Teach Us To Pray: Part 1

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Thanks Sam. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Hey, before we continue on, can I. [00:00:03] Speaker A: Just say, you guys are so stinking awesome. [00:00:08] Speaker B: I love you. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Emmanuel Fellowship church. [00:00:10] Speaker B: I came up here and complained about. [00:00:12] Speaker A: Having to deal with my own kids for an hour and so many of you guys got up and went and immediately met that need. You guys are great, thank you for that. We just have such a great kids ministry, don't we? All the people to love and serve. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Our kids so well. Thank you treehouse people. You guys are all such a gift to our church. Okay, so we are doing something new today. We're starting a new series. We're going to be spending three weeks talking about prayer in the life of the church and I am excited for this time together. I think this is going to be really good for our church. We just finished up this series on the life of discipleship and we're starting something specific today because I just think it's going to be good for us. This phrase, teach us to pray. This is what we're going to be considering for the next three weeks. And the reason we use this phrase teach us to pray is not because I'm some amazing prayer teacher, but because in Luke eleven, the apostles approached Jesus and this is what they said to him, lord, teach us to pray. Teach us how to pray. And in that text, Jesus gives a version of the model prayer, the same model prayer that he teaches in the. [00:01:32] Speaker A: Sermon on the Mount. [00:01:33] Speaker B: I mentioned this guys, and the reason we named it this is because I think this sentiment is true for basically all of us, right? We all know on some level as. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Followers of Jesus, we should pray more, right? [00:01:48] Speaker B: Like that's kind of one of those baseline Christian things of like I should read my Bible more, I should pray more. I know that I'm not going to, but I know that, right? That's one of these kind of really just universal experiences in our faith because we spend time with brothers and sisters in Christ who are gifted in prayer or who are just more disciplined in the practice of prayer than we are. Like you show up to small group or you come to church on a Sunday and you hear that one person pray and you're just like, wow, yeah, I really should pray more, I'm not good at this. And they are, right? Like we just see our own lacking. We want to pray more, we want to pray better, we want to pray with more intimacy and connection. And yet at the end of the day, most of us don't. [00:02:41] Speaker A: We just don't. [00:02:42] Speaker B: It's just this lingering hanging. [00:02:45] Speaker A: I should deal with this in my life, right? [00:02:49] Speaker B: Because I think this is why we. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Need a series on prayer. We need Jesus to teach us how to pray. We need that help. [00:02:59] Speaker B: We need this as individual Christians. Emmanuel needs this as a church, because one of my most sincere hopes for. [00:03:06] Speaker A: You guys as your pastor is that. [00:03:09] Speaker B: Our church would become a people of. [00:03:11] Speaker A: Regular and communal prayer. [00:03:14] Speaker B: In fact, we launched out kind of our formal prayer ministry over the last couple of weeks. [00:03:19] Speaker A: We got a group of folk together. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Who are committed to weekly praying over the ministry of our church, over our community, over you guys, over what happens in Sunday morning, over what happens in. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Our kids and youth ministry. [00:03:33] Speaker B: And they're going to be helping me launch out some regular prayer meetings for our whole church to come together and. [00:03:40] Speaker A: Pray for God to move in our midst. I'm excited for it. [00:03:44] Speaker B: To that end, right, like three weeks. [00:03:47] Speaker A: We'Re going to talk about prayer. [00:03:49] Speaker B: We're going to talk about three specific aspects of prayer. [00:03:51] Speaker A: We're going to talk about what it. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Means today to pray with reverence. Next week, Jim will lead us through a discussion on what it means to pray with intimacy. [00:04:02] Speaker A: And then after that, we'll talk about what it means to pray with boldness, pray with reverence, pray with intimacy, pray with boldness. Each of these ideas are aspects of a healthy prayer life individually and corporately. [00:04:20] Speaker B: When we pray together as believers of the church, like we've already done a couple of times today or in community groups, right? [00:04:27] Speaker A: Like these three aspects are important reverence, intimacy, boldness. [00:04:32] Speaker B: When we pray on our own, by ourselves, both in dedicated and extended times of intentional prayer. But even in the quick little momentary conversations and comments of prayer that happen. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Throughout your day, all three of these aspects are important. And how you talk to God, do you speak to Him with reverence, with intimacy, with boldness? [00:04:55] Speaker B: And so guys, I want to warn you pre warn you for this. As part of this series and this emphasis, we're going to do a couple of things, a couple of things that are a little outside our box as a church for each week. The next three weeks, we're going to incorporate some kind of intentional prayer experience. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Into our gathering for all of us to do together. Now, I say that I want you. [00:05:20] Speaker B: To hear this, right? Like, my goal is not to make. [00:05:22] Speaker A: You guys uncomfortable, but I do want to challenge us, want us to challenge ourselves as a church to take our prayer lives to the next level, to bring some seriousness, some intentionality, some presence of mind and spirit to how we think about prayer. [00:05:42] Speaker B: And so each week, we're going to do something a little different where I just go, hey, this may be weird. [00:05:47] Speaker A: You may have never done this before, but we're going to try this together, communally, as a family in our prayer. [00:05:53] Speaker B: By the way, the whole of this. