure out what do I do when I do wrong. For a Christian, first John chapter 1, this is a great one to highlight. I want to start in verse eight.

Because this is kind of the mindset that we tend to maybe carry from one day to the next at some point where we say maybe to oursel that everything’s okay, that I’ve done no wrong. Well, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So, don’t do that. Don’t pretend as if, well, it’s not that big a deal or it’s not like it’s as bad as what I’ve done in the past or it’s not like it’s what others are doing. I’m not killing anybody, right? It’s not as severe as I might think. Well, don’t deceive yourself because notice what he says here.

A promise. If we are we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You hear the language of Psalm 51 in that. It’s the same idea. You come clean, take responsibility, you confess it, and you recognize he, that’s God, that’s Jesus, the blood of Christ, has done this. And that’s what he mentions in other parts of this section. Jesus has done all of this for us to be able to come to him. And he’s faithful to do what he says he’s going to do, which is cleanse you.

But you can’t deceive yourself as if you’ve done nothing wrong. You got to come to God and take responsibility for it. So, confess our sins. And what God does is this promise of forgiving and cleansing. That’s amazing. David didn’t have that. We do. And all of this rests on the fact that God is faithful. His love is steadfast. And his mercy is unending. So, we don’t ever have to wonder whether he means what he says. We can take him for exactly as he says it.

3. Create in Me a Clean Heart

Never forget that. So, let’s go on. David’s told the truth about what he did, but his prayer keeps on going here. So, now listen to what he asked God to do inside of him. This is incredible stuff because it doesn’t stop after you confess your sin. You got to move up or step up and move on from that prayer and go about living your life. So, what does that look like? Well, David asked for something and it starts in verse 10. David wants a clean heart.

So verse 10, create in me a clean heart, oh God. And renew a right spirit within me. The thing that the spirit’s been wrong. He’s been messing up. So 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 the willing spirit. So what does David want God to make clean? that heart of his, that’s what’s inside of him. If you get your hands muddy, you can wash them. But what do you do whenever the problem is inside of you?

Whenever you’ve wanted the wrong thing and you’ve chosen it and then maybe you tried to hide it, what then? What do you do when you do wrong? David brings that need to God. And what David does is he asks for a clean heart. He asks for this renewed spirit and the joy of being right with God again. So David needs help, but he needs help with that person that’s inside of him. He needs forgiveness and he wants to become willing to do what pleases God.

He wants that restored because one of the things that he’s struggling with is getting his life right with God. So David’s request just real quick concerning the Holy Spirit belongs to David as Israel’s king. We live in a New Testament time. We have the Holy Spirit within us by way of the promise of all things. We know his word is revealed to us fully. We’ve got some amazing things that David didn’t. So no concern that God’s Holy Spirit’s going to be removed from us.

No concern there at all. We don’t see that. But we shouldn’t have this idea that God also will be mad at me and turn away from me and I need to chase him back down so that he’ll be friends with me again. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. We can make him sad. And the way I always like to think through that is you have a best friend in your life that you go everywhere with your running partner. You never argue. You never fight. You are best friends. But when you do something totally totally shameful, they’re not applauding you and putting their arm around you.

there may be just standing there waiting for things to just get right with your mind again. That’s how I see all of this is that God is always calling on us to return back to that state of faithfulness hand in hand in step with him and his spirit at all times keeping in step with his word. But whenever we make a mistake, he’s not shunning us, pushing us aside. He simply wants us to remain near him, live faithfully. So confess your sins, get right with God.

He’s going to cleanse you as you bring back in this sense of fellowship with him and turn from sin because Jesus has done the very thing that David did not have. We’ve received and let’s read about that. So that goes back to First John. If you kept your phone there or your Bible there for just a moment, verse seven, listen for what cleanses Christians from sin here. Catch this. Verse seven of first John chapter 1. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, there’s that fellowship, that hand in hand.

We have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin. So what cleanses us? His blood. Jesus. Everything about Jesus is making us right with God. his death for us. The forgiveness is possible because Jesus gave his life for our sins. That blood, we talk about it all the time. So, every bit of what we might feel remorse for, a situation happens that has us completely collapse in a way that we’re pouring out our tears.

