PRAYER
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION
DR. JIM DIXON
JULY 14, 2013
PSALM 51:1-17
On May 30th, in the year 1431, Joan of Arc died at only 19 years old. She was burned at the stake. It’s impossible to imagine a more horrible form of death. The pain was excruciating. According to British records, Her final words were “Jesus, Jesus.” And it was Jesus that she loved. It was Jesus whom she loved. She had been accused of heresy. She had been accused of witchcraft. Both charges were bogus. They’d been trumped up by her enemies, political and religious enemies. Somehow this teenager, by the grace and will of God, had risen up to lead the armies of France. 20 years after her death, she was exonerated by the church, and later she was beatified by Pope Pious X and Pope Benedict the XV canonized her.
Today, Joan of Arc is the patron saint of France. I mean, think about that. It’s not Charles Martel, who in the seventh century conquered the Arabs and who Christianized much of Europe. It’s not Charlemagne, the grandson of Charles Martel, who was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day by Pope Leo III in the year 800. It’s not Louis the XIV, who built the Palace of Versailles and taxed the people into poverty. It’s not even Louis I was called St. Louis, a man of great faith and a man of great piety. No, the patron saint of France is a teenage girl named Joan of Arc.
We don’t know a lot about her. We have very few historical records, but we do know this. It’s often mentioned that she spent a lot of time in the confessional confessing her sin. It wasn’t because she was such a huge sinner. It was because she had an awareness of the holiness of God, and she was sensitive to her own failures and her own shortcomings. So she would go into the confessional in the Catholic church often to confess her sin and to seek intimacy with the Lord and to seek His forgiveness.
I don’t know how many of you have Catholic backgrounds. I don’t know how many of you have ever been in a confessional. Of course, the Catholic Church offers the confessional. We have many Catholic friends here at Cherry Hills Community Church, and we have a growing friendship with the parish of the church of St. Thomas More. And we’ve begun to meet with the staff. People from our staff are meeting with the staff of St. Thomas More. And we have another meeting a week from tomorrow with the staff at St. Thomas More, and we’ll be with Father Doug, perhaps Father Andrew, and many of the other staff. We feel that in this enveloping darkness, as Judeo-Christian values are eroding and there’s such a spiritual crisis in our culture and in our land, that it’s important for those of us who love Christ to stand together, to unite. So we’re going to have some shared ministries over at St. Thomas More and here at Cherry Hills.
I told them the last time we gathered that one of the things I love about the Catholic Church is the confessional. I mean, I know it can be abused. Everything can be abused, but I love the confessional and I love the reminder that is given of our need to confess our sins to God—and even, when appropriate and led of the Spirit, to God’s people. And I want us to focus this morning on prayers of confession. And as we focus on prayers of confession, we have two teachings.
The first teaching is this: the prayer of salvation is a prayer of confession. If you are saved, then you have confessed your sin. The prayer of salvation is a prayer of confession. Look at Mark’s Gospel, chapter one. Look at verses 14 and 15. “Jesus came preaching the gospel saying, ‘Repent and believe, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” This is a summation of the gospel. The gospel demands that we repent and believe. And repentance in the Bible is tied to confession. So “homologeo” is the word for confession. The word for repentance is “metanoia.” Metanoia literally means “to change your mind.”
See, if you confess, if you really repent, you must change your mind. This doesn’t mean to change your behavior. That’s a different thing. To change our behavior is a process. The Bible calls that process sanctification. So changing our behavior is a process, and we’re not saved by changing our behavior. We’re not saved by our behavior. We’re saved by His behavior, not our righteousness. His righteousness is imputed to us, vested upon us. But if we’re saved, there’s been a changing of the mind. There’s been a moment where you have repented and believed, and you’ve received Christ as your Savior and Lord. And the change of the mind means that you now want to please Him. You live to please Him. You want to be like Him. So the prayer of salvation is a prayer of confession, acknowledgement that we are sinners and we very much need a Savior and we need grace and we need mercy.
Now, there’s some people who just do not accept the gospel. They refuse to repent and believe. The Pharisees were like that. Have you ever taken a look at Matthews Gospel, the 23rd chapter, or even Luke’s Gospel in the 11th chapter? I really recommend, even today, you go home and you read Matthew 23 and Luke 11. It’ll blow your mind. Jesus Christ says to the Pharisees that they are children of hell, that they’re whitewashed sepulchers, that they are polished on the outside and rotten on the inside, rotten at the core. He said, “How will you ever escape the fires of hell? You searched the whole world over to make one convert, and you make that convert twice the child of hell that you are.” “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.”
