What are you carrying that confession was meant to lift? /// Prayer: Part 3

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If you're using this teaching for a Home Groups setting, we've included discussion prompts to help guide your conversation:

1. Doug said he wanted the relief of confession without the honesty of confession; where do you see that same instinct show up in your own life?

2. What hidden thing, unresolved thing, or normalized pattern might God be inviting you to bring into the light instead of carrying it alone?

3. Look up Psalm 51:10 through 12 and notice that David asks God to create, renew, and restore. Which of those words feels most needed in your life right now?

4. How does it change your view of confession to hear that God does not call us to confession to shame us, but to free us?

5. Where might you be managing the image of being okay instead of letting God deal with the real you?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Flam Creek Church Podcast. We're so thankful that you're listening along with us this way. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. If you're new or newish, we'd love to become part of your listening rotation. So be sure to subscribe and follow to be notified when new episodes are available. Now, before we get into the message, we want to remind you of one thing. We really believe that if Jesus is right about God, about life, about the soul, then it only makes sense to rearrange our lives around what he says is true. Because if you choose to follow Jesus like that, it really does change everything, including the lives around you. Okay. Let's posture our hearts for what God has in store. This message.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

The idea behind this series is not just to talk about prayer, but to be people who pray. We don't want to just know about this. We need to know how to do it. And I'm really fired up about this. Little update. You know, we we uh wrote a book. Pastor Jeremy did, he's on the camera back there, I think. Can you guys thank him? He wrote the first week of devotionals, did such a great job. And uh, we've sold over a thousand of these already. So a thousand of you are spending time with Jesus in the mornings, and I'm so grateful for that. If you want to get the full experience, you need to grab one of these and make sure that you're using this as part of your time with the Lord. In addition, we have what we've called prayer practice. Not a prayer meeting, it's a prayer practice where we come to church together on Tuesday nights, and we've been spending some time practicing these different aspects of prayer. Last week we did prayers of adoration, and almost 300 people came last Tuesday for a 45-minute window. Uh, really encourage you to come in to be part of this. It's not too late for you to jump in. So grab a book on your way out, and uh, we'll see you on Tuesday night where we have a chance to practice what we're doing. So last week we started unpacking prayers of adoration. Before the ask, there's adoration. Before we rush into our requests, before we bring God all of the things that we need, we want to stop and we want to remember who He is before we move forward. I gave you three simple prayer prompts to carry you through the week as you're learning to pray prayers of adoration. And those three prayer prompts were Father, lift my eyes, Father, remind my soul, and father loosen my grip. And if you need to go back and listen to the message again to remember the context of those, I think it will be super helpful. That's what adoration does. This weekend I want to talk about another important aspect of prayer, one we don't talk about enough. If adoration lifts our eyes, then prayers of confession lift the weight that we have on our hearts and our souls. Now, I want to also kind of make this statement before I begin. We're focusing in on prayer. And there's lots of aspects surrounding confession. There's uh confessing to one another, there's confessing to those that we know that we've hurt. But what I want to focus on today is confessing in our prayers to our Heavenly Father. Okay? So that's where we're gonna start. Now, my mom, um, my mom and dad came to faith when we were pretty young. We were just like one or two years old when mom and dad came to faith. And so my mom really learned about the Bible by reading us a children's Bible before we went to bed. And then she started plastering verses everywhere you could possibly imagine. So, I mean, you could barely get around the Miller house without reading another verse, which was awesome because mom had her way of getting that not just into our minds, but into our hearts and our souls too. So I also spent a ton of time at church. Seemed like every time the church was open, mom and dad were bringing us. And I learned verses like this in those early days. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 13. People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy. In other words, what stays hidden stays heavy. I could feel the weight of this, even as a little guy, receiving that kind of mercy seemed really great to me. How about you? We thank God for what he does. That sounds awesome. And then in Psalm chapter 32, uh, David, who has written so many beautiful Psalms, says this. And it's interesting to me that science has proven what David says he was his experience. And that is this. When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me, my strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord, and you forgave me all my guilt is gone. Amen. We need to understand the importance of confession. And even as a little guy, listen, you don't have to be some kind of seminary trained individual to know you don't want your body wasting away. You don't want groaning all day long, you don't want the heavy hand of God's