True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 2)

SERMON OUTLINE

• IV. The Appeal for Inward Renewal
• V. The Appeal for Joy
• VI. The Appeal for Restoration

TRANSCRIPT

We are focusing on the topic, “True Confession, Repentance, and Restoration”, based on Psalm 51. In our previous message, we considered how David was confronted with his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent sin of murdering Uriah. David did not give any excuses nor put the blame on others. He was convicted, and immediately he confessed and repented. He appealed to God for mercy, forgiveness, and cleansing. It was a true, genuine confession and repentance.

There are some people who have this mentality: Nevermind if I have sinned. I will confess; God will forgive me. Then I will sin again, and I will confess, and God will forgive me. Then I will sin again, and I will confess, and God will forgive me. It goes on and on and on. Indeed, God will forgive us, but we must truly confess our sins. As 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But do you think this kind of confession is genuine? Most certainly not. True confession will lead to true repentance, and the subsequent true restoration will come.

Have you ever been unsure whether or not your confession of sins is genuine? The only way for us to know if our confession is genuine is that we are not merely content with forgiveness. What do we mean by that? You and I know that the consequence of sin is so horrendous that something is missing in our lives. Something has been robbed away from us, and that is the joy—the joy of our salvation. So, we not only want to be forgiven, we also want to be restored with the joy.

Remember, David was a great hero of the Old Testament. He was known as a man after God's own heart. He was designated to be the king of Israel. He had learned to trust God ever since he was young. Even when all the Israelites were so afraid of the giant Goliath, he challenged him to a one-to-one battle and killed him with a slingshot. He was a man who had great poetic gifts, who could write beautiful Psalms. Imagine such a man like David; surely, he must have been very close to God. His fellowship with God must have been very sweet. His prayer life must have been very enriching. His worship of God must have been very uplifting. But all of a sudden, what happened? He seemed to have lost everything—all because of sin. That was the lowest point in David's life. So much so that he was inspired by God to write this penitential Psalm.

Dear friend, that is what sin can do to us. It can steal away our joy. We may not lose our salvation, but we may lose the joy of our salvation. Perhaps there was a time you were living a victorious Christian life. You were serving God zealously. You were enjoying every moment of Christian fellowship. Reading the Bible was such a delight to you. Then all of a sudden, you find yourself having no joy, even when you engage yourself in all these spiritual activities. You may be wondering, ‘What is happening to me?’ Perhaps there's a particular sin that you have been harbouring in your heart. Remember, sin can steal away our joy—not our salvation, but our joy. Well, you do not need to be despair. You can be like David and appeal to God for restoration. This is what we want to learn from today's passage in Psalm 51.

IV. The Appeal for Inward Renewal

We will only consider three verses: verse 10 to 12. The title of our message is “True Confession, Repentance, and Restoration Part Two”. Our first point is: The appeal for inward renewal. David was aware that his sins of adultery and murder came from the heart. He sinned because he was a sinner. And because he was a sinner, he would sin again and again unless God helped him. Therefore, he prayed for this inward renewal. That was why he cried out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

Now observe the words "O God" in the middle of the verse. It is like a road sign pointing to the way, to the only help. Whenever we have offended someone whom we love dearly, we would feel so ashamed to face that person. Our natural response would be to avoid facing that person. Are you ashamed when you sin against the God whom you love? Please do not be like Adam and Eve, who hid themselves from the presence of God after they had sinned. It is so sad when we see believers who fell into sin leaving the church, leaving the fellowship. Not that they are attending another church, but they have stopped worshiping God altogether. Instead, we should run to God, not away from Him. We must turn to God because the root problem of our sins originate from the heart. All the evil thoughts, motives, hidden agendas, and wicked intentions originate from the heart. Psychologists cannot help us, human therapists and secular counsellors cannot help us. At best, they can only listen to us and then get paid for it. If sin is a heart issue, then we must run to God because only God alone can transform our hearts.

