"What About the Sinner’s Prayer?"
Luke 18:10-13
The “sinner’s prayer” gets a bad rap. It has become popular today to trash the idea of “the sinner’s prayer.”
Some very popular recent writers have reduced the idea of a sinner’s prayer to the level of superstition or magical incantation.
In my opinion, people who attack “the sinner’s prayer” actually create a caricature of the real thing and then blast the caricature that they have created.
Because we are talking about “the sinner’s prayer,” we need to have a clear example of it before us. So, here is an example from the Campus Crusade for Christ’s tract entitled “The Four Spiritual Laws”:
Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.
I. There is No “THE” Sinner’s Prayer
1. Examples of variations
2. There is no ex cathedra form of the sinner’s prayer – no official version – no red letter edition – no set in stone version
3. The sinner’s prayer happens when a lost person cries out to God for salvation
4. The words may be broken or inaudible, whispered or shouted, but God hears
II. Some Argue that the Sinner’s Prayer is Not Biblical
1. There are those who attack the sinner’s prayer by saying that the sinner’s prayer is nowhere to be found in the Bible
2. The word “rapture” is not in the Bible either – the word Trinity is not in the Bible
3. The words “the sinner’s prayer” do not appear in the Bible, but there are a lot of sinners in the Bible praying!
4. The scripture that we read at the beginning of my sermon this morning is an example of a sinner praying
5. Very similar to “the sinner’s prayer” actually – “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
6. Now, you can discount that prayer or mock it or call it superstitious
7. But Jesus said, “I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other”
8. Look at the parable of the Prodigal Son in Lk 15
9. The son “comes to himself” and then comes to the Father and says, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you”
10. Blind Bartimaeus in Mk 10:47 – “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me”
11. Thomas’ prayer, as simple as it was, was the Sinner’s Prayer – “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28)
12. A great example of a Sinner’s Prayer is Ps 51
13. Not Biblical? The sinner’s prayer is all over the Bible - OT & NT
14. The Sinner’s Prayer is simply man’s heart-cry in response to God
15. As long as there have been sinners, there has been a sinner’s prayer
III. God Has Blessed the Use of the Sinner’s Prayer
1. Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Louis Paulau, D.L. Moody
2. On the night of the Chicago Fire D L Moody closed a great evangelistic meeting by not offering an “alter call” or invitation – instead he called upon the crowd to think about his words and come back the next night – many died in the fire and were not able to come back – Moody swore that he would never again close a meeting without inviting people to come to the alter in response to the gospel
3. You can’t think your way into heaven
4. The Gideon’s Bible includes a suggested “sinner’s prayer” – many a person has found salvation through reading a Gideon Bible!
5. An early version of the Sinners’ Prayer is found in Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, a Baptist, published in 1678, (Chapter 18)
Hopeful: He bid me go to him and see. Then I said it was presumption. He said, No; for I was invited to come.[Mt 11:28] Then he gave me a book of Jesus’ inditing, to encourage me the more freely to come; and he said concerning that book, that every jot and tittle thereof stood firmer than heaven and earth.[Mt 24:35] Then I asked him what I must do when I came; and he told me I must entreat upon my knees, [Ps 95:6] [Dan 6:10] with all my heart and soul, [Jer 29:12,13] the Father to reveal him to me. Then I asked him further, how I must make my supplications to him; and he said, Go, and thou shalt find him upon a mercy-seat, where he sits all the year long to give pardon and forgiveness to them that come.[3] I told him, that I knew not what to say when I came; and he bid say to this effect: --
God be merciful to me a sinner, and make me to know and believe in Jesus Christ; for I see, that if his righteousness had not been, or I have not faith in that righteousness, I am utterly cast away. Lord, I have heard that thou art a merciful God, and hast ordained that thy Son Jesus Christ should be the Saviour of the world; and moreover, that thou art willing to bestow him upon such a poor sinner as I am-and I am a sinner indeed. Lord, take therefore this opportunity, and magnify thy grace in the salvation of my soul, through thy Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
6. Many a person has come to Christ because the urging of some witness to call out on the name of God and be saved
7. That “calling upon God” is the sinner’s prayer – I don’t know of a person who has been saved apart from calling upon God in prayer
8. To spurn the idea or use or concept of the Sinner’s Prayer is to spurn a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us
IV. The Sinner’s Prayer is Not a Magical Incantation
1. Simply saying certain words does not result in salvation
2. Saying a sinner’s prayer will not accomplish anything on its own
3. There are no "magical" words that result automatically in salvation
4. A true sinner’s prayer only happens when there is personal conviction and acknowledgement of sin and its consequences
5. Conviction of sin must be accompanied by Godly repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation
6. The Bible makes it clear that in order to be saved a person has to “call” upon the Name of the Lord (Rom 10:13)
7. Rom 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”
8. The only way I know to call upon the name of God is with words
9. Rom 10:9-10 says, "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
10. When you speak words to God you are praying
11. In the moment that a sinner calls out on God for salvation - whatever form it takes - they have prayed “the sinner’s prayer” –
12. Anyone who has not done that – called upon God – will die lost in their sin
13. In John 3:14, Jesus said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up”
14. Jesus was referring to an OT story found in Num 21 that tells about God sending poisonous serpents into the Israelite camp – Moses prays for their deliverance
15. God instructs Moses in vv 8-9
8And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
16. The reason people are lost is because they refuse God’s way of salvation
17. One of the clearest things about salvation in the Bible is that God makes the offer and it’s up to us to receive or reject it
18. The bottom line is that, whatever you call it when you do it, you have to call upon the Name of the Lord
19. It’s not the prayer that saves – I don’t know anybody who teaches or preaches that
20. Salvation has been accomplished by God through His Son
21. Eph 2:8-9 - "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."
22. The sinner’s prayer is simply a way of declaring to God that you are relying on Jesus Christ alone as your Savior and that you are surrendering your life to Him
23. Have you prayed the sinner’s prayer?
24. If not, here is a sinner’s prayer you can pray to God:
God, because I hear your voice / (Rev 3:20)
I know that I am a sinner and that I deserve the consequences of my sin / (Rom 3:23; 6:23)
Right now I trust in Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation / (Acts 16:31)
I ask that you forgive me and cleanse me of my sin / (1 Jn 1:9)
Come into my heart and life as Lord and Savior / (Rom 10:9-10)
Thank you Lord, for saving me and giving me eternal life / (Jn 6:47)