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Series is going to lead into a revive gathering, and we've done several of these over the course of the life of Emmanuel. And some of you guys have been to them. [00:06:03] Speaker B: But we're going to do this one a little different in that it's going. [00:06:06] Speaker A: To be our Sunday morning gathering. We're going to come together and instead of our normal Sunday gathering, we're just going to have an extended time of worship and prayer together as a way of kind of capping off these three weeks of experience. It will be the Sunday right after. [00:06:19] Speaker B: This series is over, just in case. [00:06:20] Speaker A: You want to plan that for the Sunday that you're sick. [00:06:24] Speaker B: But no, seriously, if you haven't gotten. [00:06:26] Speaker A: To come to one of our revives that have been in the evening before, I'm excited for you to experience this just an extended time of worship and prayer and connection with each other and with the Lord. I think it's going to be good. [00:06:36] Speaker B: And all of this, by the way, is leading into us launching our first just full church prayer meeting that'll be. [00:06:44] Speaker A: At the end of October. We're going to spend just come together on a Sunday evening and just come before the Lord together for a good amount of time. It's going to be, I think, really life giving guys. I am excited about what God might do in our midst through this. [00:06:59] Speaker B: So let's get into it. We're going to be in Psalm 51 today. [00:07:04] Speaker A: If you going to go ahead and turn there, it's going to take me just a second to get there, but we're going to be in Psalm 51. [00:07:09] Speaker B: If you don't have a Bible with. [00:07:10] Speaker A: You, there are house Bibles throughout the room. You just kind of got to look in front of you. They're on one of the chairs in front of you. You might have to ask someone to grab one for you, but they're around as always. [00:07:21] Speaker B: We say this every week, but we. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Really believe in the importance of access to God's Word. Here at Emmanuel, if you don't own a physical copy of God's Word, I would encourage you to snag that one and take it home or talk to one of our pastors and we'll give you one that's a little nicer. [00:07:34] Speaker B: But today we're talking about we're starting our series with this idea of what it means to pray with reverence, to have reverent prayer. And there's a reason for this. The reason is this is how Jesus starts his instructions on prayer. I already mentioned Luke eleven, when Jesus gives kind of a model prayer there. But in the Gospels when Jesus gives instruction on prayer, we get the two different model prayers in Luke eleven and in Matthew six, they both start with reverence for God in Matthew six, what is often called the Lord's Prayer. It opens with you guys know this one, our Father in Heaven, your name be honored as holy or depending on what age you are, when you memorize that hollowed be your name, right? This is a beautiful picture, a beautiful. [00:08:24] Speaker A: Reminder of reverence for God in our. [00:08:27] Speaker B: Prayer now, I do have to do a quick note here, just really quick. Oftentimes when you hear guys like me. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Talk about prayer in this word that we read in English as father, you'll. [00:08:40] Speaker B: Hear us talk about this Aramaic word abba, right? [00:08:44] Speaker A: You guys have heard that discussed in church before. [00:08:46] Speaker B: I'm pretty confident if you've been around. [00:08:48] Speaker A: Like three Sundays, a pastor at some point has been like, you know, abba means daddy, right? [00:08:55] Speaker B: It's just a really common thing. But I'm going to actually push on. [00:09:00] Speaker A: That a little bit for us. [00:09:02] Speaker B: So this word abba, this Aramaic word, is an intimate term that young children. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Would use to refer to their dads. And so it's easy for us to. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Be like, yeah, it's like a little kid calling their dad daddy. [00:09:14] Speaker A: We talk about how that points to. [00:09:16] Speaker B: The intimacy that we have with God in prayer. And guys, there is some truth to that, but there's also more to that conversation. I don't want to step on Jim's sermon next week because he's going to. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Be talking about intimacy and prayer. [00:09:31] Speaker B: But I do think we need to camp here for a second because it really helps set up our discussion for today. Two notes about the way we talk. [00:09:40] Speaker A: About this term abba. [00:09:41] Speaker B: The first one is it's actually very. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Rarely used in scripture the vast majority of the time when God is called father. It's the Greek word potter, which means father. [00:09:52] Speaker B: But even by the way, even though. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Both of these words, potter and abba. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Both refer to how a child would talk to their dad, it really is. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Just fundamentally a little different from how. [00:10:03] Speaker B: We as Western Americans think of a. [00:10:05] Speaker A: Little toddler calling their dad Daddy. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Not that it isn't intimate. You just have to remember that ancient Jewish and ancient Roman cultures put a lot more emphasis on honor, respect, and obedience, especially to fathers and patriarchs, than. [00:10:26] Speaker A: We do in our culture. [00:10:29] Speaker B: It's actually pretty foreign to us how. [00:10:31] Speaker A: Much reverence was placed on paternal roles in these cultures. [00:10:37] Speaker B: And so even though these are intimate terms, they're also loaded with these ideas. [00:10:44] Speaker A: Around submission and obedience. [00:10:48] Speaker B: I mean, instead of thinking of that little toddler looking at being like, daddy, I love you, think instead about the little toddler who just kind of got. [00:10:55] Speaker A: In trouble and dad's like, get over here right now. [00:10:59] Speaker B: And the kid goes, yes, dad, and walks over, right? Like that kind of little kid version of the yes, sir. