Max Lucado talks about the time he decided to go to his office very early one morning. He had been on vacation for a couple of weeks and was well rested. So he rolled out of bed early…real early. He dressed to go to the church office, and his wife tried to convince him not to go.
“It's the middle of the night,” she mumbled. “What if a burglar tries to break in?”
There had been an attempted break-in at the office a few weeks previously, but Lucado ignored his wife’s concern, drove to the church, entered the office complex, disarmed the alarm, and then re-armed it.
A few seconds later the sirens screamed. Lucado thought, “Somebody is trying to break in!” So he raced down the hall, turned off the alarm, ran back to his office, and dialed 911. After he hung up, it occurred to him that the thieves could get in before the police arrived. So he dashed back down the hall and re-armed the system.
“They won't get me,” Lucado mumbled defiantly as he punched in the code.
But as he turned, the sirens blared again. Lucado disarmed the alarm and reset it. He walked to a window to look for the police, and the alarm sounded a third time. Once again he disarmed it and reset it.
Walking back to his office, the alarm sounded again. Lucado disarmed it and thought, “Wait a minute; this alarm system must be fouled up.” So he called the alarm company.
“Our alarm system keeps going off,” he told the fellow who answered. “We've either got some determined thieves or a malfunction.”
“There could be one other option,” the man at the alarm company told him. “Did you know that your building is equipped with a motion detector?”
Just then the police arrived. Lucado told them, “I think the problem is on the inside, not the outside,” embarrassed that he was the culprit setting off the alarm.
Alarms go off in our world all the time, and it doesn’t help to pretend they aren’t screaming. But it’s also wise to look in the mirror before you peek out the window. (Max Lucado, When God Whispers Your Name; www.PreachingToday.com)
When we try to cover up our sins, they only get worse. But when we openly confess them, then and only then can God solve the problem.
The Bible says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [However], if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, ESV). Literally, God is faithful to loose us from our sins and to clean out all of the unrighteousness.
Do you struggle with sin in your life – with things like bitterness or anxiety, or with certain addictions that enslave you? Then God can set you free from these sins, but only if you truly confess them to Him.
The question is: What IS true confession? What does it involve? What does it look like?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Nehemiah 9, Nehemiah 9, where we see a marvelous picture of true confession in Nehemiah’s day.
Nehemiah 9:1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. (ESV)
It was the 24th day of the 7th month, just two days after the Jews in Nehemiah’s day celebrated the week-long feast of tabernacles. Ezra had read to them the Word of God on each day of the feast, and now they’re not eating. They’re clothed in sackcloth and they have dirt on their heads – a sign of extreme distress.
Warren Wiersbe says, “Their feasting had turned to fasting as the Word of God brought conviction and people started confessing their sins” (Warren Wiersbe, Be Determined, p.108).
Nehemiah 9:2-3 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God. (ESV)
For a quarter of the day (that’s three daylight hours), they read the Bible, and for another three hours they confessed their sins. That’s a six-hour worship service – three hours of preaching and three hours of praying.
Nehemiah 9:4-7 On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God. Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. “You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. (ESV) – which means Father of a Multitude.
Nehemiah 9:8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous. (ESV)
God’s people in Nehemiah’s day start their confession with praise. They begin by declaring that God is faithful to His Word and righteous in His actions, and that’s where we must begin, as well. If you’re going to truly confess your sins, you must first of all…
ACKNOWLEDGE THAT GOD IS RIGHT.
Declare that God keeps His promises and does no wrong, that He is faithful and fair in all His dealings with you.
The next few verses rehearse God’s dealings with Israel – how He delivered them from Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, and provided for them in the wilderness. Let’s pick it up in verse 16
Nehemiah 9:16-25 “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. “And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. You multiplied their children as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. So the descendants went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. And they captured fortified cities and a rich land, and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in your great goodness. (ESV)
When we forsook You, You did not forsake us. Instead, You forgave our fore-fathers and sustained them in the wilderness. Then You gave them the land that you promised.
Nehemiah 9:26-33 “Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. But after they had rest they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. “Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love, let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day. Yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly. (ESV)
Time and time again, God was faithful to His unfaithful people. He never forsook them even though He had to discipline them. And here, they acknowledge that what God did in allowing the hardships to come was absolutely right.
It reminds me of what King David said when he confessed his sin of adultery and murder to the Lord. He said to the Lord, “You [are] justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:4).
You see, that’s what true confession is all about. It starts when we acknowledge that God is right. The problem is too many people tend to blame God for their sin.
Shawne, from Warsaw, Indiana, remembers talking to her son about all the wonderful things God has made. She and her husband would ask him questions like “Who made the sun?” and “Who made the rain?”
Then one evening, she looked at the toys scattered on the floor and asked, “Who made this mess?”