So David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart." The word "create," ‘bara’ in Hebrew, is a very interesting word. It was first used in Genesis chapter 1 when God created the heavens and the earth. Remember, in the beginning, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, and God created ‘ex nihilo’, which means He created out of nothing. It is true that human beings like you and I can create things, but we can never create things like God does. We can create things by using things that are in existence; preexisting materials, or concepts, or ideas, or innovations, and then we form new things. But God creates out of nothing. He created the heavens, the vegetation of the earth, the animals, the mountains, the sea, human beings, out of nothing. For the Psalmist to use the same word create - bara - create in me a clean heart, he was asking for nothing less than a miracle.

Why is the transformation of our hearts a miracle? Remember what Jeremiah the prophet said: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:18, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” If you want to create something clean, pure, and righteous, you cannot use anything that is already there, which is contaminated, deceitful, desperately wicked, and has nothing good in it. It has to be a creation out of nothing, a new creation. That is why it takes a miracle to transform our sinful heart, and only God alone is able to do that.

Listen to Ezekiel 36:25-27 - allow me to read for you - “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Notice the number of times the word "I" was used—it was a reference to God. Only God can do that. It would be very foolish for you and me to say, ‘I will sprinkle some clean water on myself or I will cleanse myself from all filthiness. I will put within myself this clean heart or I will give myself a new spirit. I will cause myself to change and be transformed.’ No man can do that. No amount of human efforts can ever accomplish that. Only God alone. That was the reason why David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart."

Next, the Psalmist prayed, "And renew a right spirit within me." He was referring to his own spirit, as in his heart. The word "right" can mean support or control. It means to be prepared, firm, and steadfast. A heart that has been controlled to be firm and strong. This was David's petition for his heart to be strong, prepared, firm, and steadfast so that he would not yield to temptation. He did not want to fall into the same sin again, so he wanted to be renewed with this prepared heart. There will always be temptations in our lives. Some of us succumb to temptations more easily than others. But none of us can be totally exempted from temptation. If we do not want to fall into sin, we ought to pray that our heart be strong, prepared, firm, and steadfast. God will help us.

But that does not mean we do nothing. If we are truly sincere in our prayers, then we must also take the necessary steps to prepare our hearts. We must ask ourselves, ‘How can I avoid those mistakes I've made? What could I have done better? What are the changes God wants me to make in the way I speak, in the thoughts I think, in the way I react to situations?’ And then we search the Holy Scriptures diligently and ask the Lord to grant us understanding and help us. And He will renew a right spirit within us. God will do that.

V. The Appeal for Joy

We move on to our second point: The appeal for joy. The Psalmist prayed in verse 11, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.” This verse has caused a problem to some people because the idea of God removing the Holy Spirit from the believer is unthinkable. Does it mean it is possible to be born again, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, and be unborn? Does it mean it is possible for the person to be saved and then lose his salvation because of sin?

By the way, there are evangelicals who have been influenced by dispensational ideas that there is a distinction between the working of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament times and the working of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament times after Pentecost. They believe that in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon a person so that he could perform a special duty, so it was only for a particular moment. But in the New Testament times, the Holy Spirit would indwell within the believers. That was how they explain this verse, that David from the Old Testament prayed that this Holy Spirit would not leave him, would not depart from him. In other words, the Old Testament saints could lose their salvation, but the New Testament saints would not lose their salvation. That is absolutely not true. Both the Old and New Testament saints are saved by faith and by the grace of God. They cannot lose their salvation if they are true believers. Once saved, always saved. This doctrine is taught throughout the entire Holy Scriptures.

Here David was not referring to losing his salvation. He was referring to God's continual blessing upon his life. If we are saved, our salvation is secured. Jesus himself said, ‘No man can pluck you out of my hand.’ But we may lose the blessing. We may lose this continual blessing that God has showered upon our lives because of sin. Notice David prayed, "Take not thy holy spirit from me’. That implies that he still possessed the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was still indwelling in him, even the sin of adultery, the sin of murder, which were horrendous sins, could not remove the Holy Spirit from him.

John Calvin, who believed in the eternal security of the believer, explained that David did not really need to pray such a prayer because the removal of the Holy Spirit from the born again child of God is an impossibility. The reason why David prays such a prayer is because whenever the true believer has fallen into sin, he would experience the full blessing of God being removed from his life. He would be so devastated, so troubled in his heart, so anxious in his heart, that he would spontaneously cry out, “Take not thy holy spirit from me.” So David was not talking about eternal security or losing his salvation. He was speaking about the inability to live a holy life without the Holy Spirit.