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Right. That's actually, honestly a little closer to how these terms are used, not because we're talking about people in trouble, but. [00:11:13] Speaker B: Because in that culture, to refer to. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Someone'S father, even in intimate terms, was to do so with respect and to do so with intimacy in mind. In fact, the only time the gospels record Jesus using the term abba is. [00:11:28] Speaker B: In his prayer to the Father in. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Gethsemane, right, when he's sweating blood, when he's considering the cross and saying, father, I don't want to do this, but what does he say to his abba in that moment? Not my will, but Yours, right? There is submission and obedience and reverence and intimacy all loaded together in that term. Father, is an intimate term, yes. Our Father, who's in heaven your name be honored as holy. But more than that, alongside that, it is a term of respect and deference. And here this church obedience, there's submission to authority built into that term. [00:12:17] Speaker B: And guys, there is a reason I'm. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Not just camping on this to camp on it. [00:12:21] Speaker B: There is a reason that reverence is important in your prayer life. A reverent prayer is, yes, it's a respectful prayer, but more than that, a reverent prayer is a true prayer. It represents reality. It understands who God is and who we are and the chasm in between those two things. You have to understand that, to understand what we mean when we talk about prayer as a concept, you as a sinful broken human with all your rebellion and all your idolatry and all your evil, the best you have and the worst you have. You are speaking to the King of. [00:13:08] Speaker A: Reality, the one who holds the stars in the heavens, the one who sustains existence by an act of his will, the one who is perfectly holy, the one who lights the angels, ablaze with his holiness, the one whom sin cannot approach you're speaking to Him. There's a chasm there. And to understand that reality demands a level of reverence, a level of submission, a level of obedience, woof. [00:13:41] Speaker B: It's intense, but it's important. So Psalm 51. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Pray with me, Church. Father, we ask today as we take a few minutes to work our way through this text, we ask God that you would just give us clarity of thought. Father, we ask that you would help us to consider familiar words afresh, familiar practices afresh god, give us sobriety as we consider ourselves and consider you. And Holy Spirit, give us grace today as we consider what it means to make sure our relationship with you is just built on the bedrock of truth and reality. Lord, we don't want to live in a fantasy land with you. We want to live in reality with you. Pray that you would bring us to that today and that that sobriety, that sobriety of thought would actually bring us to joyous thanksgiving and worship God. We need Your help with this. So we pray this in Your name, Lord. Amen. [00:14:42] Speaker B: Psalm 51 is a familiar text. [00:14:44] Speaker A: It's one of the most famous psalms of confession. We're going to work through it chunk by chunk. It's kind of broken into four movements. We're going to look at it in really three chunks of text. We're going to go through one and then talk about it. [00:14:56] Speaker B: And what we're going to see in here is that even though Psalm 51 is specifically a prayer of confession, it's a beautiful picture of what reverence looks like in real life. Prayer, real prayer, the kind of prayers we actually pray. Like Psalm 51 is one of the most beautiful examples of this because it is so deeply personal and intimate. If you stumbled upon Psalm 51 and didn't know it was Psalm 51, you would assume that you just started reading. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Someone'S private prayer journal and you shouldn't be there, right? [00:15:30] Speaker B: Like it feels like you are interceding. [00:15:33] Speaker A: On someone's private intimate thoughts between them. [00:15:35] Speaker B: And God because you are. Psalm 51 was written by King David. [00:15:40] Speaker A: In direct response to one of the greatest moral failings of his life that had a really, really tragic outcome. You can read about this in Two Samuel Twelve, but David, if you don't know the story, david was the second King of Israel. [00:15:55] Speaker B: He was specifically anointed and set up. [00:15:57] Speaker A: By God himself to lead Israel after King Saul failed in his calling. And God blessed everything David touched. [00:16:06] Speaker B: From the moment David came into the. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Throne, god's blessing was on all of Israel. [00:16:11] Speaker B: God gave this dude basically anything he could possibly want. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Everything that life had to offer in this point in human history was available to David in good and bad ways through God's blessing on him. [00:16:25] Speaker B: He reigned over a powerful kingdom that. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Was economically wealthily, was, that was united culturally, that was united religiously, that was successful, and power and authority, he had comforts, he had everything at that point a human could long for. [00:16:40] Speaker B: And what you see in Two Samuel. [00:16:41] Speaker A: Twelve is that David still rebelled. He wanted more and he took more. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Story of David in Bathsheba is one. [00:16:53] Speaker A: That is relatively well known, that David chose to have an affair with one of his highest up level soldier's wife. While the soldier was off in combat and David was back at home and he got her pregnant and tried to get the husband to help him cover up the thing and the husband refused to be dishonored in that way. And so David had him killed, had orders put out on the battlefield for the other soldiers to allow uriah to be killed by the enemy. And then he took Bathsheba, who was pregnant with his child home, to be his wife. And if you read the story, prophet Nathan comes and confronts David with his sin. Just wrecks him with his sin, just puts a spotlight on these things that he was doing in the shadows. And the minute David is brought to that place of being exposed, his response, let's be honest, is very different from how many of us respond when we're challenged with our sin. He falls on his face in repentance. He immediately comes to the Lord in repentance. He lets his sin be out in the open and he asks God to intercede on his behalf. And guys, the story is tragic. It's tragic because God essentially tells him, listen, I will forgive your sin, but this is a heinous thing and because of your evil, that child will die. And there's this sorrowful bit where Bathsheba gives birth and the child is ill and David is praying and the child dies. It's a really sad story all about the weight of sin, the evil that lives in this world, right? Psalm 51 was born out of that story. It's this beautiful poetic picture of David's response to his own sin, to looking at the way his choices have affected those around him, looking at the way his choices have affected his relationship with God. And then he just speaks the truth of the thing. [00:18:49] Speaker B: So let's start in verse one. [00:18:51] Speaker A: Let's read through this text together. Verse one of Psalm 51 tells us this be gracious to me, God, according. [00:18:59] Speaker B: To your faithful love, according to your abundant compassion. [00:19:02] Speaker A: Blot out my rebellion completely wash away my guilt, cleanse me from my sin. [00:19:08] Speaker B: For I am conscious of my rebellion. My sin is always before me, against you, you alone. I have sinned and done this evil. [00:19:16] Speaker A: In your sight so that you are right when you pass sentence. You are blameless when you judge. Indeed, I was guilty when I was. [00:19:25] Speaker B: Born, I was sinful when my mother conceived me. I think what we see in the. [00:19:33] Speaker A: Opening of this text is that real reverence means that we understand the weight of sin and we make no excuses. God justly demands righteousness and we choose rebellion. [00:19:53] Speaker B: That's a hard sentence to wrap your brain around, like theologically, that's one that church folk can go like, yes, amen. But just practically in your hearts. [00:20:02] Speaker A: It's really hard for us as modern western American individualists to actually accept the truth of that, that God justly demands. [00:20:13] Speaker B: Righteousness, that he looks out on us. [00:20:16] Speaker A: As human beings with agency and the ability to engage the world. [00:20:20] Speaker B: And he says, I made you. This is my reality. Live the way I told you to. It's hard for us to accept that's. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Just and good and right because we have so deeply ingrained in us that my personal liberty, my freedom, my freedom of choice is so important, it's core to who I am. But the problem with that understanding, the problem with that mindset is that you are not your own. You did not make yourself, you did not bring yourself into this world. You are not the one who sustains your life right now. You have no control over the atomic forces that hold together your atoms, right? [00:21:01] Speaker B: It's not even a matter of like. [00:21:02] Speaker A: Do you eat healthy? [00:21:03] Speaker B: No. You have no control over reality. [00:21:06] Speaker A: You can't tell time to keep moving forward. You can't tell physics to keep working. You are totally dependent on this reality within which you exist. And that reality, according to the scripture in Colossians, one is sustained by Christ Himself. It is his will that tells time to roll on, that tells physics to keep doing its thing, that tells your atoms to hold together, tells your heart to keep beating, your lungs to keep breathing. And because of that, because of his identity as Creator, his authority as Creator, you do owe Him. And when he says, this is how human beings in my reality should live. [00:21:53] Speaker B: We don't get to say, that's not fair. You don't get to. [00:21:59] Speaker A: You may not like it. We all are bent towards sin and rebellion. But it is just of God to demand righteousness. It's his reality. You are his. He's not wrong in looking at you and saying, I built you for this. You should live this way. It's not morally wrong of Him. It's morally right and good and just. And yet every single one of us chooses rebellion. Every single one of us chooses rebellion. We're broken by sin. It's wound into our DNA. Guys, this is the reality of the chasm between the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God. God is just in his demands for righteousness, and we are rebellious against that demand. And, guys, this is not distant and abstract. This is not me speaking in just theological terms to you. This is right home and personal. This is you and this is me. And we got to be honest about that. I love sin a lot. [00:23:06] Speaker B: I choose it all the time. Several times today, I've thought through and. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Chosen sinful responses to the world around me. [00:23:15] Speaker B: Several times since I walked in this. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Building this morning, I've thought through and chosen sinful responses to the world around me. And you have, too. We are corrupted, broken, selfish and sinful. [00:23:31] Speaker B: It's true of who we are. [00:23:33] Speaker A: King's Kaleidoscopes is Christian band. There's a lot of worship songs. We sing some of their arrangements and some hymns. Really beautiful band if you don't know them. They have this EP that goes with Good Friday. And it's like talking through the crucifixion and the death of the passion of Jesus. Very intense but beautiful arrangements of music. And one of the songs. A song called What Have We Done? There's this line where the singer says, judas sold you for 30, but I would have done it for less. There's truth to that, right? Like, that's a kind of intense way to say it. But we are sinners, rebellion, selfishness, evil, because that's in our hearts. [00:24:15] Speaker B: And I'm not trying to beat you. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Up right now and fire and brimstone you, but we need to be honest about the reality of our own hearts. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Not trying to beat you up with religious guilt. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The reason I'm pushing us so hard. [00:24:33] Speaker A: On this, guys, is because this kind of reverence, the kind of reverence that acknowledges the depth of my sin and the reality of God's holiness and the. [00:24:40] Speaker B: Chasm in between, that's not guilt. That's just honesty. It's just truth. It's just speaking about the reality within which we live. The entirety of this prayer in psalm 51 is built upon a sober understanding of who we are and who God is. We are rebellious sinners. [00:25:04] Speaker A: God is a faithful lover who forgives. [00:25:07] Speaker B: His forgiveness is not given because of our merit, because we earned it. It's given because of his goodness, his kindness, his grace. Nothing we can ask for, nothing we can demand. It's a sober acknowledgement of your and. [00:25:23] Speaker A: My reality within this world. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Because look at some of the ways David owns the weight of his sin. I mean, he puts his sin on a cosmic scale. Against you alone have I sinned. [00:25:38] Speaker A: That's kind of a funny way to say it, because I think Uriah might disagree. [00:25:42] Speaker B: But David acknowledges the bigger picture of. [00:25:46] Speaker A: What'S going on here. God, you anointed me king. You designed the way my life should go. And I looked at you and said no. [00:25:52] Speaker B: He admits his guilt. God, you are just in judging me. He owns how his sin was not just a mistake, but part of his very character. Since my birth, I've been guilty. David holds nothing back in his confession. And let's be honest, church, why would he? [00:26:13] Speaker A: God knows your heart. He sees you soberly, he sees you completely. [00:26:20] Speaker B: He sees the parts of you that. [00:26:22] Speaker A: You hate and that you work really hard to hide. You are completely and totally exposed before the King of reality. [00:26:29] Speaker B: Why dance around it? That's a weird thing to do. It's like you're refusing to just say. [00:26:36] Speaker A: The blunt thing that God's sitting there looking at and knowing about you right. David holds nothing back. [00:26:42] Speaker B: And you can see how in each. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Aspect of this, david is speaking to God as he actually is, from a perspective of who David actually is. You are holy. I am a sinner. There is a chasm. I have lived into my identity, my nature. [00:27:04] Speaker B: This is why the Bible says in Proverbs, more than once, the fear of. [00:27:08] Speaker A: The Lord is the beginning of wisdom. [00:27:10] Speaker B: More than once, because the proper response to the holiness of God and the sinfulness of us is fear. I think one of the things we break in evangelical faith, like in our kind of faith tradition, is when we read these beautiful texts in Scripture about the fear of God, we step back and we go, yeah, the fear of God. I mean, it doesn't mean like you're scared of Him. It just means like, oh, you honor him. Stop. Full stop. That's not what it looks like in the Bible. Go back and read Isaiah six. In the calling of the prophet Isaiah, god gives him this vision where he is brought into the very throne room of heaven. He is standing in the presence of the throne of God. Yahweh himself is seated in his glory. And the text talks about these angels, the seraphim, which means literally the burning ones who are flying around God, praising him. And the reality of the presence of his glory is lighting them on fire. [00:28:09] Speaker A: As they sing to him. [00:28:12] Speaker B: Isaiah is brought into this space and. [00:28:15] Speaker A: His response is not, wow, God, I have such awe for you. His response is terror. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Abject terror. He thinks he's about to die. Whoa. I am the man of unclean lips. I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. I should not be here. This is not a good space for me. I'm going to die. Go and read Deuteronomy nine. When Israel has rebelled and God is. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Shaking Mount Sinai, and his wrath and. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Anger and his justice are shaking the very mountains, and Moses goes up on the mountain to intercede for Israel after their rebellion with the golden Calf, when Moses stands before the holy, righteous justice of God, do you know what he does? He lays flat on his stomach for days. He lays down flat with his arms out and his face down in the dirt saying, god, I am not even. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Worthy to be on my knees in front of you. [00:29:21] Speaker B: He's scared. You know why? Because God is scary. Acknowledging the reality between you and God is, at the very least, initially a terrifying proposition. [00:29:37] Speaker A: And there is no point in avoiding that truth. There's no point in avoiding that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, because the fear of God is just acknowledging truth. Avoiding your reverence for God doesn't change the facts. [00:29:53] Speaker B: It doesn't change the truth of who. [00:29:55] Speaker A: He is and who you are. All it does, all it means is that you are just not acting in accordance with reality. Now, I know that's pretty heavy handed. I know that's pretty intense, but I think it brings us to a really honest question. What does confession look like in your personal spiritual life? Do you pray prayers of confession? I think most of us, because just the faith traditions of our culture, we probably have at least one memory of a prayer of confession, right? When some pastor, evangelist, or Sunday school teacher