After thinking for a few minutes, her son said, “God did!” (“Life in Our House,” Christian Parenting Today, March/April 2000; www.PreachingToday.com)
Oh my dear friends, don’t blame God for the mess you are in. Instead, praise Him for being faithful to you in that mess.
Pastor Bryan Chapell tells the story of a couple who grew up in the church, have a fine house, sweet kids and good jobs. However, the wife has an emotional/mental problem. She periodically steals from her own family and gambles the money away.
She's been to counselors, doctors, and pastors, but nothing helps permanently. She continues to steal from her husband, pawning objects of value, withdrawing money from bank accounts, and lying about it for months.
Every time she's stolen from her husband and ruined his future, he's forgiven her and taken her back. Even when she gave up on her own life and tried to kill herself, he refused to give up on her.
Bryan Chappel asked the husband once why he didn't end this marriage, in spite of pressure from many friends and family to do so. His words were courageous and simple: “She is a good mother most of the time, and my children need her. But more than that, they need to know the love of their God. How can they know of a Father in heaven who forgives them if their own father won't forgive their own mother?” (Bryan Chapell, “Why He Just Takes It,” Men of Integrity, September/October 2001; www.PreachingToday.com)
“You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Nehemiah 9:17).
God is not wrong in the way He has treated you and me. The fact is He has been more than fair with us. He hasn’t given us what we deserve. Instead, He has treated us with undeserved favor, because of what Christ did for us on the cross.
The Bible says, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Jesus died in our place, taking the punishment for our sin, so God could be gracious towards us. All we need to do is depend on Him. All we need to do is trust Him with our lives to experience that grace and forgiveness every day. So don’t blame God for your mess. Instead, praise Him for His faithfulness to you even in the mess.
That’s where true confession begins. 1st, Acknowledge that God is right. Then 2nd…
ADMIT THAT YOU ARE WRONG.
Take the blame for your own sins. Accept responsibility for your own actions.
That’s what God’s people are doing in Nehemiah’s day. Did you see it in verse 33? They tell the Lord, “YOU have dealt faithfully and WE have acted wickedly.”
Nehemiah 9:34-35 Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them. Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works. (ESV)
We continue to sin against you despite your “great goodness” towards us. As a result…
Nehemiah 9:36-37 Behold, we are slaves this day; in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts, behold, we are slaves. And its rich yield goes to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress. (ESV)
They don’t own the land they are living in; the Persians do, and the Persian kings are taxing them heavily. They are in “great distress”, but they admit that they are in that condition because of their own sin.
They are not blaming God for their pain; They blame themselves: verse 33 – We have acted wickedly; verse 34 – We have not kept your law; verse 35 – We did not turn from our wicked ways; therefore verse 36 – We are slaves; and verse 37 – We are in great distress.
That’s what true confession is all about! It’s taking responsibility for your own actions, and that’s what you must do if you want God to get rid of the mess in your own life. Acknowledge that God is right, and admit that you are wrong.
In George Orwell's famous novel, Animal Farm, certain farm animals rebel against a cruel farmer. However, when they overthrow the farmer and the pigs take charge of the place, they become even worse than the farmer.
Two pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, fight for control, and Napoleon eventually succeeds in exiling Snowball. But Napoleon's leadership does not bring prosperity and comfort. When the farm experiences a major setback, it's Snowball's fault, even though he no longer lives there. Snowball becomes a convenient scapegoat for Napoleon, so he can deflect criticism from his own poor leadership. Orwell writes:
“Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball. If a window was broken or a drain was blocked up, someone was certain to say that Snowball had come in the night and done it, and when the key of the store-shed was lost, the whole farm was convinced that Snowball had thrown it down the well. Curiously enough, they went on believing this even after the mislaid key was found under a sack of meal.”
Sadly, many of us humans suffer from this same “Snowball Syndrome.” We blame our children, our spouse, our parents, our our boss, or our employees. Sometimes it really is someone else's fault, but all too often we blame others without examining our own hearts. There's only one cure for the “Snowball Syndrome”, and that’s true confession. (Collin Garbarino, “Desperately Seeking Snowball,” First Thoughts blog,8-20-13; www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s taking responsibility for your own actions. It’s admitting, “I was wrong.” However, that’s not what many Americans like to do these days.
There is an interesting trend taking place in our country with the practice of psychotherapy, which is losing its client base. According to Dr. Linda Gottlieb, the number of patients receiving psychological interventions plummeted by 30 percent from 1997-2008. The reasons for this decline are complex, but Dr. Gottlieb focuses on one trend: psychotherapy involves the long, hard work of facing our own issues, but many people today would rather blame others for their problems. In other words, psychotherapists used to see patients who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves. Now they see more patients who come in “because they wanted someone else or something else to change.” As one of Gottlieb's colleagues put it, “I'd see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, ‘I want to change [myself].’”
