Praying through Confession

Review: Spending November Treasuring Christ through the Psalms

We learned how to pray through our fears.

For some of you, the concept of using the Scriptures when you pray is foreign.

It’s not taught. The standard teaching on prayer is structured around the Lord’s prayer in the Gospels.

That’s not a bad thing, but if you’re anything like me, I begin to pray and five minutes later I come out of the fog and feel like I have to start over again.

If time is short, I’ll just do one of those bless everyone prayers.

That’s why I encourage folks to pray with your Bible in your hands. Read the Scriptures out loud and pray as the Spirit moves you to pray.

Last week we learned how to pray through our fears.

That we need to identify our fears (because we all have them), and then turn our attention to God’s character (sometimes our fears reveal that we are misplacing our worship and identity, or our confidence) and when we look to God’s character we can then see His response and know that our sin is forgiven and God is faithful. So praying through our fear biblically should lead us to a confidence in God’s Fatherly care for us.

Introduction: There are so many different circumstances that we face that produce so many different emotions...

And we either shove those emotions in the closet and hope nobody ever finds out or we give full vent to them and later on usually regret it the stuff we say or do...

The Psalms show us that our emotions can and should be prayed through in the presence of God.

And this morning we’re going to walk through another one of David’s Psalms that hone in on something we glanced at last week in .

shows us how to pray through confession

Confession and repentance are essential components to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

We need to know what to do when we fail to rely upon the Holy Spirit. We need to be equipped to deal with our failure and our sin.

And from experience our natural emotion when we fail is defeat. And so often it seems like we think the best thing to do is hide from God. So we avoid being in community. We avoid corporate worship. And we have this anxiety about us that God is pretty mad with us, so I better wait until he cools down.

But David, much like , prays through confession and ends the Psalm with “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”

How many of you end up feeling just as bad if not worse when you confess? In fact the very nature of the word is negative or positive?

The big idea this morning is that the good life is the forgiven life and forgiveness comes from confession.

Psalm 32:1 ESV

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Psalm 3:

The opening word in and here and many other Psalms is the word - blessed. What does that mean?

Lots of people use the word to summarize that something good has just happened in their life.

How are you doing? I’m blessed. Or the longer version would be: my family is healthy, my job is not in jeopardy, my neighbors aren’t asking me to help them move the washing machine, things are going well, I’m blessed.

It’s sort of like saying, I’m living in a stage of favor with God, so He’s doing a lot of nice things for me.

But, this is a word that goes beyond the superficial circumstances of life. The word refers to “the good life.”

If someone has the good life, they are the blessed.

What is the good life for you?

Every commercial tries their hand at it. Every billboard tries to suggest that if you had their product, you’d have the good life.

So they play on fantasy - like Thunder Valley or every beer commercial. Or that van commercial that shows the kids fighting over a toy and then the seats separate like six inches and they put on head phones and personal TV’s and wifi, and everyone’s laughing… they’re saying, this is the good life, you need our van and all your problems will disappear.

But what is the good life? What is the blessed life?

The one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Those are two images that we need to stop and think about. What is a transgression?

The image that it intends to communicate is a breach of relationship. Now who do you think that that breach in relationship has occured between? God the Creator and Man.

When did that breach happen? On page two of the story. Mankind failed to rely upon God’s wisdom, and rebelled against God’s instructions. That was the first transgression. But every human since Adam and Eve have followed in breaching the relationship between them and God.

And what the Psalmist begins this poem with is this picture of an ideal life. One where the relationship that the offender has breached has been reconciled because the one who has been offended (GOD the Creator) has declared the one who violated the relationship (MAN) forgiven.

And this image is incredibly rich. The word means to lift or carry. So the picture is that the offender has created this separation between himself and God and in the midst of that severed relationship, God has lifted the offender back up to a place where they can experience a friendship.

The second image of the ideal life or the good life is seen in the phrase “whose sin is covered”

What is sin and why does it need to be covered?

Sin is an offence. It refers mostly to a moral failure.

Now if you can’t relate to the first image of breaching a relationship with the Creator of the Cosmos, you most certainly should be able to relate with this image because we all know that we’re flawed humans.

And again this points backwards towards the very first time that someone failed. When our first parents failed to trust and obey God’s command, they covered themselves.

While probably most of us in here value clothing for ourselves and everyone else, the decisive action they took immediately after they committed sin is emblematic to our human nature.

We spend a great deal of time covering ourselves and I don’t only mean by the way we dress and present ourselves. We take a lot of time thinking about how much of our life we’ll need to cover when we make new relationships, apply for new jobs, move in to new neighborhoods, attend new churches, etc…

And mobile devices and earphones have made it so much easier to hide in public.

But what would life look like for you if you lived your life with the belief that all that you want covered in your life was known by your Creator and with His own righteousness, covered your failures?

Praying through our confession begins with awareness.

We must be aware of our brokenness (1-2)

Praying through confession begins with an acknowledgement that you are a flawed and broken human being.