was like, oh, confess your sins to the Lord and receive his forgiveness. I can do that, right? Like, probably have some memory of that. But, man, what does your life of confession look like right now? I think many of us have a bad taste in our mouths about confession because we associate it with priests and booths and Roman Catholicism. But guys, I'm talking about you and Jesus talking about you and Christ. [00:31:01] Speaker B: Some of us avoid even this kind of personal confession. [00:31:06] Speaker A: Just coming to Christ and being honest. [00:31:07] Speaker B: I don't need to confess. Jesus has already saved me. I'm already good with him. [00:31:11] Speaker A: He already knows my heart. He's already sanctifying me. But beloved, beloved, confession is an opportunity to acknowledge the truth of reality and the truth of the Gospel afresh. Confession is an opportunity to hit reset on your reverence for the Father, to bring you once again to a place of real fear of the Lord, because that is where. Wisdom and where life and where freedom truly begin. [00:31:41] Speaker B: Truly, guys, this is where the Gospel begins. Look who God is. [00:31:48] Speaker A: Look who I am. Look at the chasm. Look at the cross bridging the chasm. The Gospel. Our experience of the Gospel begins with reverence, begins with acknowledgment of reality. So when you think about your prayer life in all its expressions personal, intimate, devoted, set aside, quiet, quick, communal, when you think about your expressions of prayer, from your time alone, by yourself in the morning to your time in Gospel community, do you bring reverence to these prayers? [00:32:28] Speaker B: Do you bring reverence that rightly. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Reflects the reality of God's holiness. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Now, hear me, I'm not asking you to fake fancy, right? I think all of us have been. [00:32:41] Speaker A: In some kind of church context where someone does the weird fake fancy prayer and they talk to you normal, but then you sit down to pray, and all of a sudden they're like, are. [00:32:50] Speaker B: You reading Shakespeare this morning? We just switched to King James version. You're saying, like, four syllable words right now. What is going on? [00:32:59] Speaker A: I'm not talking about that. [00:33:01] Speaker B: I'm not talking about this weird fake. [00:33:03] Speaker A: Whatever, because I'm asking about the actual posture of your heart. I'm not telling you you have to use specific words or phrases or physical postures, although all those things can be helpful at times, right? If you've never gotten down flat on your face and prayed to the Lord, that's a beautiful experience. It's a humbling experience. If you've never prayed with your hands open, expecting the grace of God, it's a beautiful experience. Certain words, certain phrases, certain postures, they can be helpful. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your heart. When you consider God, when you think of Him, when you think of your relationship with Him, is your heart considering reality? Do you remember that? You little sinful, selfish you is speaking to the King of reality that you, in your brokenness, are speaking to the One who sits on the throne of the universe, maintaining existence by his will. [00:34:09] Speaker B: You're speaking to the One who sets. [00:34:11] Speaker A: The angels ablaze with his perfection. Does that cross your mind? [00:34:16] Speaker B: Because it should. It should inform the way you speak to God. It should inform the importance that you place on the conversation. Should inform the way you relate to Him. I mean, those of you who are. [00:34:35] Speaker A: Married, think about your spouse, right? Sometimes when you talk to your spouse, you're just like, super, over the top, lovey dovey and romantic, right? Because it's just like, this is the moment. Sometimes we do that, but that's not all your conversations. [00:34:50] Speaker B: Sometimes you just got to figure out. [00:34:51] Speaker A: Who'S picking the kid up from soccer today, right? Like, sometimes they're just not all lovey dovey. And yet when you talk to your spouse, there is a reality of the relationship that crosses through your mind and informs the way you choose to speak, or at least should. And when it doesn't, oftentimes it leads to a conversation where you apologize. Right? When you speak to the Lord, are you acknowledging who he is? Does it cross your mind who you are engaging? [00:35:24] Speaker B: But guys, the reality of the fear. [00:35:26] Speaker A: Of the Lord, that's the beginning of wisdom, not the end of wisdom. Look how the text continues. Verse six. Surely you desire integrity in the inner self. You teach me wisdom deep within. Purify me with hisop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. [00:35:43] Speaker B: Let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Turn your face away from my sins. Blot out all my guilt. God, create a clean heart in me. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me, but restore the joy of your salvation to me. Sustain me by giving me a willing spirit. [00:36:05] Speaker A: This is two sections of the text kind of together, but they give us. [00:36:09] Speaker B: This sort of really good preview of. [00:36:11] Speaker A: Where the series is headed in the next two weeks. And I think it's actually beneficial for us to think of this really quick. [00:36:18] Speaker B: I'm not going to get too ahead. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Of ourselves, but as we're going to. [00:36:22] Speaker B: See, praying with reverence opens the door. [00:36:26] Speaker A: For us to actually pray with intimacy. Praying with reverence actually sets the stage for us to have real intimacy in our prayer, not false intimacy. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Because it is the honesty of reverence that allows for intimacy. [00:36:47] Speaker A: It is the honesty of reverence that. [00:36:50] Speaker B: Allows for there to be real intimacy. And that real intimacy, guys. [00:36:55] Speaker A: That is what opens the door for confidence and boldness. They go together, they're part of each other. Because the text continues, acknowledging the reality of sin isn't enough. [00:37:08] Speaker B: The speaker says in verse six, yahweh demands a heart, an inner life of integrity. This is the very part of David's person that he's just confessed is super depraved, right? Like you demand a pure heart. The thing I don't have. Truly the gap between God's holiness and our sinfulness is uncrossable on our own strength. [00:37:32] Speaker A: Verse seven gives us one of the most memorable images in the whole text. It gives us the hope of the gospel. It's about washing and purifying. Over the course of the text, the. [00:37:43] Speaker B: Speaker, it's almost like he gives us kind of these three steps of engaging. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Our sin with God. [00:37:48] Speaker B: We see confession, then we see the forgiveness. [00:37:51] Speaker A: We know that God delights to forgive sin. [00:37:53] Speaker B: But guys, sin isn't just our mistakes. It's a stain on our very heart. It's an impurity that makes us unable to be in the presence of a holy and righteous God. So God must forgive. But beyond that, he must also change our heart. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Confession, forgiveness, change. [00:38:09] Speaker B: David approaches God as his priest. Cleanse me of my impurity. Think of Leviticus and the purity laws hissep in Leviticus was the image of spiritual cleansing. So God doesn't just forgive. He forgives and then he cleanses. Look how the text continues. Then I will teach the rebellious your ways. Sinners will turn to you. Save me from the guilt of bloodshed. God god of my salvation. My tongue will sing of Your righteousness. Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare Your praise. You don't want sacrifice or I would give it. You're not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit, and you will not despise. [00:38:51] Speaker A: A broken and humbled heart. See, confession and repentance must go hand in hand. God's holiness demands a fundamental change of the human heart. And praise be to God, he provides exactly that. He fundamentally changes our heart when we come to Him for forgiveness. He gives it when we ask Him to be purified. He does it when we need our hearts fundamentally changed in the likeness of God to continue in the relationship with Him. [00:39:23] Speaker B: You better believe it, church. He does that for us. [00:39:28] Speaker A: David refers to this as the wisdom of the Lord. [00:39:32] Speaker B: In our text, this signifies that continued. [00:39:34] Speaker A: Relationship with God kind of what we might call sanctification, which leads us to something vitally important. As we kind of bring this thing home, david points out that religious practice would not have been enough. It wouldn't get him there. [00:39:51] Speaker B: This is striking because you remember he's. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Pre Christ, he's the Old Testament. [00:39:55] Speaker B: If you go back and read Leviticus. [00:39:57] Speaker A: One through nine and read about the. [00:39:58] Speaker B: Actual sacrifice laws, you'll see them repeat this theme all the way through it. Come to God, offer the sacrifice, have your sin forgiven. [00:40:06] Speaker A: But David pushes back on that idea. [00:40:09] Speaker B: He's pushing on the temptation of Israel and all of us to lean into legalism because they could learn the practice of killing a goat, but never engage the way that sinner distorted and broken their very soul. [00:40:22] Speaker A: So David says the sacrifice, that's not enough. God needs his heart. [00:40:26] Speaker B: God wants his repentance, his real repentance. And in that, God offers not just forgiveness, not just purification, but his wisdom, his sanctification. [00:40:38] Speaker A: See how David responds to that in worship, praise, joy and mission. Because I think this is a really stark warning for us today, that when we think about confession and repentance, to not fall into the ditches of legalism or licentiousness, we can fall into the legalistic ditch and just think, I've got to do the right things, say the right words to get good with God. We can fall into the ditch of licentiousness and say, this doesn't really matter. God's not really that mad about it. But guys, we are invited today to walk a straight and narrow path down the middle, to soberly confess, to realize the chasm between our sinfulness and God's holiness and to receive the forgiveness and purification of Jesus. To do the work necessary to walk in wisdom and holiness, knowing that we always get to come back for more and more grace. It's a dance. It's a back and forth. And our reverence for God guides us here. Knowing and living in the reality of holiness and sin shows us how legalism and licentiousness fall short. You can't trick a holy and righteous God into lowering his standards. You can't dress up your sin so it's not so bad. These ditches don't get us anywhere. The only hope, beloved, is the gospel. It's forgiveness and relationship with Jesus that gets us there. And look how our text closes. In your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in religious sacrifice and whole burn offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. I love how this text ends. If you're the kind of person who is passionate about the culture war, right, about our nation, our people, our faith tradition going to hell in a handbasket, we need to get this thing turned around. If that's you, nothing wrong with that. Just remember, a nation is made up of individuals. And David closes here with this beautiful reminder that corporate repentance begins with personal repentance. If you're concerned about where our culture is headed, if you're concerned about where our nation's headed, if you're concerned about where your faith movement, where your church is headed, stop and deal with your own heart. Deal with your own lack of reverence. Deal with your own unrepentance and see how God might use that collectively. [00:43:13] Speaker B: So what do we do with this? [00:43:14] Speaker A: How do we land out today? Well, church, I want to invite today to just consider your prayer life. Do you pray? [00:43:26] Speaker B: Is prayer regular prayer? [00:43:28] Speaker A: Is that a part of your spiritual practice? Because many of the reasons that we avoid prayer many of