So therapists are hiring “rebranding consultants” who are offering the following advice. Rather than say, “I treat people with depression and anxiety,” advertise your services by asking, “Are you having trouble with the difficult people in your life?” (Lori Gottlieb, “What Brand Is Your Therapist?” The New York Times, 11-23-12; www.PreachingToday.com)
In other words, don’t tell people it’s their problem; tell people it’s somebody else’s problem.
We don’t like to admit that we are at fault; but until we do, God cannot clean up the mess that we ourselves have created. If you want God to loose you from your sins and clean out all the mess, i.e., all the unrighteousness, then you must truly confess your own sins. 1st, acknowledge that God is right. 2nd, admit that you are wrong, and 3rd…
COMMIT TO CHANGE.
Vow to be different. Promise that, with God’s help, you will walk a new path. That’s what God’s people are doing in Nehemiah’s day.
Nehemiah 9:38 “Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests. (ESV)
They’re making a promise, and they’re writing it down. Chapter 10 is the text of that covenant, where they promise to do two things: 1) obey God’s Law (vs.29); and 2) take care of God’s House (vs.39). They had neglected to do these things before, but now they promise things will be different.
They commit themselves to change, and that’s what we must do if we want God to clean up the mess in our own lives.
There's a story about a man who walks into a restaurant and orders a Coke. As soon as he receives it, he throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter is ready to fight, but the man says, “Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a horrible compulsion. I can't help it. Whenever someone hands me a drink, I throw it in their face. Please, forgive me.” Then the guy says, “I'm working hard to overcome this compulsion. Would you bring me another Coke?”
The waiter says, “Do you promise not to throw it in my face?”
The guy responds, “I'm going to do everything I can not to throw it in your face. I'm working really hard to resist.”
So the waiter says, “Okay, I'll bring you another one.”
Soon the waiter comes back with another Coke, and the guy throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter says, “I thought you said you wouldn't do that.”
The guy apologizes: “Oh, this compulsion is so strong. I promise you that I will check myself into an in-patient clinic to get some help. Forgive me. I'm so sorry.”
The guy felt genuine guilt and sorrow, so he checks himself into a clinic, and for one month he gets intense psychotherapy to deal with his compulsion. When he gets out of the clinic, he goes back to the same restaurant, and he walks in and says, “I'm cured. Give me a drink.”
The waiter says, “Wait a minute. I had to change my shirt last time you were here. Are you sure you're cured?”
The guy says, “I know I'm cured. I promise.”
The waiter says, “Okay, if you're cured, I'll bring you a Coke.” And so the waiter brings him a Coke. The guy looks at it and throws it right in the waiter's face. The waiter says, “I thought you said you were cured.”
The guy says, “I am cured. I still have the compulsion, but I don't feel guilty about it anymore.” (Phillip Griffin, from the sermon Broken and Repentant, www.PreachingToday.com)
That describes a lot of people in our society. They don’t really change; they just redefine their sin, so they don’t feel guilty about it anymore. Call it a “mistake.” Call it an “error in judgment.” Call it an “alternative lifestyle.” Call it anything but sin. Otherwise, I would have to admit I’m a sinner and turn from my sin. That’s not what we like to do, but it’s the only way God can begin to clean up the mess we have made of our own lives.
That’s what true confession is all about: 1st, acknowledge that God is right; 2nd, admit that you are wrong; and 3rd, commit to change.
It’s hard, I know; but as we depend on Christ, He will complete the good work that he started in us when we called upon His name; He will change us from the inside out until we reflect His glory!
Please, don’t put it off any longer. Truly confess your sins, and find out what it means to be truly forgiven.
Steve Brown talks about the time when early in his pastoral ministry he counseled a woman who, some twenty years before, had been unfaithful to her husband. For years that sin had haunted her, and Steve Brown was the first person she had ever told about it. After they talked and prayed for a long time, Steve Brown recommended she tell her husband. It wasn't easy for her, but she promised she would tell him. “Pastor,” she said, “I trust you enough to do what you ask, but if my marriage falls apart as a result, I want you to know I'm going to blame you.” She didn't smile when she said that, either.
That's when Steve Brown commenced to pray with a high degree of seriousness. (He says, “I pray best when I'm scared.”) “Father,” he prayed, “if I gave her dumb advice, forgive me and clean up my mess.”
Steve Brown saw her the next day, and she looked fifteen years younger. “What happened?” he asked.
“When I told him,” she exclaimed, “he replied that he had known about the incident for twenty years and was just waiting for me to tell him so he could tell me how much he loved me!”
And then she started to laugh. “He forgave me twenty years ago, and I've been needlessly carrying all this guilt for all these years!” (Steve Brown, When Being Good Isn't Enough, Lucid Books, 2014, pp. 10-11; www.PreachingToday.com)
My dear friends, no matter what you’ve done, don’t carry the guilt around anymore. Like this woman, truly confess your own sin and find that God had already forgiven you 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