And what did the Pharisees do so wrong? What was it about them? You can read Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, and he tells us at the time of Christ there were four prominent groups in Israel. First he mentions the Sadducees. We don’t know a lot about the Sadducees. We don’t even know the entomology of the word Sadducees. There are some people who think that the word Sadducees comes from the Hebrew word “tzedakah,” which means “righteous ones.” But we don’t know that for sure. There are others who believe that the name Sadducees comes from the name “Zaduk.” Zaduk was the high priest under King Solomon, and the Sadducees claimed descent from Zaduk. So there are some who believe the word Sadducees is somehow derived from that name. It might be.
There are others who believe that the word Sadducees is derived actually from a Hellenized word, the word “sumdikaios.” Sumdikaios is a compound Greek word from “sum,” which means “with,” and “dikaios,” which means “righteous or just. So, “With righteousness. With justice.” This word Sadducees was the word that was given to describe all those who were members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council. And some believe the word Sadducees comes from that. We don’t know.
We know that the Sadducees were theological liberals. They were theologically liberal. They didn’t believe in the whole Bible. They didn’t believe in the whole Old Testament. They only believed in the Pentateuch, the first five books. So everything after the first five books, they just threw away. From Deuteronomy all the way to Malachi, they threw it out. They also didn’t even believe in the resurrection of the dead. They were theological liberals.
They weren’t just theological liberals, but they were politically compromised. And they’d sold out to Rome and they were receiving stealth money from the Romans for their compromise. And Jesus condemns them. Jesus condemns the Sadducees for their theological liberal liberalism, and probably for their political compromise as well. But he doesn’t condemn them with the same harshness that he directs at the Pharisees.
Now, the second group that Josephus mentions is the Essenes. Essenes were a group of Jewish people who lived in isolation. They lived in community. Many believe that the settlement at Qumran down by the Dead Sea, the ruins of which still exists today, was a community that might have been Essene. So they isolated themselves from the world and they lived in a place apart. Jesus tells us not to do this, that we are to engage the world. We are to be in the world, but not of the world. So we’re called to engage the world. He doesn’t call us into monastic seclusion.
The third group that Josephus mentions is the zealots. The zealots were Jewish radicals who sought the overthrow of the Roman Empire, through violence if necessary. They had assassins. Jesus said, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. Blessed are the peacemakers.”
But this fourth group was the Pharisees. And what did they do wrong? Why did Jesus reserve most of His indignation for them? They were theologically conservative. They believed in the whole Bible. They believed in the Torah in the broadest sense. They believed in everything from Genesis to Malachi. That Pharisees believed in the resurrection. They believed in the supernatural. They believed the Messiah would come. They were morally rigorous and politically faithful to Israel. Why did Jesus condemn them? It’s really pretty simple. They didn’t think they needed a Savior. They honestly believed they were worthy of heaven. They looked down on other people as lesser, but they were worthy of heaven. And in their self-righteousness, Christ condemns them. They couldn’t respond to the gospel because they didn’t really believe they needed to repent.
Maybe there’s a little bit of that in you. Maybe as you sit here today, there’s a little bit of the pharisee in you. It’s possible that you actually think you’re worthy of heaven. Maybe you really believe that when that day comes and you stand before the Lord, that He’s going to view you as relatively wonderful, relatively good. Maybe you believe that somehow you surely deserve heaven. You don’t really have a felt need for a savior, and therefore the call to repent has little impact on you. It might be that you don’t know your own heart and you don’t know your own mind. It might be that you need the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin and draw you to the Savior. It might be that you’re not aware of the darkness of your motives and your thought life, or even your behavior. Maybe you can’t really sing Amazing Grace because you don’t really think it’s so amazing and you don’t think you’re a wretch. “How sweet the sound, amazing grace, that saved a wretch like me.”
I think some people have other problems responding to the gospel. Maybe you have some of the problems that I have. I mean, I have problems. I have a lot of problems. And in my life, as I look back at my life, it was never hard to repent. But there’s a sense in which it was hard to believe. It was hard to believe that He had really received and accepted my confession. I grew up in a wonderful Christian home, had a great mom and dad who loved me and loved Jesus and loved His church and served it.
I had wonderful brothers. My brothers, Greg and Gary, obviously, grew up in the same home. I think they never had a time when they didn’t believe, never had a moment when they didn’t believe. And I don’t think they ever doubted that God’s grace and mercy had secured their salvation. I don’t think they doubted that. But I did. I have been so aware of my own sinfulness. I think maybe one of the reasons my mom took me aside when I was five and knelt with me in the living room and had me pray a prayer of salvation and a prayer of confession, confessing my sins and asking Jesus to forgive me and come into my heart and be my Lord and savior, was she wanted me to have the confidence I didn’t have.