Maybe you’ve been attending worship for some time now, and you’ve really not seen any recognizable change in your life. Maybe it’s because you think more highly of yourself than you should?

You might believe that God is real, Jesus was a kind and incredible person, and when choosing between religions, Christianity seems to make the most sense, but when we start talking about the need for forgiveness of sin, you instantly bristle.

We’re all (in some way) children of our culture. Some of us had parents who were Christian and taught us to have a worldview that was against the grain of the culture, but one thing we can agree upon is that the biggest sin to our culture is telling someone that what they have done or are doing is wrong.

Having an actual moral standard is the highest offense. The cultural mantra seems to be, “If I’m not physically hurting anyone, why is it morally wrong?”

If I don’t hurt anyone, “love is love”

If I don’t hurt anyone, “drugs are not really that big of a deal” (Facebook marketplace)

If I’m not hurting anyone, “lying on my application, or on my taxes is my business”

The reason I’m making this point is because, it’s very possible that you really don’t see yourself as that bad of a person, and therefore the “blessed life” sounds uninteresting. The whole conversation about the cross of Christ doesn’t move you to an emotional realization that Jesus would have had to suffer the full extent of the crucifixion even if He was dying for just your sin.

The good life is the forgiven life. And you can only enjoy the forgiven life when we are aware that we are in desperate need of grace.

And we find that grace and forgiveness when we intentionally confess that we’re not only broken, but we’ve actually sinned against a Holy God.

But some of us in here perhaps due to poor teaching or no teaching at all may not see the value or the place for confession. Maybe you’ve been taught that you confessed and sought forgiveness when you got saved and now there’s no need to confess when we’ve sinned.

Maybe you’ve been taught that confessing sin and repenting is legalistic. I don’t know, but the reality is that we still sin. Sometimes intentionally, literally premeditated sin and if we somehow believe that that act of sin (premeditated or not) does not harm our soul and our spirit, we’re simply not being honest with ourselves.

Because what David describes in the next two verses sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?

Psalm 32:

Psalm 32:3–4 ESV

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

When we as disciples of Jesus ignore His daily call to follow him and we sin, the Holy Spirit will speak to you and you will be confronted with your rebellion. He will say, “You are not a slave to your sin anymore, what you have done violates God’s moral law.”

And in that moment you will either respond with confession or you will, like David, keep silent. But when you keep silent, you can guarantee that the Spirit will not leave you alone. The Spirit will pursue and pursue and pursue until confession is made.

It is exhausting trying to live your life in hiding. And we’re only so good at covering up, and eventually we will be exposed for who we really are.

That’s why he says that the good life is a life lived in the glory of knowing that you’re covered. Not covered in the Adamic way, but by the Creator.

Why is that? Because we’re meant to be cleaned out. We have an intrinsic need to be flushed.

So how do we go about this confession?

Psalm 32:5 ESV

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

Psalm 32:

Here we see a framework for confession in three very simple steps:

Acknowledge your sin to God - name the sin

as I said before, this term throughout Scripture means to fail or to miss the mark

The mark is not perfection, but the mark is to be God’s ambassador in the world, his priests and rulers, and when we don’t live with intentional service and sacrifice the way Jesus did, we are missing the mark

failing to live up to the standard of human - missing the mark or target

Be open about your sin to God - stop the coverup

Notice that David uses a second word to describe his sin. He uses the word iniquity. Iniquity is to either intentionally or unintentionally take the wrong path.

It would be a mistake to think that the only sin we commit is premeditated and intentional. Sometimes we commit sin against another person and we’re totally oblivious to it. For instance, you may have a glaring pattern of sin, but you’re so unapproachable and so unteachable that your spouse feels they can’t bring it up, your community fellowship doesn’t want to bring it up, no one can tell you about it because they’re afraid you’re going to lose it.

Not covering up the fact that you’re prone to take the wrong path (prone to wander) sometimes without even knowing it, means that you have an openness about those propensities.

When was the last time you asked your spouse or community or friend, “Hey if you could tell me anything in the world with the guarantee that I would not try to defend myself or become hostile, what would you tell me?”

Confess your sin to God - tell the truth

The word confess just means to tell the truth. Tell the truth about your sin. And not just sin in the vague sense of the word. David uses the most severe term for sin, he says transgression.

Transgression is the third Bible word for sin, and David has now used all three to describe his confessional framework. It means willful violation.

You are aware of the line and you cross it anyways.

Transgression is what the baby who is unhappy with your meal choice does when you say, “Don’t you throw that on the ground!” As they’re looking at you in defiance, they empty the plate on the kitchen floor. Yeah, it’s wrong, so what?

Telling the truth about willfully crossing the line is brutal. It’s one thing to tell somebody, “I lied in the moment because I thought you’d be really mad at me.” It’s quite a bit more messy to say, “I lied to you and I made sure to call my friend so he was in on it; and I deleted the text message that said...”

