Can I just say "I'm sorry" about sin?

What happens when we come face to face with our sin?

Do we shrink away? Do we turn away? Do we hide?
Do we offer excuses? Do we place blame? Do we justify ourselves?
Do we bargain? Do we really commit this time to try harder?
Do we tend to our own wounds, touch up our exposed selves, re-frame our broken pieces?
Do we just say we’re sorry?

Can we just say we’re sorry and have it be ok?

When confronted with our sin, God’s heart is for us to confess and repent. Is that the same as saying “I’m sorry”?

If you journey with me, you know we've been tracking with David’s story in 2 Samuel 11-12. When his sin and heart were exposed...

“David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the LORD.’ Nathan replied, ‘The LORD has taken away your sin.’” (2 Samuel 12:13)

Was it merely words? Did he just say he was sorry, and that's it? Presto change-o, everything was ok?

Read 1 John 1:8-10.

What does this say about confessing sin? What does it say if we deny that we have sin?

Confessing is coming to God and declaring openly to God what you have done, not denying anything but instead agreeing with Him fully, that what you've done, said, or thought was against Him and His ways.

So are these verses about being saved or confessing our sins on a Tuesday? Yes.

If you have not trusted Christ as your Savior, this is the Good News! Tell God about your sin and be washed clean!

If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, consider the words of Jennifer Kennedy Dean. “Jesus knew [forgiveness] would be finished at the Cross…It is the confessing and turning from a sin that brings the Father’s forgiveness into your experience.”  (Set Apart)

Kevin DeYoung explains confession this way: “The cleansing [when we confess], mind you, is not like the expunging of a guilty record before the judge. That’s already been accomplished. This cleansing is more like the scraping of barnacles off the hull of a ship so it can move freely again. We need confession of sin before God like a child needs to own up to her mistakes before Mom and Dad, not to earn God’s love, but to rest in it and know it more fully…1 John 1:9, then, is not just about getting saved. It’s also about living as a saved person and enjoying it.”

Confession.

So what actually took place when David said “I have sinned against the LORD”?

Look closer at two truths with me.

David had a change in his heart.
David’s confession was not just “I've sinned,” or, “I am sorry I got caught.” The words “against the LORD” are key. David realized that all his sin, everything that he had done as his heart was led astray, all of it, was against God. Those words reveal that his heart that was once led astray and calloused was now broken. At that moment he was turning back to God, His ways, and their relationship.

David had a change in his god.
Pastor and leader Jeff Vanderstelt has a profound definition for repentance.

Repentance isn't a change of behavior.
Repentance is a change of our god which will lead to a change of behavior.

David didn't say, “I'm sorry, I won't do that anymore. I am going to do all these things better and different.” Or, “Well I can't fix this, but I did try to make this right.” David didn't change his behavior first. He changed his god.

Who had his god been? Who had he followed and worshiped? Who had he lived for?
Himself, his wants, his needs, his desires, his ability to cover up, his comfort. Himself.

Repentance meant that David would turn away from the god of himself and his desires and turn towards the LORD.

David confessed his sin. The LORD was faithful and just to forgive David of his sins and cleanse him from all unrighteousness. David’s story after this moment was a journey with God beyond this sin, and living in fellowship (deep, active, connected relationship) with God.

When cracks in our hard exteriors are pierced in a moment by light, and what we've done is exposed?
When truth finally penetrates what feels like a layer of tar that seems to coat our hearts and souls, causing feeling in a place once anesthetized?

I’m sorry...?

If those words usher you into God's heart for you to fully

Confess. Repent.

then surely, humbly, use them.

Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny

Experiencing Forgiveness - How I feel forgiven

I think about how I could encourage you this week, and it’s like standing in a candy store, trying to choose something I know you’d love. It’s all incredible, but what’s the sweetest thing I could give you?

During Easter weekend, I want to give you the glorious truth about His forgiveness.

I have found that the longer we walk in a relationship with God and the more God reveals about Who He is, the greater our desire becomes to know and understand forgiveness. When you feel this way, consider these truths:

You stand forgiven.