discipline day and night. I don't want my strength evaporating. How about you? So we have to learn that all sounds awful. Even as a kid, I may not have had a fully developed theology of confession, but I can promise you, when you learn these kinds of things, you want to grow in your understanding of what confession can do for you. I want that mercy, I want that relief, I want that guilt to be gone. How about you? Of course we do. I just wasn't always sure. I wanted to be honest to get there, right? Kind of afraid of my dad. He was the disciplinarian. And then 1 John 1.9 says this but if we confess our sins to him, to the Lord, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. So I knew these verses. And yet, as a little kid, I wanted the relief of confession without the honesty of confession. Anyone else? So I can remember one day we were little and we prayed before our meals, and we get done praying, and I had felt some conviction because of something I'd done. I don't know for sure what it was. It seems like it was a long time ago. But if it was what I think it was, I probably had falsely accused my sister of doing something that I had done. So for those of you that know my little sister Emily, don't tell her to listen to this sermon this week. Um she lives in Texas now, so the odds are good. But I wanted uh that conviction was deep enough that I wanted a clean slate, but not convicted enough that I wanted to get specific about it. So I can remember after the prayer was made, I made this big announcement to the family, and I basically said something like this: hey guys, before we get too far into dinner, I'd just like to make a little all-encompassing confessional statement. If I've ever done anything wrong or if I've hurt anyone in any way, I'd just like to make a blanket request for forgiveness. So you can imagine uh my parents in that moment looking at me. My dad was a pretty street savvy dude. And uh, as much as I wanted that clean slate, um my dad wasn't buying it. And he said, Doug, is there anything specific that you would like to ask forgiveness for? Which is a really good question. But even back then, friends, I was pretty quick on my feet and uh was developing a communication gift, and I said, Nope, nothing on top of mine, dad. Just wanted a clean slate with y'all, and I wanted to be okay with Jesus too. Who's gonna complain about that, right? Well, as a parent, you're not gonna complain. Your kid wants to be right with your family and with the Lord. He just let it go. I wanted forgiveness, I wanted peace, I wanted the burden lifted. I just didn't really want to disclose all my discretions. And by the way, just to bring it full circle, I had blamed my sister for something, so I feel better now. I'm just getting that out there. Seriously, God doesn't call us to confession to shame us. We must remember that He calls us to confession to free us. Very different. And that's why I've called this weekend's message soul reset. Soul reset. Because confession is where the burden lifts and the soul resets. And sometimes we know we need to do this because something, we know something's not right. Uh our souls are tired, our hearts feel cluttered, we feel resistant to time with the Lord, our sensitivity to him feels dull, and our joy feels much thinner than usual. Ever been there? And yet we're still functioning, but we're not fully free. We know how to do this, to convince ourselves and to convince others that we're doing okay, and yet there are things that need to be addressed. All the while there can be this quiet gap between what people see and what God knows. And today I want to talk about addressing this gap. And here's what I want us to see today. If adoration lifts our eyes to God, confession is honesty before him, and it frees our hearts before him. And I really want us to see confession this way because it isn't a punishment to confess, rather, it's an opportunity. And just like I said last week in prayers of adoration, we don't do prayers of adoration first for God to hear us, you know, giving him praise. He doesn't need that. He knows who he is. You know who needs to be reminded who he is? This guy right here. And you too. That will change the way that we pray when we're reminded these truths of who he is, the promises that he's made, and the things that we know that we can count on. The same is true with confession. Confession is not for God to hear what we've done wrong. He already knows. Confession is because I need to say it. I need to hear myself say it, and I need to feel it in my heart so that I can get right before the Lord and before others. So we don't want to see confession as a punishment. It's an opportunity to remind ourselves of truth. God's kindness is so much greater than our failures and our shame. And someone needs to hear that today. Because the enemy of your soul will always do this. He'll tell you whatever it is that you're tempted with is not a big deal until you do it. And then the second that you do it, he'll tell you it's the biggest deal ever, and you will never recover. And that's why we need to lean into prayers of confession. Adoration says, God, you're holy. Confession says, and I know I'm not. Adoration says, you are worthy. Confession says, God, I need your mercy. Adoration reminds me who he is, and confession tells the truth about who I've been. And church, hear me. If we learn to adore God properly, we will enter into his presence and and be honest with him in a different kind of way. Because we know the character, we know the heart, we know the truth of who he is. A lot of us know how to look and sound spiritual, uh, but we've forgotten how to be honest. And prayer is not just where you and I will present our requests before the Lord. Prayer is also where I bring the real me before the Lord. Not the polished version. The real version. Confession