But that was, for me, the first of many times accepting Christ. I accepted Christ again and again and again. Because, it wasn’t that I doubted that I was a sinner. It was just hard for me to believe that His grace was sufficient to secure even my salvation. And so I would go forward again. It seems like back in those days we had a lot of fire and brimstone preachers who would come to our church. At least it seemed to me like that. Sometimes they were guest speakers on Sunday morning, sometimes Sunday night, sometimes Wednesday night. And altar calls would be given. My heart would just pound as I would feel afraid. And they would say, “You might die tonight.” They make it sound like you’re going to die tonight. “And are you 100% sure? You might get hit by a car tonight. Are you a hundred percent? You may have come forward before, but are you a hundred percent sure?”
I think, oh no, I’m not a hundred percent sure. And I’d go forward again. I’d go forward again and again. I just had a hard time. And my dad finally took me aside and he said, “Son, no more altar calls. You’ve accepted Christ. He’s forgiven you. He’s true to His word. He has saved your soul. He has you in His hand. He’ll never let you go. No more altar calls.” And so I did. Well for some months. I would sit there and the preacher would make me nervous and afraid and would give an invitation and I’d want to go down front, but I was more afraid of my dad. So I didn’t do it. I’d sit there with my family.
Then one Sunday a preacher gave an altar call and my dad got up and went down the aisle and I thought, wow, I can go now because he can’t get mad at me for doing what he is doing. So I went, about 20 feet behind him, down the aisle. My dad was an elder in the church and I didn’t realize he was a counselor that day. And he got down there, turned around, and the look on his face was priceless.
But you see, the prayer of salvation is a prayer of confession. And you can trust God. So when you repent, you confess your sin and you ask Him to be your Savior and your Lord. In that moment, He saves your soul forever. And you can believe that it’s all His grace. And He has grace for you. Paradise is grace. The new Jerusalem is grace. We get there by grace. The New Heavens and the New Earth are grace. The new body, described in 1 Corinthians 15, is grace. It’s heavenly, fit for the heavens, and indestructible. It’s powerful, it’s glorious, it’s spiritual. It’s all grace. Your name being written in the lamb’s book of life is grace. It’s grace that we’re saved. So that prayer of confession is so important.
I have a second teaching this morning, and the second teaching is that prayers of confession restore intimacy with God and prepare us for the final judgment. Now, once we’re saved—we say that prayer of salvation and we make our confession and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—we still need, as we walk with Christ, to make confession of our sin for the sake of intimacy with Christ and even in preparation for that last day when we will stand before him.
So when you look at the prayer of David in Psalm 51, you see how David makes His confession, longing for intimacy with God. And you see his fear that, because of his sin, he might lose that close fellowship and friendship with God. So David says he really repents. He says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Put a new and right spirit within me.” So this is metanoia, this is a changing of the mind. This is repentance. And then he says these words: “Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me.” So he’s praying that intimacy with God would remain. It’s those prayers of confession that brings such intimacy with God.
You know how Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five gives us the beatitudes. And He says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And the pure in heart are those who confess their sin. They’re not sinless (because we’re all sinners in desperate need of grace), but the pure in heart are those who long to please Christ and to be like Him. They confess their sin in this desire for sanctification. They confess their sin and they see God. “Katharos,” the pure in heart. They see God.
You know, there’s a huge difference between changing your mind and changing your behavior. Changing your behavior is a process. The Bible calls it sanctification. We’ve mentioned that changing your behavior is a process of growth. It takes time. And some behaviors are not completely transformed in this lifetime. I mean, some behaviors won’t completely change until we get to heaven. But that’s different than changing your mind. The changing of your mind is that longing to be like Christ and to please Christ.
Let me give you a personal example. Couple of years ago Barbara and I were talking and she said, “Let’s have lunch together today. Do you have a lunch or is your lunch free?” I said, “It’s free.” She said, “Well, let’s have lunch together.” And Barbara and I love to have lunch together. So I said, “Well, where do you want to go?” And she said, “Tokyo Joe’s.” And Barb loves Tokyo Joe’s. So I said, “Sure, let’s meet at Tokyo Joe’s. what time and where? And she said she wanted to meet at Tokyo Joe’s in the tech center. I didn’t even know there was a Tokyo Joe’s in the tech center. I mean, I know there’s the one in Highlands Ranch over on Broadway and the one on Quebec at Lone Tree. But I said, “Well, where’s Tokyo Joe’s in the tech center?” And she said, “It’s on Dry Creek. Just go off 25 on Dry Creek and you’ll see Tokyo Joe’s.” And she apparently told me that it was west of I-25, but I didn’t pick up that part.
