What do you do when you know you have done wrong? On Sunday evening Tim King put that plain question in front of us and answered it from Scripture, starting all the way back in the garden. When Adam and Eve ate what God had told them not to eat, their first instinct was not to come clean. They hid. They blamed. Adam pointed at Eve, Eve pointed at the serpent, and the excuses piled up. None of it changed a thing. The sin was still there to answer for.
The oldest instinct: hide and blame
We know those moves because we still make them. Blame, hide, lie, make excuses, tell another lie to cover the first one. They might keep us from being found out for a little while, but not one of them makes us right with God. Each one only digs the hole deeper.
David stops hiding
For a better way, Tim took us to David. Psalm 51 is the prayer David prayed after his great sin, after months of covering it up, once the prophet Nathan finally brought him face to face with the truth. Listen to where David starts. Not with a list of his good qualities, not with a reminder that he once faced down Goliath, but with a plea for mercy. Wash me, cleanse me, blot out what I have done. He owns it. Against you, you only, have I sinned. He stops hiding and simply tells God the truth.
What actually makes us clean
That is the heart of confession, and it is exactly what the New Testament asks of a Christian. First John says that if we claim we have no sin we are only fooling ourselves, but if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What makes us clean is not our tears, real as they may be, and not a promise to try harder and make up for it. It is the blood of Jesus. David longed for that cleansing. We have been given it.
A clean heart, not just a clear record
Confession is not the end of the prayer. David asks God for something more: create in me a clean heart. You can wash dirty hands, but what do you do when the problem is on the inside, in what you wanted and chose? You bring that to God too, and you ask Him to make you willing to do what pleases Him. He is not standing off at a distance waiting to be chased down. When one of His own does wrong, He is not shoving us away. He wants us back in step with Him.
Honesty, and a friend who will listen
Then David looks outward. A restored man says, I will teach transgressors your ways. The one who fell becomes the one who helps others back. That is who God is. He brings life where there was death. Tim closed with the help God gives us for this: an honest friend. James says to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another, that we may be healed. Pride is what keeps us from reaching for that help, and pride is exactly what the enemy is counting on.
The door is open
So the door is not shut. If you have done something you know you should not have, you can come home. Tell God the truth, trust the cleansing He gives through Jesus, and get back in step.