the reasons I avoid prayer is honestly addressed by our lack of reverence. Is it shame that keeps you from prayer? You know, you've been dealing with the same thing for a long time. Just seems like you're not finding any traction in it. Well, guess what? God is holy and righteous. He already knows who you are. Avoiding him accomplishes nothing. Is it apathy that keeps you from prayer? I'm busy. I have stuff in front of me. I just don't think about Him. I'm thinking about the stuff right in front of me. Beloved, he's the king of reality. He is worthy of your attention. Is it busyness? The amount of stuff on your schedule, the seeming lack of time you have to engage Him. Beloved. He is God. His very spirit is with you right now. He prays with you. He prays for you. Every aspect of your prayer life, from personal to public, from devotional to quick little prayers, should be grounded in reality. When you talk to God, you should know who he is. You should know who you are. You should let that guide the conversation, guys. [00:44:42] Speaker B: And this doesn't mean every prayer you ever pray needs to be totally laying flat on your face, spending 15 minutes confessing every little sin you can think of. [00:44:50] Speaker A: Although I would say those kind of prayers are really appropriate to be part of your prayer life, doesn't mean every single prayer you pray needs to be like that, but when was the last time you actually, literally got on your face before God? And I'm asking that honestly, did you lay out flat and exposed before the Lord and confess your sin to Him? When was the last time you got on your knees? When was the last time you prayed a deep and a detailed and a blunt confession? When was the last time you spent time in prayer that actually worshipped the Lord and named Him for who he actually is? When was the last time you prayed scripture, maybe even specifically the Psalms, to help you get there to put right language around your confession and your worship? Guys, if this kind of stuff is foreign to you, praying through the Psalms is one of the greatest steps you can take to help you engage in. [00:45:44] Speaker B: So I'm going to land us today. [00:45:45] Speaker A: By asking us to do something a little weird. Band if you want to come up, we're going to have just a quick minute of response time. Here's what we're going to do today. So I asked our hospitality team to put a pen and a card on all your chairs. And so if you look around those little index cards and pens around and I'd encourage you to snag one of those. I'm going to ask you guys to do something today, and this is actually going to be open and available to you for the rest of this series if you're interested in it. But I'm going to ask you to take our response time time. We're going to sit in the quiet with some pretty music playing for just a minute. I want to ask you, as we always do, to sit in prayer. But here's what I want to ask you to do that's different. I'm going to ask you to write out your prayer with your own hand on your card. [00:46:32] Speaker B: And if you're sitting there going, I. [00:46:35] Speaker A: Do not write well, that's fine, write poorly. [00:46:40] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you to write. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Out your prayer, and here's the reason why. There's a couple of things that can do for you. [00:46:47] Speaker B: First one is writing out your prayer. [00:46:48] Speaker A: Slows you down, forces you to think about what words you're using, forces you to think about how you're describing yourself, how you're thinking of God, brings you a little more present into your prayer. I think it gives you an awesome opportunity to pray with reverence, to consider God as he actually is, to consider yourself as you actually are. I want to encourage you to include confession in this prayer as David modeled to us. And I want to give you a couple thoughts with this. You may just need to write this prayer out right now so that you can stick it in your Bible and you can look back over it over the rest of these next few weeks and consider your prayer life and consider the honesty and the reverence you bring with your relationship with the Lord. You may need to take this opportunity to put some stuff out there into the world so that your church can come around you. If there's something going on in your life, something weighing you down that you just need your church family to pray for, there's a big old wooden box in the back of the room that I put back there. If you're an old red tree person, that used to be our tithe and offering box. It's been in a storage room for the last however many years. But I want to invite you to say, man, if you have something that you just want prayed over with your name on it or totally anonymous, up to you, you can write it down, you can drop it in that box. Our elders and our prayer team will go through those and commit to pray over that in this season. I'd invite you to do that even today if you were just struck by this whole idea of going, man, I don't live in confession. If you need just some help to shine a spotlight on some of the idolatry in your life that you might see the wisdom of the Lord come and sanctify you, I would invite you, invite you to put that out there, put your name on it. If you want or don't. It's okay. Comes in anonymous, we'll all pray over it anyway. And that box will be there for the next three or four weeks, giving space for you guys to share stuff. And I promise you, our elders, our prayer team will keep that confidential, but we will bring you before the Lord regularly to be in this with you. So church, man, let's take a few minutes to root ourself in reality, to speak to God as he actually is from the perspective of who we actually are. Because the reality is, if we do that, I guarantee you it'll bring us back to the truth, that the gospel is sufficient to meet your needs. The gospel of Jesus is enough for you, beloved. So take a few minutes, talk to the Lord, be honest. If you want to get up and put it in the box, go ahead and do it. If you want to keep it for yourself as a reminder this week, that's fine too. If you want to do both, rip your card in half, grab another one. Let's take a few minutes, church, and let's come to the Lord.