The Prayer Of Cleansing 3-7-2021

CONNECTING WITH GOD THE PRAYER OF CLEANSING Sunday March 7, 2021 Scripture Reference: Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT2) "Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today the food we need, 12 and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. 13 And don't let us yield to temptation but rescue us from the evil one." Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT2) Intro. A. Welcome to week five of our series on Connecting With God. So far, we have looked at the Prayer of Connection, getting connected with God. We looked at the Prayer of Surrender, asking God to take total control of our lives. Last week we looked at the Prayer of Dependence where we are asking God to be the one who provides for what we need. I said in the second week of this series that The Lord's Prayer is a challenging prayer and today I will tell you that I believe we are about to face the Lord's greatest challenge to us. 1. So far in the Lord's Prayer the things we have done have pretty much what we do between ourselves and God. We might share with someone else about the decisions we made in these other parts of the Lord's Prayer, but today we are going to see where the Lord tells us we need to not only confess to him but to others as well. Frankly, this part of the Lord's Prayer is very humbling but remember God's promise. "As the Scriptures say, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6 (NLT2) 2. I know that we do not always realize this but what holds us up and impedes or even stops our moving forward in our relationship with God and others is not something external, but internal. We are prone to blame this lack of progress on things like the economy, our spouse, our boss, or our opportunities, but the truth of the matter is that what is stopping us is something that is entangled inside of us and we are going to address that today. 3. I don't know if this will surprise you or not, but the Bible reveals to us that what holds us back more than anything else is unconfessed sin, which usually breeds in us an unconscious guilt. When we are holding on to those hurts and hang ups from our past, they produce guilt and shame in us that deeply hurt us. Let's look at our verses from Hebrews 12 for today. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT2) 4. There a few things I want to point out to you that the God is telling us in these verses. First notice that God tells us that He has a race planned for us. The Bible says is it already marked out for us. Another way we can state this is that God has a plan and purpose for our lives. We read in Psalms 139 that we are uniquely made, and you have heard me say many times that something will be left undone in this world if we do not follow God's plan and purpose for us. Here is the problem that many of us have to face though and it is the fact that while God has a plan for our lives, so do many others. Your parents might have a plan for you. Your spouse might have a plan for you. Your friends might have a plan for you. You have probably heard this before God loves you and everyone else has a plan for your life. God didn't create you to fulfill someone else's plan, He crated you to fulfill His plan for you because His plan for you is the only one that fulfill us. 5. Now notice though that these verses tell us that we are to throw off the things that that hindering us and holding us back from living out God's plan and purpose. Certainly, one of the things I have to throw off are the expectations of others, but V.1 specifically tells us that the big thing that we have to get rid of, that is holding us back is sin. It is that unconfessed sin that is creating unresolved guilt in our lives and preventing us from being all God wants us to be and doing all that God wants to do through us. When we hold on to sin it results in regrets, remorse, guilt, and shame. All of these things are internal as I said earlier and are preventing us from experiencing the abundant life the Bible promises us. These things are keeping us stuck in the past. 6. Now most of the time we know we are guilty, but we try to deal with that guilt in ways that just don't work. Here are a few. We try and deny it. We try to pretend that it doesn't exist. Sometimes we try to suppress it. We try to keep it a secret, but the one person other than God who always knows its there is you! We try to excuse it. This is normally where we use the blame tactic. "It's not my fault." "They made me do it." Then we try to rationalize. Do you know what it means to rationalize? Here is what it means, "Rational Lies". When we rationalize, we are trying to convince our minds that our hearts are wrong. Rationalizing is actually a battle between the heart and mind, but the end result is always guilt. 7. Do you think God wants you walking around with all this guilt? A lot of people think this is God's purpose, to make us feel guilty, but guilt is not a Christian emotion. The truth is guilt is the most worthless, unhelpful, destructive emotion out there. It destroys your confidence; it defeats your potential and worst of all it damages your relationships. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the guy who wrote the Sherlock Holmes novels was quite the prankster and one time he wrote an anonymous note to some well-known people in England. All the note said was, "All is found out, flee at once." Within 48 hours half the people he had written to had fled the country. B. Listen to this proverb, "People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy." Proverbs 28:13 (NLT2) This is the prayer of cleansing. This is a prayer that can revolutionize your life like nothing else can. If we can learn to practice this prayer it can open the door to a life free of guilt and give us a life filled with joy, peace, blessing and a life God can use. 1. Friends God wants to use you and I in ways that right now we cannot even imagine, but God can and will only use clean vessels. If we want God to use us, if we want to finish that race, He has marked out for us we need to pray, "Forgive us our sins." Trans. What I want to do with my remaining time is give you six steps that are necessary in releasing the guilt we carry and to begin being used by God in powerful ways. So, let's get started. Step one is: I. I NEED TO REVIEW EVERY AREA OF MY LIFE. We will call this step: A. Making A Personal Inventory. 