So at lunchtime, I’m heading over and I’m just running a couple of minutes late, but I’m thinking, no problem. I get off of I-25 on Dry Creek and I go east. I go east because I kind of think of the tech center as east of I-25, even though parts of it are actually west. But I go east on Dry Creek and I can’t find Tokyo Joes anywhere. I’m driving all over the place and the minutes are going by, and five minutes becomes 10 minutes. I’m kind of frustrated. I can’t find anything. I see a restaurant, and I think I’ll just go in and ask. So I pull into this nice restaurant. I go in and for some reason there’s no hostess there. There’s a bar and I go into the bar and there are some people there and I say, do any of you know where Tokyo Joe’s is? And they say, yeah, it’s on the other side of the highway. It’s west of I-25. You just take Dry Creek to Yosemite and that’s where it is.
So I get in the car and I go west and I come to Dry Creek and Yosemite. And sure enough, there’s Tokyo Joe’s. It’s in a small shopping center with a small parking lot—there are a number of little businesses, but only a small parking lot. And I’m in a hurry. I’m late. I pull into the parking lot and there are no parking places. I go up and down both aisles and just look around at not a single parking place. I’m frustrated, very frustrated. I wait a little bit, but nobody comes out. There’s no opening. So I think, well, I’ll have to park in the neighborhood. And I start driving around the neighborhood and every parking place in the neighborhood’s taken. There’s not a single parking place in the neighborhoods. What is this? And so I think, well, I’ll just try the parking lot again.
I go back to the parking lot again and drive through the parking lot. Nothing. I go, wait, nothing. Nobody comes out, no car leaves, nothing. So I think, well, I’ll try the neighborhood again. Maybe somebody’s gone. I do the neighborhood again. Nothing. I can’t find a parking place anywhere. And I know Barb is there. I know she’s sitting inside. I know I’m late. I’m feeling frustrated. And the tension is kind of growing and mounting in me. I go back a third time to the parking lot thinking, I’m just going to sit here. Somebody’s surely going to come out. Eventually somebody did come out and they start backing their car out, and I’m ready to pull in. And at that very moment, another car just races in and just… you know, you snooze, you lose.
So I’m mad now. I mean, I’m really mad. I can feel the blood pressure; I can feel the tension. I go back out in the neighborhood again and I can’t find a parking place again. And this goes on for a long time. Finally, I get in. I’m about a half hour late, and I get into the restaurant. I’m so mad, and I sit down with Barb and I say, “I’m never meeting you again here, ever!”
And who am I mad at? Am I mad at Barb? What did she do? I’m just kind of mad at everybody. I’m mad at the people who designed the parking lot. I’m mad at the person who pulled in front of me. I’m mad that Barb even chose that restaurant. I’m just mad. I sit down, and she’s already ordered the food. I sit down there and kind of huff and puff and the food just immediately comes because Barb’s ordered it. And Barb looks at me and she says, “You know, maybe you ought to pray for the food.” So I pray for the food, but I feel bad. I begin with a confession, repentance. I prayed and asked the Lord to forgive me, because I’d blown it again. My anger got the best of me. I didn’t handle it well. And so I repent. And I really do repent. I mean, I really want to be like Jesus. I really want to please Him, but I’m very flawed.
But the thing is, I’m actually getting better. This is a process. And as we make our prayers of confession, we tend to grow. And in the moment I make confession, I feel closeness to Jesus, who’s not only my Lord, but my friend. In the moment I make that confession, I feel intimacy with Him, just the preciousness of his forgiveness.
And I am improving. In fact, just this last week, Barb and I were out in California. We were out there because Barb had a reunion, and also we were there for the Alliance Defending Freedom Conference, which was a week-long conference in Southern California. And it was one of the most incredible conferences I’ve ever been to in my life. Alliance Defending Freedom has over 2,000 attorneys that for free serve the church and they serve ministries, helping to defend the church and defend ministries against litigation and against encroachment on religious freedom by county, state, and federal governments. It’s just wonderful what they do. But in any event while we were there, we thought, well, let’s just drive over to Pasadena and near the Caltech campus where Barb and I lived the first two years.