Is our tears saving us? Nope. Our tears are perhaps heard. Our cries are heard, but they’re not cleansing us. Nor do I promise something that I will never do again and I’m going to make up for it with a bunch of hard work. That’s not going to cleanse me either. Some religions teach that, but the scriptures don’t. What we learn and what we need is that the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ provides everything. And John calls Christians to walk in the light again to live openly before God to follow his truth to not keep getting inclined to go that direction and this direction which is off course.

But when we do we confess and we get straight again. It’s that simple. So these words are teaching Christians how to continue and abide with God. How to keep in step. Some of us are still learning what it means to believe in Jesus and to obey the gospel and to take heart and all of these things that we’re promised it’s going to take time and we keep learning. We keep asking questions. But I would say we get this figured out. What do I do when I do wrong? We get this locked down. You’re going to have some much better days ahead of you, my friend.

4. Looking Forward to a Restored Life

Because here we are seeing how God provides cleansing for his people whenever they do wrong. So we tell the truth. We confess. We then depend on God for cleansing through Jesus. And where does that take us next? Well, let’s go back to Psalm 51 verse 13. So, David looks toward this changed life. He has this cleansing, this renewedness that he’s depending on God for. And notice what he plans to do in verse 13. He says, “Then so if all this happens, then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.”

He’s going to basically tell about how good God is because of what things he’s done that didn’t have him worthy or deserving of God’s love, God still gave it. And he’s going to share that good news. All this to say he’s going to return to God with the intentions that others will be returned to him or brought to him because that’s the very thing that’s good about God. God restores. God brings life where there is death. So, he’s going to teach others God’s ways.

The man who ended up doing wrong of hurting other people is now going to go and try and help them to do what he can to share the things that God would do for them. Look at verse 15. He says, “Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.” It sounds like all of the hardship or all of the things he had done has basically kept him from be having the credentials to say anything. like he didn’t have the right to be in a position to tell someone what they shouldn’t do because he just got out of the mess himself.

So, what I think is happening here is he’s asking God to give him that assurance and that confidence, that place, and that position to open up what it is that he knows, to speak about how awesome God is, and to perhaps teach others what it is that they need to know. He has reason to praise God. And so David’s prayer is now moving back to this life that’s serving God. So here we have it. A life that’s that’s been quite ashamed. One that maybe started with the hiding and the covering up through lies and the deception and you name it.

All that to say that now he wants to get back to the state of serving. He’s looking forward to what a restored life can become. And I hope you are too. If that’s one of the things you find yourself in is that pit. We can call it a pit of despair. We can just call it the pit that just kept keeps you confined as you stay low in the things that you’ve done and you have a tough time climbing out and getting back on track. As you’re low, understand that a restored life can come.

And it’s all by way of what we’re talking about tonight. Again and again, God’s people are going to find themselves needing help. And sometimes a snare does come and it gets you. Sometimes we walk into traps purposefully, knowingly, willingly, but repentance is still the very thing that’s needed for us to get back to God. And maybe that’s where you are tonight. So you go back to Genesis 3, you look at that example and you start to see that the lying and the covering up, all of the deception, the only thing to move forward is honesty, to own it.

If our wrong hurt somebody, we need to take responsibility for that. If we did something that we need to apologize for, we need to do that to write our wrong, to have ourselves in a position where we’re forgiven by God doesn’t guarantee that consequences are going to disappear. Someone may need time to trust again. It takes a little bit perhaps from a position of being so bankrupt with your credentials that you got to build them back up in your relationships.

5. We Can Come to God with Honesty

But we can begin doing what’s right right now. And it starts by what we’re seeing here with being honest. Look at verse 17. Verse 17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. You find yourself in this position as he says this contrite that’s deeply sorry for what you’ve done. You can think of just the position of having your heart heart in this kind of state where every bit of what you have yourself trying to do to get right with God really comes down to how much you’re willing to break have your heart pour out the very things that need to get honest about.

