Praying When I Sin

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

I want to begin this morning by asking you some questions about your prayer life. For the first question I’m going to ask for a show of hands, but then the rest are merely for you to think about:

How many of you are completely satisfied with your prayer life? Go ahead and raise your hand.

For the remaining questions, I won’t embarrass anyone by asking you to answer publicly, but I want you to think about how you would answer them:

Do you sometimes feel guilty because you don’t pray enough?

Do you sometimes fail to pray because you feel like you don’t know what to pray?

Do you feel like you can be totally honest with your feelings when you pray - even when you’re mad at God or there are things that don’t make sense to you?

Do you get bored with praying because you feel like you’re constantly saying the same thing to God over and over?

Tension

I think if we’re honest, all of us would admit that we sometimes struggle with prayer, often for some of the reasons I just asked about. So for the next four weeks we’re going to talk about prayer, but probably not in a way that you might expect. If you’ve been a disciple for any time at all, I’m sure that you’ve heard sermons on prayer or done Bible studies on prayer. And usually this teaching focuses on two things:

You’re made to feel guilty because you’re not praying enough, so the takeaway is almost always “you need to pray more”. While that is true for most of us, making us feel guilty that we don’t pray more probably isn’t an effective solution to our lack of prayerfulness.

We’re taught some pattern of prayer, often based on what we usually refer to as the “Lord’s Prayer”. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. In fact something like the A.C.T.S. (Adoration/Confession/Thanksgiving/Supplication) model that many of us are familiar with is a very helpful guide for us as we pray.

While both those approaches are helpful, and maybe even necessary, they don’t necessarily do us a lot of good when we’re going through a rough stretch in our lives and we either don’t feel like praying or don’t know how to pray. So what I want to do over the next four weeks is for us to understand the Psalms as the language of prayer. Obviously the Psalms are more than that. A couple years ago we focused on what they can teach us about worship, for example. And we’ve also focused on other aspects of the Psalms in previous sermon series.

But what I hope to accomplish over the next four weeks is for us to learn how the Psalms are uniquely effective in helping us to pray when we go through tough times. The Psalms address pretty much any emotion we might experience. And the prayers that address those emotions are honest, raw, vulnerable, and sometimes even uncomfortable. They help us to put into words the expression of our hearts.

I love how Eugene Peterson conveys this idea in his book, Praying with the Psalms:

The psalms, more than anything else in the church’s life, are God’s provision for the people who find themselves in this condition, directing and shaping the prayers of Christians into fluency. They do not do our praying for us - they cannot be mechanized into a prayer wheel - but they get us praying when we don’t feel like it and they train us in prayers that are honest and right. They are both encouragement to pray and patterns of prayer. They represent the experience of men and women who have prayed in every conceivable circumstance across thirty centuries.

Truth

We will begin this morning with Psalm 32. It is a Psalm that addresses how we are to pray when we sin.

While he was still living at home, our son, Pete, had a Phoenix Suns locker in his room. It was not until he got ready to move out of the house that we moved that locker and discovered that it was covering up a rather large hole in the drywall. I know that you’ll find this hard to believe, but several years earlier he and Pam had been roughhousing and ended up putting that hole in the wall. But they had been able to keep it covered up for several years before it was finally discovered.

Now before you are too quick to condemn them, let me just day that I am pretty sure that you have done the same thing with some sin in your life. You have covered it up before others and even tried to cover it up with God. I can say that with confidence because that is a pattern that began with Adam and Eve in the Garden:

Genesis 3:7–8 (ESV)

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

After they sinned, the first thing Adam and Eve did was to cover themselves then the next thing they did was to try to hide from God.

Unfortunately, when we sin, it creates a separation between us and God and our natural inclination is often to try and avoid God rather than to run to Him. Psalm 32 is the antidote to that natural reaction and it shows us how to pray when we sin.

Psalm 32 ESV

A Maskil of David. 1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 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 6 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. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 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. 10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. 11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Here is the main idea we’re going to explore in this Psalm today:

The sin you want most to conceal is the one you most need to reveal.

This is the second Psalm that begins with a blessing. The first one is Psalm 1. In Psalm 1, the person who receives a blessing is the one who walks the right path and does not allow temptation to cause him to sin. As we know, none of us can ever do that perfectly. So it seems fitting that in Psalm 32, the blessing comes to the one who deals properly with his sin when it does occur. It is a Psalm that gives us great hope because it reveals that God is a God of second chances - but only for those who are humble enough to acknowledge and confess their sin and then change the way that they live so they don’t continually get caught up in that same sin over and over.