is not exactly the sexiest of prayer focuses, is it? Like you probably didn't wake up today and say, Well, honey, what are we doing this weekend? Well, we're gonna go to church and we're gonna talk about sin, guilt, and inner corruption, and we're all like, let's go. This will be great, right? But here's why it's important confession is not where God crushes you, friend. It's where God meets you. And confession is not where shame wins. It's the exact opposite. Confession is where pretending ends. We need to understand the heart behind this because it can change your life. For some of us in this room, the reason our soul need uh feels so tired is not just because life has been hard, but it's because you're carrying things that you were never meant to carry along. And some of us have been doing this for a long time. Perhaps it's hidden things or unspoken things, unresolved things, maybe it's old things that happened a long time ago, or maybe it's something that has had its sneaky way of getting into your life in the present. Patterns that we've normalized, words that we've said, forgiveness that we've withheld, things that we've clicked and excused and glanced over and we've buried, while all the while our souls were solely suff slowly suffocating underneath all of it. And the weight is heavy. And the good news today is that confession, confession is when is where that burden lifts and the soul resets. And that can be your experience today. So I want to land in another psalm. We find our way into the Psalms a lot because David just has a way of authentically communicating his heart. We know he was called a man after God's own heart, but if you have your Bibles or if you have your smartphones and you want to turn today to Psalm chapter 51, that's where we're gonna be. And this is a unique psalm, so let me set the stage while you're turning there about this psalm. Psalm 51 is not polished, it's not tidy, it's not impressive, and it's not performative. Rather, it's raw, it's honest, and it's deeply human. Because this is uh after David's failure and collapse, he's made some very big mistakes, mistakes. The progression of what he's done, of his compromises is significant, significant enough that I would argue with you that he broke five of the Ten Commandments, number six through number ten, all in the same set of circumstances. Um, a season of abuse of power, a season of uh lustful wandering eyes, adultery with Bathsheba, there were lies and deception, and then there was cover-up, and then he was responsible for the orchestration of Bathsheba's husband's death, and then there was more cover-up, and there's more denial. And it had gone on for a while, and the Lord sent a prophet named Nathan to talk to King David, and he told him this compelling story, and the story connected with David's heart so much that he was starting to have this emotional response out of the story that David or that Nathan had told him. And then Nathan, the prophet, turns on him really quick and says, David, you're the man that I'm talking about. And finally, God has David's attention. And what I love about Psalm 51 is David's done. He's done hiding, pretending, spinning, minimizing, and blaming, and he finally just says, This is the truth, and I must tell it to the Lord, I must confess to the Lord. And church, this is why this matters so much for us, because we need to remember the soul cannot heal in hiding. Can't heal in hiding. What we keep hidden cannot be healed the way that God wants to heal it. So last week in adoration, we lifted our eyes. Uh, this week in confession, we let God lift the weight from us. And so, just like last week, I gave you three prompts of prayer for this week. I want to do the same, but this time these three prayer prompts are embedded in Psalm chapter 51. So here's where we're gonna go. Father, search my soul. Father, break my defenses, and Father, restore my joy. So let's talk about the first one. Father, search my soul. You see, confession begins uh when the soul tells the truth. Now let's look at Psalm chapter 51, and I want to read for you these beautiful words that um David penned in Psalm 51, the first four verses. Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt, purify me from my sin, for I recognize my rebellion, it haunts me day and night. Against you and you alone have I sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight, you will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. What I love about what David is praying here, and how this can become a template for you and I is there's no spin, there's no softening, there's no excusing away, there's no PR statement from the throne. Um, I it just there's no explanation in terms of I was in a difficult season, if he just knew what I was going through. Instead, he just says this I recognize my rebellion. It haunts me day and night. I love that. That's just such real communication. And honestly, that's where some of us are living right now. You might look fine, function fine, you might be killing it at work. You might have this outside kind of look to others that's not really reflecting what's happening inside of you. And your soul was never meant to carry hidden weight forever. When I was a kid, um, my dad bought one new car in his lifetime. One new car. And it was a 19, I think it was a 1976 Dodge Monaco station wagon, no wallpaper. Walt wouldn't have the wallpaper. Um, and my dad was so proud of that car. I remember when he brought it home and parked it in the driveway. Um, I we all came running out to look at the car. We're like, man, we got a new car. We, man, we're we're rolling now, literally. We got a new car. And I remember going out and sitting in that car like a little kid would, pretending like I could drive. I mean, I was just a little guy, and uh sitting there in the in the car. Now, for some of you that