Dear friend, we need the help and power of the Holy Spirit at every moment of our lives. As believers, we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit. That's a difference between being indwelled by the Holy Spirit and being filled by the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens at the moment of salvation, at the point of conversion. It is a one-time event. Romans 8:9 says, “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” So a person who does not have the Spirit of Christ, even if it is just for a moment, that indwelling Holy Spirit, he does not belong to Jesus Christ.

The filling of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is different. It happens continually. It is the complete control of the Spirit over the life of the believer as he surrenders himself totally, absolutely to the Spirit's sanctifying work. Every day of our lives, we need the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds and help us to understand the Scriptures. Without His help, you and I cannot understand the Bible. We need the Holy Spirit to help us to pray. We need the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and make us more and more like Christ. We need the Holy Spirit to help us to understand God's will.

There are some things in the Bible that are crystal clear about God's will. If it is the command of God, it is God's will. And oftentimes, the Bible will say, "This is the will of God." But there are other things that may not be clearly revealed to us as God's will. In those instances, the Spirit of God will help us and provide guidance so that you and I can make decisions according to His will. We need the Holy Spirit to empower us to serve God, whether it be playing the piano, leading as a chairperson, serving in the Sunday school, or in the fellowship groups. We serve to the power of the Holy Spirit working in the inner man.

One pastor gave this illustration about the Christian being filled with the Holy Spirit. Allow me to quote him, he compares it with the example of a glove: “Until the glove is filled by the hand, it is powerless. It is designed to do work, but it cannot work by itself. It works only as the hand controls and uses it. The glove only does what the hand desires. It does not ask the hand to give it an assignment and then try to complete the assignment without the hand. Nor does it boast about what he can do because he knows the hand deserves all the credit.” Likewise, the Christian is able to worship and glorify God, share the gospel, fellowship, strengthen his faith, build up his family, bring up his children, and serve one another in the church. Not because he's capable to do all these things by himself, but through the empowerment of the Spirit, without which it would be impossible for him to do spiritual things.

So sometimes because of sin, you and I may feel that we have no strength, no power to be engaged in all these spiritual activities. It is about the filling of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, humanly speaking, we may feel as if the Holy Spirit is taken away from us. In our humanness, in our emotions, that is what we feel. Though it is impossible, then we were cried out like David, "Take not thy holy spirit from me".

VI. The Appeal for Restoration

Our final point is: The appeal for restoration. The Psalmist prayed in verse 12, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation”. Again, notice David did not pray that God would restore his salvation, but the joy of his salvation. What had he lost? Not his salvation, but the joy. As long as he was living in sin, he had no joy. Isn't it true? Whenever we sin against God, our relationship with Him is affected, our worship is affected, our prayer life is affected, our fellowship with other believers is affected, our service is affected, every aspect of our lives is affected. We may pretend that everything is all right, we may put up a happy demeanour, but within our hearts, we know there is no more joy. Once we confess and repent of our sins, once our hearts are cleansed, we'll be seeking for a renewed spirit, and with that renewed spirit, we want to have that joy again.

It is interesting how the way the world thinks things. The world thinks that Christians are a group of boring people. There are so many things Christians cannot do. The vast majority of the people think that the way to have joy, the way to have a good time, is by sinning. Actually, the opposite is true. Sin brings sorrow, and righteousness brings rejoicing. If you continue in your sins, your sins will remove every good thing from you.

You may still be attending church, worship services, and participating in the spiritual activities within the groups, but there will be no more joy in your worship, fellowship, prayer, giving. The joy has been robbed away from you because of sin. And then you are just going through the motion, but the spiritual activity itself is empty - how sad.

This morning, if you are a true believer, you know what it means to have the joy of salvation. It is the unspeakable joy, as 1 Peter chapter 1:8 describes for us. It is a joy so awesome that words cannot communicate, words cannot express it, our human minds cannot explain it. It is unspeakable. We would not want to exchange this joy for anything in this world, not money, not our possessions, nothing. Once you and I have tasted this unspeakable joy, and then to lose this joy, it is most devastating. Don't you think? We will do everything we can, everything within our means, by God's grace, to be restored with this joy.

