Psalms of Confessions
Delivered on January 15, 2006
By
The Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
Senior Pastor
Mpittendreigh@goodshepherdpc.org
Psalm 103:1-22
Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children--with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul.
I John 1:5-10
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (NIV)
When I was a kid, a neighbor caught me and a friend taking a short cut through her beloved rose garden. She came running out of her house and told us she was sick and tired of kids tracking through her rose garden.
She demanded to know our names and the names of our parents so she could call them.
So I looked her in the eye and said, “My name is Robert Halley. My father is the Reverend John Halley. We live at 208 Sunset Drive.” Robert was my next door neighbor.
Then the lady looked at my friend and said, “And what is your name?”
And he said, “My name is Maynard Pittendreigh.”
What is it about us that makes it so difficult to face up to the mistakes we make.
We hate to admit wrong doing. We hate to admit mistakes.
In the New Testament lesson, we read that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
I think that might be the one single verse of Scripture that describes our modern American culture better than any other.
We don’t like to admit that we have done anything wrong.
Several months ago I was watching a press conference on television, and a political leader was asked the simple question, “Looking over the past few months, what mistakes would you say you have made.”
The politician seemed to think about it, as if searching for some mistake he’d made, and finally he said, “I can’t think of anything I’ve done that was a mistake.”
Of course, the late night comedians found several answers for him in their monologues and jokes.
It is easy to see the short comings of others.
It is hard to see it in ourselves.
Why is it that so many people have trouble admitting when they’re wrong?
In Western society, aversion to apology is a widespread malady. Whether somebody cuts another off in traffic, or destroys a marriage, admitting guilt is out of vogue. In fact, pop psychology has done all it can to remove whole concept of "guilt" from our lexicon. It’s much easier to rationalize our mistakes away. And it’s unhealthy to feel guilt, they say. "Suppress it!"
But remember the words of John, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
This suppression of guilt and sin is downright dangerous. When one repeats an inappropriate act, that person will eventually come to rationalize it as proper. The Nazi leader, Himmler, wrote that in his own personal experience with killing Jews, the turning point came when he was able to fall asleep at night without any guilt. He knew then that he’d crossed the point of no return.
Remember the words of John, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
Today we are beginning a study on the Book of Psalms. We sometimes think of the Psalms as a hymn book, because these words are words that were to be sung by individuals and choirs.
But you can also think of the Psalms as a prayer book – one that you can use in your daily and personal devotional and prayer life.
During the next few weeks, we will be looking at the Book of Psalms, learning how to use this wonderful collection of prayers and hymns more effectively.
We will look at psalms for praising God, complaining to God in laments, psalms of thanksgiving – and the first type I want to look at are those psalms that are prayers of confession.
I believe it is so very important for us to study the Prayers of Confession in the book of Psalms because of all the prayers we pray, a Prayer of Confession is the one we need the most help with. Confession? It doesn’t feel natural. It doesn’t feel right. We don’t like them in our culture.
I find it significant that a lot of contemporary styles of worship will leave the Prayer of Confession out completely. We don’t want people to feel bad about themselves, so we leave out any hint of confession.
We don’t know how to confess – to one another or to God.
There is a greeting card on the internet. You rate how sorry you are for something and then you send it by email.
For example, for the lowest level of regret, you might send a card to someone in which an animated figure appears and says “I’m ‘’’sorry’’’.”
That’s not going to do much to heal a relationship.
Or take another card that is set at a slightly higher level of regret – but not much. A man is sitting in a chair, reading the sports page, and without looking up says, “Yes dear, I’m sorry dear.”
Men – how many of you have apologized to your wives that way?
Women – how many of your husbands have apologized to you that way?
You know, if that is how poorly we confess to one another, imagine how poorly we are confessing to God.
Let’s take a look at Psalm 51 – and let’s read verses 3 and 4 together. It is on page 405 of your pew Bible. And after we read these verses, keep you Bibles open because we will take another look at this Psalm a couple of more times.
Psalm 51 is a Confessional Psalm –
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Psalm 51:3-4
This is an element of a lot of different Psalms that are confessions – going directly to God and admitting guilt.
Another Psalm of Confession is Psalm 41, in which the psalmist gets right to the point -- I said, "O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you."
This is a logical place to begin when you want to confess to God.
When we do something wrong, we need to go to the person we have offended and admit what we have done and ask that person for forgiveness.