That work was done on the cross. God tells us that “in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” (Ephesians 1:7)

 

This is just a slice of an incredible Psalm (Ps. 103) that tells us that God’s love is immeasurable and infinite, and so is the distance He puts between us and our sins. God does not have a trash bucket full of our sins sitting behind His throne that He pulls out when we come to Him, picking up pieces of our trash and messes, showing them to us again, with a stern look of disapproval. No, He throws our sin infinitely away from us, seeing us only through the precious blood of His Son, Jesus. You stand…

Fully forgiven.

What’s more, “Out of sheer generosity He puts us in right standing with Himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where He always wanted us to be. And He did it by means of Jesus Christ.” (Romans 3:24, MSG) If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you are justified freely--you have Christ’s record of having always obeyed.

What astonishing, freeing truths!

Now I could agree with all of that in my head, and even in my heart, but I’ll let you in on something, I haven’t always felt forgiven. The truth has been told, but the truth be lived or the truth be felt, I have believed that Biblically, God would forgive me. The Bible says in the verses above that God forgives sin because of Jesus’ death on the cross. He does forgive, He will forgive. Absolutely. But I didn't know how He felt about it, and therefore,

I didn't know how to feel forgiven.

I learned something in Psalm 51, a bedrock of my journey to living beyond my past—my journey to wholeness, and it has helped me understand how God feels about forgiving me.

Psalm 51:1-2

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your unfailing love; according to Your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 

2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

When we long to be forgiven, to tell God about our sin, get it out in the open, and be set free from it, we come to Him with words that sound a lot like

Have mercy on me, O God,

But how does He have mercy? Or why would He?

According to a contract that says He does? According to how hard I ask or how bad I feel? According to how far I've already come in trying to fix my mess?

No.

We know we can ask for mercy and that He will have mercy on us

according to Your unfailing love;

according to Your great compassion

Look at the order of the truths in verses 1-2. His unfailing love precedes forgiveness. His great compassion comes before our confession has ever left our lips. It’s because of these things that He moves to forgive us.

David called and relied upon God’s unchanging character. Consider that your character is known because of who you are and what you do. God set the rules for love and love is always demonstrative. Compassion is sympathy that’s moved to action. Love shows, compassion shows. God is unfailing, faithful love and great, abundant compassion. It is His very nature of love and compassion that is demonstrated in forgiveness.

I think sometimes I don’t feel forgiveness because I don’t believe He loves me without failing when I've failed, and that He has great compassion that He pours out on me when I've screwed up…again. Because I have not been unchanging, because I have wavered, I wonder if God’s love or sympathy for me has changed or run out. Therefore, I just call on and rely on the “have mercy on me” and “wash this away” parts, hoping that part of the gospel still stands, even if God’s “feelings” towards me have changed.

The problem with my thinking is love and compassion aren't God’s feelings, they are His unchanging character. They are Him. When I believe Him, when I call on His unchanging character, then I will begin to fully experience—that’s see, know, and feel—His forgiveness.

blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity

and cleanse me from my sin.

And it is full forgiveness. The individual words here all have special meanings. He wanted his rebellion, his premeditated sin to be wiped out, obliterated. He wanted his personal perversity, moral evil, depravity, guilt and fault to be intensively, intentionally, thoroughly, exceedingly washed away. He wanted God to cleanse him physically, ceremonially, and morally from his condition of sin and his habitual offense and its penalty.

His cry was deep and thorough. He wanted nothing more to do with sin and needed what only God can give: cleansing.

And that’s exactly what God did for him.

And what God does for us,

according to His unfailing love and great compassion for us.

Along the way I learned these truths (and other rich, freeing truths in Psalm 51—you should explore it!), but I learned it’s more than knowing truth. It’s believing and therefore, living truth. It took time and experiences living the truth that God not only forgives me but that He loves me and has compassion on me and that’s why and how He forgives me. It’s Him--His love and compassion shown through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection--that I can run to, rest in, and rely on when I need to confess my sins—trusting I am fully forgiven in Him, and again, I am forgiven for this that I've confessed. And slowly but surely I began to believe and live in His love, His compassion, and I began to feel what I am: fully forgiven.

Just another seed of my faith,

Ginny