We don’t know exactly when David wrote this Psalm. Although he had been a great king and walked with God most of his life, he had also committed great sins, like adultery and murder. So when David writes, he does that as a forgiven sinner to let his readers and us know that we can be forgiven and restored no matter what sin we may have committed.

But what we do know is that he had covered up his sin for some period of time and that took a tremendous toll on him - physically, emotionally and spiritually. David describes what that was like in verses 3-4. When we try to conceal our sin, we will likely experience similar distress. Physically, we might experience high blood pressure, ulcers and migraines. Emotionally, we may become angry and bitter and critical and feel guilty. And spiritually we will be likely be dry as a result of running from God.

But the good news is that God wants to restore us and bless us.

In verses 1-2, David uses three different words for sin and he uses three different words to describe the way that God blesses us when we confess our sin to Him.

Three words for sin:

transgression = willful rebellion. It’s essentially when we say, “God, I know this is wrong, but I’m going to do it anyway”. David says, “I’m guilty of that”. And so are all of us.

sin = missing the mark or failing to reach the goal. This could be something that we ought to do that we fail to do and so we fall short of what is pleasing to God. David says, “I’m guilty of that”. And so are all of us.

iniquity = that which is bent or twisted. While transgression and sin describe our sinful ways, iniquity describes our sinful nature. And David says “I’m guilty of that”. And so are all of us.

But the good news is that God is willing to deal with that sin as long as we don’t try to deceive Him about it.

Three ways God blesses when we acknowledge our sin:

Obviously, David didn’t have a complete understanding of Jesus and how He would one day make it possible for our sins to be forgiven in a way that we can have a relationship with a holy God. But it was still a matter of his faith in God and God’s grace that made it possible to receive these blessings. On this side of the cross, it is clear that the only way we can receive these blessings is if we have put our faith in Jesus.

forgiven = to lift a burden and carry it away. That means that we no longer have to be saddled with the burden and guilt of our sin because God carries it away. Another Psalm puts this idea like this:

Psalm 103:12 (ESV)

12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

covered = concealed, put out of sight. The idea here is that when God looks at us He doesn’t see those sins. We first see this idea in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, God made a covering of animal skins to cover their sin.

not counted against = our sin debt is erased from God’s “books”. This is an accounting term. Instead of charging our sins against us, God credits us with the righteousness of Jesus. He treats us as if our sin never happened.

With that in mind, let’s see what David teaches us about...

Application

HOW TO PRAY ABOUT MY SIN

Own it

We can’t expect God to cover what we’re not willing to uncover. As the writer of the Proverbs confirms:

Proverbs 28:13 ESV

13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

You will note that David takes personal responsibility for his sins with the use of personal pronouns - my sin, my iniquity, my transgressions. In verse 5, he also says that he “acknowledged” his sin to God. He is no longer trying to hide or deny or minimize his sin or blame someone else. And he calls his sin, “sin”. He doesn’t call it a lapse in judgement, or a mistake, or an error.

I think we would be much better off if we would quite using other euphemisms for sin and use the language of the Bible:

Instead of saying, “I misspoke” or “I stretched the truth”, it’s better to say, “I sinned by lying to you.”

Instead of saying “I just have a bad temper”, it’s more accurate to say, “I just sinned against you with my angry words”.

Instead of saying “I had an affair”, wouldn’t it be more biblical to say, “I sinned by committing adultery”.

Instead of saying, “I just wanted to pass a pray request on to you”, it might be more truthful to say, “I am going to sin and pass on some gossip to you”.

Notice that at the end of verse 2, David writes that the man that is blessed is the one “in whose spirit there is no deceit”. That doesn’t mean that person never sins. It does mean that he recognizes and acknowledges - before God and man - that he is a sinner in need of God’s grace.

See my sin like God sees it

Biblically, to “confess” means to “say the same thing”. When that comes to my sin, that means that I say the same thing about my sin that God does. Or, to put in another way, it means to see my sin from God’s perspective. It means that I see my sin as a serious matter.

Every sin we commit is an insult to God. And until we understand that, we will never truly confess our sins. Confession of our sin is more than just admitting that we’ve sinned - it is also rejecting our sin as repulsive to God.

Godliness is not so much about the absence of sin as it is about our attitude toward sin. Because we are human, we will sin. But to truly experience the kind of forgiveness we read about in this Psalm, we must hate that sin, just like God does.

It is only when we feel that burden of our sin that we truly understand why it is such a blessing to have that sin covered and forgiven and not charged to our account. That is why we must not allow the guilt of our sin to drive us away from God, but rather drive us to Him where we might experience His boundless mercy and grace.