And sometimes, like Martin Luther said, pour out the heart water, which is your tears. And recognize that a state of nakedness before your God with humility is the very thing that will have us crying out for his mercy. And that’s what I see with David is that God’s desiring none other than a heart that’s broken and that can come to him with the hopes of having it remmended. He’ll never despise that. Which helps us see this very big idea is that we can come to God with honesty.

We get dishonest with a lot of people and that’s a temptation perhaps that we fall into all too often. We aren’t forthcoming or we’re not just so open in our conversations and maybe we shouldn’t be with everybody. But whenever you think about what one can have in their relationship is this open, honest expression of their heart to where they confess, there’s a good thing to be had there. James 5:16 talks about that. This is another good one to highlight, another good one to make note of because we can receive help from one another.

And this is one of those passages for Christians to have and hang on to because notice how he puts it here. James 5:16, he says to confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. Do you have someone like that in your life that you can get that close to? Someone that you can genuinely g up the courage to just tell them eye to eye without any concern that they’re going to leave you and forsake you and say, “I’ve done something I need to tell you about.”

And then you can trust that that person might even open up the suggestion of praying for you. Or you could ask and they’d be willing to. Do you have that kind of person in your life? Because he says that if you do and you confess your sins, you pray for one another, you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. You surround yourself with honest people, you’re going to be doing really well in life because you’re not going to find a whole lot of them.

But you surround yourself with those who live a righteous life, they can save your life in a hurry. But you got to get honest with them. We can’t have ourselves continuing to live a life as if everything is okay. Just as David did as king, as if all things are fine, not only in the palace, but with the entire kingdom. We can’t continue to tell everyone when they ask how we’re doing. Oh, I’m fine. I’m doing just fine. No worries. I’m good. All to realize we’ve shut every door of opportunity to open ourselves up in such a way that we may need to most. Like we’re seeing here.

Two things James tells Christians to do here in order to get healed is to confess and to pray. How often are we doing that? Because that’s hard to do. And it’s hard to do if you don’t have people in your life that are close to you. Sometimes we need to tell someone that we’ve done something wrong. I did this and I’m sorry. Sometimes we need help from a faithful Christian who can pray with us. and even just keep alongside us and bear that burden and help us do what’s right and take us into the direction that oftentimes we don’t go into.

Now again, this doesn’t mean we tell every person every detail of everything we’ve ever done, but it does mean that we shouldn’t have have pride being the very thing that keeps us from seeking help. And that’s what the devil would have us do every time. So there is a way back. If you done something and you know it’s something you shouldn’t have done, you can come home. The door’s not shut nor locked. It’s open. And so I want us to just think about where we started. What can we do whenever we do wrong?

Conclusion

We could do what we see crossed out on the side, which those are pretty innate in us to want to do. Like we we we we’re quick to think that we might want to blame and hide and lie and make excuses. But God’s people grow up. They mature to the point where they don’t do that kind of childish stuff anymore. And as they grow and they mature and they are more like Christ, they find themselves doing as we see here, telling the truth, asking God to help them, and then coming back into fellowship with God as soon as they can.

So, what happens if I do wrong? Sin is a serious thing. But as we’ve seen, hiding, it’s not the way back and it’s also not the way things that how they’re going to be in heaven. It should never be the way that we live here because we can tell God the truth. Each and every one of us can seek his cleansing and his help. He provides Jesus the very through Jesus the very cle thing that we need which is that cleansing that we cannot find anywhere else in this life.

[crying] If you’re here tonight as one who thinks they feel clean simply because they’re just not talking about their past and they’ve just buried those skeletons in the closet and have turned a blind eye to the sins behind them. I encourage you to get right with God because he’s the very one that’s calling you. I challenge you to live a life that pleases him with a heart that becomes more inclined to honesty and confession and seeking someone who can help you.

Because what we’ve learned to do when a heart chooses wrong is something that we often are too familiar with. But David’s prayer gives us words that we can always remember and that’s to create in me a clean heart. Oh God, do you need that tonight? If so, I want to encourage you to let us know. And if it’s one of those things you need to just do in your private space, in your closet, and you need to just lay yourself out in a way you have not done in quite some time, please do it.

You won’t regret it. If you need to bring Christ your broken life tonight, we can help you.