We’ve been married 42 years. Those first two years we lived in Pasadena near the Caltech campus in a little apartment house. And we thought, let’s go and look at that apartment, see if it’s still there. And so we go and we look at the apartment and it still just looks exactly like it did 40 years ago. And then we go around back where we used to park our car and the garage looks exactly the same. But that reminded me that 42 years ago (probably 41 years ago) I pulled my car into that garage 41 years ago and Barb came out (and I was in the doctoral program at the time and I had a lot of work to do that night). And Barb came out and said, “We’re going to have to go out tonight and get together with these people and these people because this has come up.” And I just blew it. I lost it. I just went ballistic. I took my keys and I just threw them up into the roof of the garage and they just embedded in the sheet rock. I was so impressed with myself that I was actually able to… they just like projectiled, just going right into the drywall. And so there they were.
And we were there just this last week. And as I looked up at the garage, I wondered if the patchwork on that drywall was still there after 42 years. And I found it. I could see it on the top of the garage. It’s a reminder. And see, I have improved. I mean, at least 30 years since I’ve thrown my keys. So, you know, and that’s confession. As you confess, you grow. I mean, generally, particularly if there’s repentance and a real desire to please Christ and to be like Him, that’s how we experience sanctification. And that’s how we grow.
It prepares us for that final judgment as well, because that confession and the sanctification that comes with it and that intimacy with God pleases God. And we will be judged. I hope you understand this. Even as Christians, we will be judged. We’re bound for heaven. We’re saved by grace, but we’re going to be judged. I can’t believe the number of Christians I’ve talked to who they don’t seem to be aware of this. They think it’s all going to be just, you know, a big party. I mean, they just think they’re going to arrive and it’s going to be fun, fun, fun, and nobody’s going to take the T-Bird away. And that’s honestly how most people seem to view it when they get there.
It’s a little more sobering than that, a little more scary than that. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter five, speaking to Christians, says, “Whether we are in the body, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive good or evil, according to what we have done in the body.” What’s the evil? I don’t know. Somebody knows. I’ve learned in my years of ministry there are people who know everything. But I don’t know. I don’t know. But I someday I’m going to out.
I think of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter three: “What is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed. As God assigned to each, I planted, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase. Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the increase. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and both will receive their rewards according to their labor, according to their works.” We are coworkers with God. You are God’s field. You are God’s building. “By the grace of God given unto me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds on it. For no foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the day will disclose it, for the day will be revealed with fire. And the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. And if the work which any man builds on that foundation survives, he will receive reward. But if the work is burned up, he will suffer loss of reward, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
What are those losses of rewards? What’s that fire? Some kind of purifying fire. Of course, Catholics and Protestants have a little different view of that fire. One day we’ll find out. But I tell you, judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. And so when you get to 1 Corinthians, chapter four, Paul acknowledges that even his ministry’s going to be judged. Paul said, “No person has the right to judge my ministry. I don’t even judge my ministry, but God will.” And Paul says that God will one day bring to light all that is hidden in darkness in his life. And the purposes and motives of his heart will be revealed. If that’s true of Paul, that’s true of me. It’s true of you.
Judgment is coming and I hope you understand that if you take sin seriously and we confess truly with repentance, we begin to grow. We begin to grow, and we begin to become more like Christ. As time goes by, it prepares us. And now it brings us into intimacy with Christ—a closer walk, a larger sense of His presence and even a deeper love and appreciation when you are reminded of His mercy as you confess. Then it begins to grow us so that we’re more and more prepared for that day, that we might hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servants.”
So the prayer of salvation is a prayer of confession and prayers of confession bring intimacy with God and prepare us for the last day. Now, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus gives us one little additional reminder that there is reciprocity. Jesus said, “When you pray, pray like this. ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our…’” what is that? Trespasses or debts? Everybody argues about that. Just say sin. “Opheilema” is the Greek word, and it does mean debts, but it connotes sin. Contextually it means sin. If you look at the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer found in the New Testament, in the Luke 11 passage the word is actually “hamartia,” which is the word for sin, meaning “to miss the mark.” So, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us, as we forgive those who sin against us. There’s reciprocity.
Jesus told the story of the unmerciful servant. “Judgment will be without mercy for those who show no mercy. Forgive and you shall be forgiven.” So as you’re preparing for that day, knowing that you are saved by His grace, confess your sins, seeking intimacy with Him and growing in sanctification. But also make sure that in your personal relationships you’re showing a lot of mercy. I know that in society we need to seek justice and there has to be consequences. But in our personal relationships there should be a lot of mercy if we want mercy. This is the word of God. Let’s close with a word of prayer.