are under 50 years of age, you need to know that there was a season when they made these cars where they were trying to make it easier for people that smoke cigarettes to light their cigarettes. And so there was this little thing that you could push in that would get red hot. Now, as a kid, that was pretty cool, right? Like, so that thing popped and I felt like it was an invitation. So I pulled it out after that, and you know, if a little kid, you kind of feel the heat you blow in it a little bit. And then I took that cigarette lighter and put it right on my dad's steering wheel. Yeah, I know. And uh that red hot cigarette lighter, um it burned a perfect little circle into the very thing every driver that would drive that car until it went to the junkyard would touch. A perfect little branded reminder of my stupidity. And I was reminded often of it, uh, terrified actually. I was pretty sure my life was over. And I want you to remember I'm a good guy. Okay, I'm a good guy, and uh, I'm your pastor, and I'm as flawed as you are. So when my dad asked me what happened, I lied. 100% I lied. And I looked him square in the eyes and I knew I could not quiver in my voice. I said, Dad, I saw a kid from the neighborhood in the car. I don't know what that kid was. He's like, which one? I was like, I never knew him before. And for whatever reason, my dad bought the story. I don't know why. I think I'm pretty sure he thought no child of mine would be dumb enough to do anything like that, right? And so I carried that for a long, long time. I lived with that reminder for decades. And not because it was the worst sin in human history, but because what stays hidden stays heavy. I assure you that's true. And not because it's always catastrophic, not because it's the biggest thing, not even because it's the most recent thing. But hidden things don't stay neutral, do they? They become weight, they become tension, they become static in the soul. And remember what David said, again, verified by science from Psalm 32. When he refused to confess, he felt his body wasting away. There was a groan in his soul. He he felt the hand of discipline that was heavy on him, his strength evaporated like water. But as soon as he confessed, he says this, and you forgave me, and all my guilt is gone. Do you see the progression there? If we refuse to confess, there will be a spiritual and a physical and a relational. It just keeps going. But if we stop hiding, the guilt is lifted. That's the pattern. And sometimes the confession starts with the courage to pray. For example, Psalm 139, verses 23 and 24, where David says these words, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Look at verse 24. We should all pray this prayer this week. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Why would that be an important prayer for us to pray? You see, sometimes we and our souls get too familiar with the way that we're living. Sometimes we get so used to our natural patterns that we just say, that's who I am. And we stop seeing what's really there. We're normalizing what we shouldn't. We rename things that we should, you know, trying to soften them. We rationalize and try and explain away. We blame someone else so we don't have to carry it, and we justify it with the stress that we carry. And in God's mercy, he says to us, don't do that. That's not the way to live. That's not the way that this will work. No, give me a chance to show you what's really going on, and I'm the one that will set you free. So that's that first prayer prompt for the week. Father, search my soul. And and and I need to stop for a second. Everybody look at me. The prayer prompt for this week is not father, search everybody else. The prayer prompt that I've asked you to pray is not, Father, show me what my spouse needs to hear from Doug's sermon this morning. That's not it. Or God, get the person next to me that I came to church with today, or or expose my co worker. Rather, the prayer must be, friends, for you and I this week. Lord, search my soul and show me what I need to deal with. Because confession begins. When the soul tells the truth, and freedom begins where honesty starts. But once we get into this place where our souls start telling us the truth and we begin to know what's happening, something else happens here, and we need to be careful because if we're not honest, most of us don't just struggle with sin. We also have a tendency to defend our sin. We don't just hide. We explain, we compare, we manage the outward perception, which leads us right into our second prayer prompt for this week. If we're going to break prayers of confession, another prayer we should pray is, Father, break, break my defenses. Break my defenses. Confession brings what's hidden into the light, and God desires honesty, not image management. Psalm 51, 6, the heartbeat of David's whole psalm, but you desire honesty. And look what he says, from the womb, teaching me wisdom, even there. Confession is not just admitting sin, it's surrendering our propensity towards the excuses, the blame shifting, the minimizing, the spin and the self-protection. And a lot of us don't just hide sin. We've become very familiar with explaining it away. But as long as I'm defending it, I'm delaying what God wants to do. In 1 John 1, verses 8 and 9, it says this if I pretend I have no sin, I fool myself. But if I confess, I step back into the truth, I step back into the cleansing mercy of God. And that's what David had finally done. He had finally come and said, I'm stopping now, managing the optics. I'm gonna get out from behind this throne and this crown that I wear, and I'm just gonna be honest before the Lord. No more title, no more status, no more power. He's done defending. And I love what he says in Psalm 32, 5. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, I will confess my rebellion to the Lord, and you forgave me all my guilt is gone. Wow. This becomes a big moment for our souls when we can get to this place because confession is where the masks start to come off. Confession is where performance dies and where intimacy with him begins. Because honesty is humbling, isn't it? But that's exactly what the Lord wants. He wants us to be humble before him. He doesn't want you to bring a polished religion to him. He doesn't want you to bring some kind of vague spirituality. He wants honesty and authentic relationship. So this week, maybe the prayer is simply, Father, break through. Break through my defenses and the justifications that I have and the pride. Break through all those parts of me that would rather look okay than actually be healed. And once the truth is told, and friend, once the defenses start coming down, then there's finally room for God to do what only God can do. And it's beautiful. Not just expose us, not just convict us, but to restore us. Not just pointing out what is wrong, but rebuilding what has been damaged. And that is what's embedded in this final prayer prompt from David's Psalm in Psalm 51. The third prompt is, Father, restore my joy. Restore my joy. God just doesn't forgive me, he resets me. God's motive is not just pointing out what's wrong, rather, it's rebuilding what has been damaged. It's where God begins to restore the things that hidden sin has stolen from us. Again, Psalm 51, go to verse 10 with me. This again should be a prayer. Write these verses down for this week. If we're going to learn to pray prayers of confession, I think Psalm 51, 10 through 12 should be right there at the top of the list. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Now look at verse 12. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Now it needs to be pointed out that when David says this, clearly his joy had been robbed, right? Something had happened. He had lost joy in his soul. Restored to me the joy of your salvation. This whole situation had taken away his joy. Sin had affected him deeply, compromised, had taken its toll. Guilt had drained him and hiddenness had done damage. And it's the same for you and I too. And that's why these things are all embedded in Scripture. And sin doesn't just make us feel guilty, it makes us heavy. Our souls get heavy. It doesn't just distance us from what's right. It starts draining what's alive in us. It messes with your peace. It messes with your tenderness. It messes with your relationships. It really messes with your clarity. And it also messes with your closeness to God. And that's why David doesn't just ask for forgiveness. He asks for his joy to come back. He doesn't just say, God, I messed up. He then says, Now will you come and create in me? Will you renew in me? Will you restore in me? And that's the beauty of confession. God just doesn't forgive, he resets. It's not about him just removing guilt, it's renewing the heart, restoring our joy, rebuilding intimacy. And that all makes us more willing to come into his presence. So I want to take this back to that burn steering wheel for a second. Now you need to know I learned how to drive in that car. So every time I had my hands in that steering wheel, I touched my burn brand, Undead's steering wheel. When I was a passenger in that car, about the only thing I could think about when I was in that car. Decades. It's true. I took my driver's test in that car when I was 16. And some of you know our story. I knew I needed to make this thing right. So again, I'm a really nice guy, so bear with me. This is a moment of confession for me with you today. I waited a long time to talk to dad about that. You know, you gotta pick the right moment, right? And uh some of you know our story. My dad had Alzheimer's pretty bad. Seemed like the right time. So I can remember going to visit dad in his room here at Castle Rock and sitting there just trying to connect with him, and of course, that wasn't happening. And then all of a sudden, all this stuff came back to my mind. I'm like, I never asked for forgiveness for that. Genius, now's a perfect time, right? So I said, Dad, I really do hope you can hear me, but I just need you to know that was not a neighbor kid, that was your kid. I'm the one that did that. And unfortunately, dad couldn't process all that I was saying at that point. Uh, that wasn't even really um the motive. Because confession is not always just about getting a response from another person. And some of you are living that today. You wish the response was different. It's also about getting free before God. And that's what David is showing us here that confession is where the burden lifts and where our souls reset, and it's where joy finds its way home. So this week, I want you to remember that confession will lift the weight that you're carrying. It will. And once you've made something right with the Lord, please look at me for a second. Don't go back, don't go back to that stuff again. The enemy will want to try and drag you back and make you feel unqualified, disqualified, and unable to have a relationship with the Lord. And you just remind him what we talked about this week. I've made that right before my king. And he went to that cross to bear what I've done. So today, I choose to lay that at the foot of the cross. That's his business. Let him handle it. Father, search my soul, break my defenses, and restore my joy.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Thanks again for listening. Our prayer is that this message encouraged and challenged you in your journey to follow Jesus. If you'd like to learn more about our church, please check us out online at plumcreek.church or if you find yourself within driving distance of Castle Rock, Colorado, we would be honored to see you in person on a weekend. So until next time, grace and peace in the name of Jesus.