Deal with it quickly

There are two commands in this passage and they are really different sides of the same coin. One command approaches this idea from a positive perspective - this is what we are to do - and the other approaches it from a negative perspective - here is what we are not to do.

Verse 6 is the positive command:

Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found.(v. 6)

Certainly that command implies that if we hang on to our sin too long and don’t bring it to God, there comes a time where it gets so deeply embedded in our spirit and soul, that it becomes nearly impossible to acknowledge and confess it. So we need to deal with it quickly - just as soon as God reveals that sin to us.

Verse 9 is the negative command:

Be not like a horse or mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle...

A horse or mule is stubborn. It will only do what you want it to do because of the bit in its mouth. Unfortunately that is often our natural inclination when it comes to our sin. We only bring it before God kicking and screaming because we are somehow forced to do that. But when we’re stubborn like that all we do is to make ourselves more miserable. That’s what happened to David - read verses 3 and 4. And not only that, we end up postponing the blessing that God wants to bestow upon us by forgiving that sin.

Ask God to change me

Verses 6-8 describe some of the blessings that God provides when we do the things we’ve been talking about this morning. He preserves us in the midst of trouble, and delivers us. As we’ve talked about before that doesn’t mean that God will always remove us from our difficulties. But He will go through them with us.

But I want to focus on verse 8 for a moment. Let’s look at that verse again

Psalm 32:8 ESV

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

It’s not enough to just confess our sin and then go right back to living the way we did. God is not just in the business of covering our sins, but also of shaping our character. So not only does He forgive our sin, but He also shows us the way that we should live so that day by day we can be more like Jesus.

I would go so far as to say this. If you don’t at least make an attempt to change your life after you’ve confessed your sin to God, then you probably haven’t really confessed you sin in the way David is writing about here.

Action

As we close this morning, let’s go back to our main idea once last time:

The sin you want most to conceal is the one you most need to reveal.

Chances are that there are some of you here this morning who have been running from God because of some sin in your life. Maybe that’s because you think that sin is so bad that God could never forgive you. But remember that David had committed adultery and pre-meditated murder and God forgave him. I seriously doubt that you’ve done anything even approaching that, and even if you have, God will forgive you if you ask Him.

Some of you have never experienced the forgiveness that Jesus offers because you are too proud to admit your sin. Or maybe you think that the good things that you’ve done in your life are enough to make up for your sin. But God doesn’t grade on a curve. The only way you can get right with God on your own is to be 100% sin free. But I can guarantee you, based on the Word of God, that none of you can meet that standard. So the only way you can ever be freed from your sin is to trust completely in Jesus and what He did on your behalf on the cross. Paul describes how that works in his letter to the church in Ephesus:

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Being saved from your sins is only possible because of God’s grace. On the cross, Jesus demonstrated that grace by willingly giving His life to pay the penalty for your sin. That is His gift to you. But as we see in this passage, the only way to receive that gift is through faith in Jesus. So if you’ve never done that, we invite you to make that decision today and we’re here to help walk you through how you can do that.

But there are also some of you here who have made that decision, but who have some sin that has driven a wedge between you and God. And the longer you conceal that sin, the more miserable you are going to be. Some of you already know what that sin is. It’s been eating at you and the Holy Spirit has been speaking to you about that sin throughout this message. If that’s the case, please don’t wait any longer to confess that to God. Do that right now.

For others, maybe you sens that your relationship with God isn’t all that it should be but you really can’t put your finger on why that is. It might very well be that there is some sin that you been trying to hang onto or one that you’ve never really come clean to God on. If you’ve been feeling like that, then another Psalm provides you with a great prayer to pray:

Psalm 139:23–24 ESV

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Right now everyone should have something you can pray:

Pray and commit your life to Jesus for the first time.

Confess some sin that you’ve been hiding from God and ask Him to forgive you

Pray Psalm 139 and ask God to reveal any sin that you need to confess to Him

[Prayer time]

Inspiration

David ends the Psalm by describing the two possible paths that we can take when we sin. We can hang on to that sin and try to conceal it, in which case our life will be full of sorrow. Or we can acknowledge and confess that sin and trust in God’s forgiveness and be surrounded by His steadfast love. Jesus has done everything that is required to make that possible. But in order to receive the blessings of forgiven sin we must humble ourselves and acknowledge our sin and ask Him to forgive us. The good news is that He has promised that He will do that for those who trust in Him - 100% of the time.