A Great Sinner Pardoned Makes a Great Singer

Black and white photo of a muddy, fallen-branch-strewn creek bed at the bottom of a wooded ravine.

“A great sinner pardoned makes a great singer.” -C.H. Spurgeon

I wish I could take credit for the title of my post, but they’re the words of C.H. Spurgeon, from his commentary on Psalm 51. I have made it clear that this blog and essentially, my life, orbits around Jeremiah 17. If I had to choose another chapter of the Bible that represents a banner over my life and faith, it would most certainly be Psalm 51.

I remember going through a painful  season of confession and repentance in the spring of 2013. It was the most tumultuous, uncertain, sorrowful, risky, and yet joy-filled time of my life. I mean that in the least-melodramatic-way possible. I remember reading and praying Psalm 51 over and over during those months. I remember tears hitting the pages and rocking back in forth in my chair as I was in so much angst. A good angst. A Godly angst. An angst of real repentance. By God’s Grace and the Holy Spirit, I saw the severity and seriousness of my unrepented, unconfessed sin; sin that I promised myself I would take with me to the grave. Psalm 51 brought me comfort and it gave me a starting place during that time. Each day the significance of Psalm 51 increases in my life as I truly am a man who has been forgiven much. C.H. Spurgeon’s words come from Psalm 51 and I believe also from Luke 7:47-48:

“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loves much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 

Essentially, those who have been forgiven much, love much. I can tell you the amount of love and grace I now have for people since that season of repentance versus before that season is exponentially greater. My worship and thankfulness towards Jesus is head-and-shoulders beyond what it used to be. What the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good. Psalm 51 so clearly shows David’s growing upward and downward, simultaneously. He has the mixture of confidence in dealing with God and yet also great sorrow, angst, and healthy fear of God. Unless a person has experienced true repentance of sin (regardless of the severity of the offense), they cannot understand this mixture of conflicting thoughts, feelings, and emotions seen in David in Psalm 51.

What made that season of my life so significant and so effective is that people loved me enough to let me swim around in it without picking me up too quickly. We are a culture that wants to make our lives as comfortable and pain-free as possible. We often like to brush off and downplay serious stuff going on in our lives. I must say, the Christian life is by definition not lived in that kind of way and if one who is a professing Christian makes a habit of living life that way, they will not only miss out on the many things God has for them in life, but they may prove themselves to not be a believer at all.

“No one born of God Makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.” (1 John 3:9).

Whether one is a Christian or not, in repentance, the response is still the same. The Christian life is a life of repentance. Although I went through a season where God was doing massive, life-changing things, I still live a life of repentance and confession today. Regardless of wherever you are on the spectrum (not a Christian, a new Christian, or a Christian who’s been following Jesus for years), I have a few suggestions/encouragements when it comes to confession and repentance:

1. There is nothing you have done that is a secret to God. Everything is before His eyes. If by not saying something out loud or admitting something to yourself makes something feel less real, not real, or less true, it has already happened, it is very real, and it will be addressed either willingly or unwillingly in this life or the next.

2. There is nothing you have done that cannot be forgiven by God.

3. Although there are still sometimes consequences to our sin in this life, if you are saved you are not destined for wrath (1 Thess. 5:9).

4. It is possible that by confessing sin, the worst case scenario can happen depending on the severity of the sin (loss of a friendship or marriage, loss of a job, jail time, church discipline, a tarnished reputation, public shame or embarrassment, etc), but Jesus is worth it. Do you believe that? Answer it honestly. Be honest with yourself and with God. If it isn’t true about you, pray that you would value relationship with Him more than anything. Afterall, true repentance is a supernatural gift given by God.

5. God has a way of uncovering or disclosing sin one way or another. Why not boast in your own weaknesses and shortcomings before both God and man, so that the power of God may rest upon you (2 Corinth. 12:9).

6. Maybe what you fear will happen, won’t actually happen. Is it so crazy to think that maybe the enemy has been lying to you in saying that xyz will happen if you confess what you have done, because he knows verses like James 5:16 which say, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed”?

7. Confessing sin brings about reconciliation to God. If it is sin against a person, confessing to that person may not necessarily bring reconciliation with them, but at least you have a chance to be reconciled. Like a good friend and spiritual father once told me, when it comes to confessing hidden sin to the person you have sinned against, not confessing gives you a 0% chance for reconciliation, but confession will give you at least a 1% chance. A great example is a struggling marriage that is laden with hidden sin (substance abuse, gambling, pornography, adultery, etc.)

8. Have you ever heard “the truth will set you free?” It most certainly will. We are not made to carry around the burden and weight of hidden sin. As a Christian, if it doesn’t make ship-wreck of your faith, it will leave you in a “meh” existence and render you ineffective. But as I already alluded to, persistent, life-long resistance to confessing sin is evidence that you are not a believer. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is very patient in dealing with us.

9. My resistance to my conscience and the Holy Spirit in hiding my sin led to other sins. Lies upon lies and substance abuse to deal with the suppression and guilt of my sin in my case. This will not get better, but only get worse and will eventually lead to death.

10. We have to face the music. So many men walk around behaving like boys when they hide their sin. What does my son do when he does something he knows he’s not supposed to? He hides his sin. What did Adam do when he sinned? He hid from God. Part of the repentance and subsequent confession process does require exercising our own wills in dealing with our junk. It’s not all on God to make us do everything. And let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart. But do you love Him? Do you really want to follow Him? Count the cost.

I could probably come up with at least 10 more points to add to the list, but I think you get the jist of it. No one can promise you that repentance and subsequent confession of sin won’t be painful, risky, scary, or come with real consequences, but I can tell you that regardless of the outcome, Jesus is most certainly worth it. My prayer is that you would see and savor Jesus as the best thing in the universe, handing over everything to him with no part of you “off limits.” In living a life of repentance, you will feel forgiven much and therefore love much out of the overflow of that. Just trust Him.