When I was a little boy, I did not know how to swim. Now I know how to swim, but back then I could not swim. And one day while I was playing around the pool, I fell into the deep end, and I was almost drowned. The lifeguard came and saved me. He tried to lift up my head above the water. I drank a lot of water. I felt so terrible. I thought I was dying. But I remember very clearly that it was not sufficient for me just to have my head above the water. It was not sufficient for me just to have my body floating on the water. I want my entire body to be out of the water. I want my body to be where I was before I fell into the pool.

In a sense, that would be the same situation with the believer who fell into sin. He wants to be brought back into this wonderful relationship with God, to be in good fellowship with the believers, to serve the Lord with gladness in his heart, to pray with his heart and mind in tune with God. He would not want to exchange anything for that restoration. He would never have anything less than that restoration. That is the intensity of the Psalmist David when he cried out, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation."

So it is strange for the believer to say, ‘Well, I've confessed my sins and received God's forgiveness. That's good enough.’ That's not good enough. Surely, you want to experience the same joy you experienced before when you first came to know the Lord. That unspeakable joy.

So the Psalmist cried out to God, “Uphold me with thy free spirit”. The word "uphold" means again to control, and the word "free" means willing. In other words, we want God to hold us, support us, to work in our hearts so it willingly responds to Him. We want a willing spirit, a willing heart that will spontaneously devote itself to please God. When God is pleased, we will be pleased, we will have this joy.

If we have confessed and repented of our sins, God has forgiven us. He has cleansed us by the precious blood of His only begotten Son. He has created a new heart within us and renewed a right spirit within us. He has restored the joy of our salvation. The last thing we want is to be strengthened, so that we will live our lives for His glory. That is our reasonable service, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto Him. As Westminster Shorter Catechism Question Number One says, ‘The chief end of men is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.’ That is the only kind of life we want. We will speak more about this in our final message about True Confession, Repentance, and Restoration.

Dear friend, let us search our heart this morning. Have we lost something most valuable and precious to us? Have we lost the joy of our salvation? Perhaps you feel really discouraged and dejected because you have committed some sins that no one knows, but God knows. You may have resolved in your heart to live for Jesus Christ, but when the temptations come, you cannot resist it and you just fall right into sin. Or perhaps you may want to leave a good testimony before your unbelieving parents or before your unbelieving children to win them to Christ, but in one single moment, you blew your testimony away because you have behaved in such an unchristian way so much so your loved ones are stumbled.

Or maybe you have been given the privilege to serve God in a certain capacity, but because you find it very inconvenient or you do not want to face the challenges in the ministry, you have given up. You no longer want to hold any spiritual responsibilities from then onwards. You are so disappointed with your life because your life seems to just consist of a series of bad decisions and foolish choices. You find yourself drifting further and further away from God. You cannot say within your heart, ‘It is well with my soul. It is well with my soul’. Because you know something is missing. You have lost the joy, no more joy.

Take comfort and be of good cheer because God does not want you to go on like this. Money cannot buy us joy. Our human efforts cannot secure for us joy. We cannot command joy, ‘I want to be happy, I just want to be happy.’ It does not work like that. We can only humble ourselves before God and cry out to him to restore unto us the joy of our salvation. Our God is faithful. He will answer our prayers, just as he answered David's prayer after David pleaded with God to restore him the joy of his salvation. God answered. You know what God did? He blessed David. He used David to serve as the king of Israel for another 20 years. Even Israel was blessed because of David. Our God is so faithful. So if you cried out to him because you find that something is wrong with my life, there's this sin - repent. God will forgive. He will cleanse you. And then you cry out to him, ‘Restore unto me the joy of my salvation. I want to have that same experience, that unspeakable joy when I first came to know you.’ God will restore that joy. Do you believe him? You must believe him. He is faithful.

Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, indeed, there are so many wonderful lessons we can learn from Psalm 51, the Psalm that Thou has inspired king David to write, and how Thou has enabled us to draw spiritual lessons that we may apply into our lives. We thank Thee for lessons that we have learned about true confession, repentance, and the subsequent restoration. How David taught us in this Psalm as he appealed for mercy, forgiveness, and cleansing. And how he appealed for this inward renewal, he appealed for joy, he appealed for restoration. Oh Lord, there's more than just confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness because the consequence of sin is horrendous. So much so that something is missing in our life, something has been robbed away from us, and that is the joy. So we cry out to Thee, restore unto us that joy. And as Thou will restore unto us that joy, it is for the purpose that we be strengthened to live our lives for Thy glory. That is our reasonable service. Teach us not just to be hearers only but to be doers of Thy word as well, rightly applying the word of truth into our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

THE BOOK OF PSALMS

Morning Devotion 1

Morning Devotion 1

Psalm 1:1

Wonderful Words of Life

Wonderful Words of Life

Psalm 1:1-3

Morning Devotion 2

Morning Devotion 2

Psalm 1:2

Morning Devotion 3

Morning Devotion 3

Psalm 1:3-6

Having Confidence In Times Of Trouble

Having Confidence In Times Of Trouble

Psalm 3

Pray with Your Eyes Open

Pray with Your Eyes Open

Psalm 5:1-12

Message 3: The Test of Trust

Message 3: The Test of Trust

Psalm 11:1-7

Morning Devotion 2: Psalm 13

Morning Devotion 2: Psalm 13

Psalm 13

Message 4: The Life of Trust

Message 4: The Life of Trust

Psalm 20:1-9

Learn To Deal With Depression

Learn To Deal With Depression

Psalm 42

Dealing with Depression

Dealing with Depression

Psalm 42

God Is Our Refuge

God Is Our Refuge

Psalm 46

Morning Devotion 3: Psalm 46

Morning Devotion 3: Psalm 46

Psalm 46

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 1)

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 1)

Psalm 51:1-9

Morning Devotion 1: The Joy of Thy Forgiveness

Morning Devotion 1: The Joy of Thy Forgiveness

Psalm 51:1-9

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 2)

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 2)

Psalm 51:10-12

The Joy of Salvation

The Joy of Salvation

Psalm 51:10-12

Morning Devotion 4: The Joy of Thy Salvation

Morning Devotion 4: The Joy of Thy Salvation

Psalm 51:10-19

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 3)

True Confession, Repentance and Restoration (Part 3)

Psalm 51:13-19

O Come, Let Us Worship the Lord

O Come, Let Us Worship the Lord

Psalm 59:1-11

Hear My Cry, O God!

Hear My Cry, O God!

Psalm 61:1-8

The Man that is Blessed of the Lord

The Man that is Blessed of the Lord

Psalm 65:4

Wilt Thou Not Revive Us Again?

Wilt Thou Not Revive Us Again?

Psalm 85:1-13

Teach Us to Number Our Days

Teach Us to Number Our Days

Psalm 90:10-12

Morning Devotion 1: Psalm 90:10-12

Morning Devotion 1: Psalm 90:10-12

Psalm 90:10-12

The Lord Is King

The Lord Is King

Psalm 93

Christian Parenting

Christian Parenting

Psalm 127:3-5; Matthew 10:37; Matthew 6:32; Psalm 113:9; Psalm 128:3

What Shall We Give Unto The Lord For All His Benefits Towards Us?

What Shall We Give Unto The Lord For All His Benefits Towards Us?

Psalm 116:12

Morning Devotion 2: Obedience to God’s Word

Morning Devotion 2: Obedience to God’s Word

Psalm 119:1-8

Morning Devotion 3: The Cleansing Power of God’s Word

Morning Devotion 3: The Cleansing Power of God’s Word

Psalm 119:9-16

I Was Glad

I Was Glad

Psalm 122:1

Christian Parenting

Christian Parenting

Psalm 127:3-5; Matthew 10:37; Matthew 6:32; Psalm 113:9; Psalm 128:3

Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!

Message 7: What are children for? Heritage of godly seed for Christ!

Psalm 127:3, Malachi 2:15, Ephesians 6:4

Christian Parenting

Christian Parenting

Psalm 127:3-5; Matthew 10:37; Matthew 6:32; Psalm 113:9; Psalm 128:3

A Prayer in the Cave

A Prayer in the Cave

Psalm 142