How do you respond to that?

How does God respond to the request for forgiveness?

“And you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

Remember, forgiveness is the lifting up of the offender. The visual of a person standing over someone who has just done something horrible to this person and instead of kicking them while they’re in the fetal position, that person reaches for their hand and raises them up and restores their relationship. WOW.

Psalm 32:5b ESV

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

Psalm 32:5

Wait, what?

Can you imagine putting all that you’ve done intentionally and unintentionally on the table before God and saying, this is the mess I’ve made, this is the wrong I’ve done, do you forgive me?

And without a sigh, without a contemplative moan, He just forgives.

What does this do for the confessor?

Psalm 32:

Psalm 32:6–7 ESV

Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

This in some ways sounds and feels very much like the prayer we looked at last week. The Psalmist has this resounding confidence in the faithfulness of God because of the character of God.

God is merciful beyond your wildest imagination and when we get this, we will live our lives with such a confidence that God is the place where we can hide, and be preserved, God surrounds his people with shouts (songs) of deliverance.

There is a relief that comes when we’re open and honest with people that we have wronged, but this is a whole new level. This is not just relief, this is confidence. And it’s not just a confidence to go about his merry way; his confidence is to prod others to follow his lead in getting it all out on the table.

But wow, how different it is for some of us. Instead of coming out of confession with this confidence that leads us to a boldness to share God’s faithfulness with others, we come away from confession with an uncertainty if God still loves us.

And when we come away from confession with that uncertainty, there is an almost full guarantee that we’re going to repeat the same sin over and over again...

See if you come away from a time of confession and prayer and you’re uncertain about what God says about you, how He feels about you (in a relational sense), what motivation do you have to hit the mark of being an ambassador, that is disciple that makes disciples?

Psalm 32:8–10 ESV

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.

Psalm 32:8-

The Psalm has given us a very practical framework for confession and a beautiful picture of God’s character and faithfulness, but sort of out of nowhere, we have a little story about donkeys and horses?

What is meant by this little insert?

What he’s getting at is that there are really two roads of confession, one road that is a life of stubborn obstinance or a life where confession leads to joy and confidence.

Confession for the disciple will come from sorrow or will lead to soaring.

David must have had a bad day with his horses and donkeys or something because the lesson he proposes is this parable of a person who has to be yanked around in order for them to go the right direction much like a horse or donkey that is travelling on a narrow path where one side could lead to a certain death off a cliff and he keeps veering toward that cliff side.

A dumb donkey requires me to jerk their bit and bridle in order for them to steer clear of the cliff and journey on the right path.

Don’t be the dumb donkey.

The reason why we repeat the same unhealthy sinful patterns is because we believe that by doing that thing, we’re getting ourselves to the blessed life; the good life; the ideal life.

We have deep issues of misplaced love and misplaced worship and if we don’t deal with those issues in a healthy way, we will find ourselves in the same sorrowful spot time and time again.

Genuine confession

There is this way in which we can be motivated to follow the right path without the constant pain of the bit and bridle.

That is the way of confession and repentance. Some of us want to fast the confession part and go straight to the “shouts and songs for joy. Yay, Jesus forgave me of my sin.” But if we don’t take the time to empty all of the cupboards, get it all out on the table, and say, “I am much more of a mess than I thought I was” then we’ll keep repeating the same stuff, feeling the same guilt, and stay unchanged.

What’s the Proverb say, “Like a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly.”

That’s right about the time that people say things like, “I tried Christianity and it’s a hoax. It doesn’t work.” But that’s not Christianity, that’s religiosity a feigned religion.

Then when we get all that nasty stuff out in front of us and we’ve recognized that we’re terribly flawed, then we can say, “Jesus, can you still accept me?” And he says, “Of course, I bore the guilt, shame, and sting for all of that junk because I love you.”

This is why we’ve been working so hard for so many years to create environments where it is safe to tell the truth about our failures inside of our gospel fellowships. And we still have a long way to go.

We believe it’s damning to play church. To pretend that we all have it together. Put on a smiley face, nice clothing, good hygiene, nice clean cars and homes, Bible terminology, etc… when inside, we’re no different than the pharisees who were full of Bible knowledge, had the highest standards, but in their hearts they were white washed tombs. Dead.

We create space during our worship service to take communion together as God’s free and forgiven people. We are open and honest with God first about our failures, our willful and unintentional sins, and then we can sing with shouts of joy.

If you’re not a believer, and yet you want to enjoy the good life, it’s yours by trusting in Jesus. During the time of communion when those who have believed and been baptized come forward to partake of this break and cup, would you consider following Christ today?

Then those of you who want to speak with an elder or a deacon about getting help because you’ve created unhealthy patterns of sin in your life and you have had no place to turn, but you want to see Jesus do the deep work of transformation in your life, would you come right after the benediction is read and see us? We are not going to pretend that we’ve got it together, but we know our calling and we know how to equip you to take the right steps in your relationship with Jesus.