1. What we are talking about here is making a personal spiritual assessment of our lives. In this part of the process, we want to get alone with God and ask Him to reveal things in us that are hindering our lives with Him and others. The book of Lamentations says this, "let us test and examine our ways..." Lamentations 3:40a (NLT2) What we want to do here to ask God to reveal any sin we may have in our lives. Again, the Bible tells us to do this. Here is what Psalms 139 tells us. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." Psalms 139:23-24 (NLT2) 2. Once again I will point out that this is certainly not the easiest thing for us to do. To say to God. "I want You to search the innermost part of me and reveal what displeases you." "I want You to reveal the sin that is holding my life and my usefulness to You back." But this is absolutely necessary if we want to stay on the course God has marked out for us. 3. Now let me say that we need to take our time in doing this, even if it means several sessions. Do not go into this process telling God you only have a few minutes to do this. You don't take clothes to a cleaner and say, "Just get most of the dirt out." NO, you want those clothes to be thoroughly cleaned and the same needs to be true of our hearts. Now you might be wondering, "Why do I have to write this down?" "Couldn't I just ask God to reveal it and be done?" Here is the reason you need to write this down. Writing makes things specific. Out thoughts get disentangled when we put them on paper. Writing helps us be specific. As I was thinking about this, I realized that God is never unclear with us and if we are going to Him and asking Him to reveal sin in our lives then we should want Him to be clear and specific. Writing this out is also cathartic, how's that for an impressive word, LOL. What does that mean? It means to cleanse or purge. Writing these things down will help us get them out where this can happen. 4. Now this is not something you are going to be sharing with a bunch of people, and I will speak about this in a few minutes, but let me ask you this? How serious are you about having God's blessing on your life? Are you serious enough to let God be totally honest with you? Are you will to be honest with yourself? Denial and God's blessings do not go hand in hand. Friends, you could be on the verge of true spiritual liberation. You can be on the verge of purity and joy unlike anything you have ever known, but I need to add one more thing before I move to the next point. Don't Procrastinate! There is nothing in your life more important than this, so do not put this off for a convenient time, because I will guarantee you that that time will never come, and the Devil will see to it that it doesn't. Remember we are involved in a real spiritual battle. Trans. OK here is step number two. II. I MUST REPENT OF EVERY SIN. A. What Does It Mean To Repent? 1. To repent means three things. It means I am taking responsibility for my sins. I am not blaming others for my disobedience; it is all my fault. It means I am turning away from those things. To repent means I am going to go in a new direction. And thirdly it means I am turn towards God and His grace. It means I don't want to go my own way anymore I want to go God's way. Look at what the Bible says, "Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the LORD. 41 Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven and say, 42 "We have sinned and rebelled,.." Lamentations 3:40-42a (NLT2) 2. To repent means "Don't Rationalize!" [] Confronting Frank Sr. You can't say this is not a big deal, especially if this is something God has revealed to you. Don't try to minimize it. Don't say things like, "Well this happened a long time ago. This water under the bridge." Don't accuse, don't excuse and don't blame. It may well be that someone else has some fault in what God has revealed to you. Maybe they are 99% at fault. God still expects you and I to repent for our 1% and not excuse it. 3. Once again I acknowledge that what I am sharing with you right now is not easy for us, but I think we also have to acknowledge that the greatest hinderance to our healing is US! We are not waiting on God; God is waiting on us. God cannot forgive sin that remains unconfessed. Once again, the Bible addresses this. Here is what it tells us. "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." 1 John 2:8 (NLT2) Is there something you are pretending about? Is there something you are pretending is not really sin when deep down you know that is exactly what it is? Are you pretending this thing doesn't bother you? Are you pretending you will just get over it eventually? Isn't it time to finally deal with that thing once and for all? Trans. OK I need to move along. Here is step three, III. I NEED TO MAKE RESTITUTION. A. Do This Whenever Possible. 1. Restitution is not always possible, and it is not always right. There are times when restitution can cause more harm than good. In these cases, I say seek the Lord's guidance and also the advice of a mature believer. But most of the time restitution is possible. I am sure I share this before but a number of years ago I was doing a series in the Ten Commandments. I still vividly remember this. The morning of the message I was going to share on no stealing God brought to my mind a time I had stolen from a former employer and this was way before I even went to Bible college. I had done some after-hours printing for a guy who was trading me some printing for some parts I needed for my motorcycle. Of course, I was using my employer's machines and paper to do this. That morning I wrote out a check for $100 and sent it that week with a letter of apology. He was not a Christian and I told him the whole story how God had convicted me of this sin. 2. Again restitution might not always be possible or advisable, but whenever it is, we must do it. Trans. Ok here is step four. IV. I RECEIVE GOD'S FORGIVENESS. So far, we have done the spiritual assessment, we have repented of the sins God revealed and we accepted responsibility and made restitution where possible. Now we need to receive God's forgiveness. A. I Need To Receive God's Forgiveness. 