It doesn’t make sense for us to tell our friends and confidants – but not the person we offended.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Judas sins and confesses his sins. But it does no good.
In Matthew 27 it says, When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders.
"I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood."
"What is that to us?" they replied. "That’s your responsibility."
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
If you want your confession to have power, you must confess to the one you have offended – God.
Psalm 51 starts off by speaking to God, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.”
Now, if you look at some of the confessional psalms, another element is sincerity. This sincerity might come across as a very emotional experience – regret, sorrow, remorse. Or it might be more analytical and intellectual.
In Psalm 51, this sorrow is expressed very poetically. Let’s take a look at verse 8 and read that in unison:
“Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.”
Elsewhere the psalmist pleads with God, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”
In Psalm 41, the psalmist is physically sick because of the depth of sorrow. This is the way he puts: “The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness.”
But this sort of element of emotion is not found in all of the prayers of confession in the Book of Psalms.
The reality is that some of us are more emotional than others. Some of us are very analytical. We were talking about Judas just a few moments ago, and he was extremely emotional, to the point of despair and depression – but his emotional sorrow for his sin did not help at all.
Many people may feel deeply emotional about their sins – but for others there is an intellectual affirmation and realization of what you have done is wrong. There must be sincerity – and that might be either an emotional or an intellectual regret for one’s actions.
In Psalm 130, the writer does not seem to have the depth of emotion that the writer of Psalm 51 has. He writes with a frank and intellectual grasp of reality, and he says, “If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?”
One element in a prayer of confession is to admit your mistake to God.
Another is to have a sincerity in your prayer of confession –either emotionally or intellectually.
A third element of a true confession prayer is repentance – meaning you turn from sin and turn toward God. As the old Santana song says, “You got to change your evil ways.”
What good is it if we admit our sins and then do nothing to change?
Let’s take another look at Psalm 51.
Everyone have it?
Let’s read verses 10-13
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you.”
There is that sense here that once you ask for forgiveness, you get up off your knees and start to work.
Garrison Keillor writes about Larry, a resident of the fictional town of Lake Wobegon. Larry was saved 12 times at the Lutheran Church, an all-time record for a church that never gave altar calls. There wasn’t even an organ playing "Just As I Am Without One Plea" in the background. Regardless of that, between 1953 and 1961, Larry Sorenson came forward 12 times, weeping buckets and crumpled up at the communion rail, to the shock of the minister, who had delivered a dry sermon on stewardship. Keillor writes that eventually everyone just got tired of Larry and started ignoring him. God didn’t mean for you to feel guilty all your life. There comes a time when you should dry your tears and join the building committee and grapple with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof. But Larry just kept confessing and confessing.
Stop confessing. Move on. Turn your life around. “You got to change your evil ways.”
Finally, one of the common threads in the psalms in its prayers of confession is that there is an assurance of God’s grace.
Let’s take one more look at Psalm 51 and ready verse 15 together.
“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”
Our Old Testament lesson for today is not a prayer of confession. Psalm 103 is a praise psalm that one might use after feeling the assurance of God’s forgiveness. It has these wonderful words, which was in our prayer earlier this morning: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:8-12)
Sadly, many of us do not live in the assurance of God’s grace and forgiveness.
In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was proclaimed in America. The word spread from Capitol Hill down into the valleys of Virginia, and the Carolinas, and even into the plantations of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. The headlines read, ’Slavery Legally Abolished!’ However, the greater majority of slaves, in the South, went right on living as though there had been no emancipation. They went on living like they had never been set free. In fact, when one Alabama slave was asked what he thought of the Great Emancipator, whose proclamation had gone into effect, he replied "I don’t know nothing about Abraham Lincoln except they say he set us free. And, I don’t know nothing about that neither."
How tragic. A war was being fought. A document had been signed. Slaves were legally set free.
Yet most continued to live out their years without knowing anything about it. They had to remain slaves, though they were legally free. Even though emancipated, they kept serving the same master throughout their lives. Even after the war was over, they still did not know freedom for decades yet to come.
So it is with many Christians today. They have been set free, yet they have chosen to remain slaves to the same strongholds that have gripped them all of their life. They don’t embrace the assurance of God’s grace.
Remember the words of John, “If we confess our faults God is faithful and just and WILL forgive us of all of our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness.”
Copyright 2006, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