1. I love this verse from Hebrews. "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most." Hebrews 4:16 (NLT2) Notice what we do not receive from God when we confess our sins. We don't get scolded, we don't get yelled at, we don't get condemned. What we do receive is mercy and grace. So, what is the difference between these two things? I would put it this way. Mercy is God's forgiveness for my past sins and grace is God's power to live victoriously for Him in the future. Now let me share with you how NOT to receive God's forgiveness. B. How Not To Receive God's Forgiveness. 1. Two things you don't do. Number one you don't beg. You don't have to beg God to do what He proved He already wants to do for you. The fact is God wants to forgive you more than you want forgiveness. Again, He proved that through the cross. What does romans 5:8 tells us? "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5:8 (NLT2) 2. The second thing you don't do is you don't bargain or bribe. This is probably more difficult for us than not begging. We tend to feel that we need to tell God that we promise not to do this thing again, of course how many have broken that promise? Or we tell God, "If you will forgive me I will come to church every Sunday" or "I will volunteer to serve in some ministry" or "I promise I will start to tithe." 3. Listen carefully, God does not forgive us because of what we do, He forgives us because of what HE did! All we have too do is believe. C. How Do We Do This? 1. Well I have already used the word, but we confess. The Greek word is Homologeo and it means to say the same thing. Confession is not, as I just said, begging God to forgive us or telling Him we will never to it again. It is saying "God you are right, and I am wrong, please forgive me." 2. When we do this God justifies us. Here is what the bible tells us. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," Romans 5:1 (NIV) I am sure most of us know this but let me say it again. Justified means "Just if I had never sinned". God tells us that when we come to Him and confess our sins, He will wipe the slate clean, just like it never happened. I don't know how many times I have heard people say to me, "But pastor you don't know the things I have done. God could never forgive how terrible I have been." My response is always, "You are right I don't know what you have done and if I did, I might not forgive you, but we are not talking about me we are talking about God and total forgiveness He what He offers and He doesn't make exceptions for what He will forgive." Here is what God said, "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can take it out and make you as clean as freshly fallen snow." Isaiah 1:18 (LB) Trans. Ok let's look at step five. This might be the hardest of all the steps. V. I NEED TO REVEAL MY SINS TO A FRIEND, A. You Need One Person To Come Clean With. 1. Please note I said you need one person. Not five or ten, just one. Now you might ask, "Well why can't I just ask God to forgive me and move on? Why do I need to confess to someone else?" Well certainly God will forgive you when you confess as we just saw, So, your spiritual healing will take place, but there is still an emotional healing we need. God will forgive us there is no doubt about that, but the problem we have is that we still tend to carry with us what God forgave. In my introductory message to this series, I spoke to you about the need we have to be connected. God designed us to be in community and for that to be a healing community. Look at what the Bible tells us. "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." James 5:16 (NLT2) In the Celebrate Recovery program the phrase is used, "Revealing is the beginning of healing." Now let me be clear I am not talking about this as a substitute for confessing our sins to God. I can't forgive your sins and you can't forgive mine. Only God can do this. But I think we all know that even those things God has forgiven can still get in the way of our relationships with others and with God. 2. Too often we are still living in fear that someone will find out about us and the results of that are that we distance ourselves from people. We isolate ourselves from the very relationships that can help us. I hate to tell you this, but you are sitting with a bunch of sinners. Yes, saved by God's grace, but sinners. The bible is clear, we have all blown it. We have all not simply had a boo boo, we have rebelled against God. 3. Now let me offer a few guidelines for with whom to share with. I have called this person our Spiritual Accountability Partner. This person that I am going to reveal myself to must be a mature Christian. They must be someone with whom you feel safe with and who you know will be confidential. I believe there are people like this here at Cornerstone, but you could also choose someone outside the church like a Christian counselor. The point is to find someone. I would also add that this must be a person of the same sex. This avoids any potential problems. 4. Now how should you approach this person? I think you simply need to tell them that you have been seeking the Lord for someone with whom you could share some personal and private things. You are not looking for advice and you are not looking for someone to "fix" you. You have confessed these things to God and now you want to share them with someone who can help you find healing. Now I personally think that any person you would seek to do this with would be honored and not shocked by what you are doing. If this is the mature Christian, you know them to be then I can assure you that they have already done this themselves and it is part of the reason you went to them. Trans. Now let me offer one last thing. VI. REPEAT THESE STEPS REGULARLLY. A. Don't Procrastinate. 1. You should endeavor to take these five steps as soon as possible. Don't procrastinate changing a dirty diaper. The longer you wait the messier it will get. The old expression "Time heals all wounds" is false. Often times the wound gets infected and more problems arise. Don't let the Devil fool you by telling you to put this off. CONCLUSION A. To close today I want us to look together at Hebrews 10:22-25. "Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:22-25 (NIV) 1. Notice that five times in those verses we see the words "Let us". As followers of Christ, we are part of a community. It is a community of broken people that God is healing and making whole and we need each other for this to happen. Will you not just pray but live out The Prayer Of Cleansing? God wants to heal us inside and out and it begins when we are willing to take the steps, He has prescribed to us. 2