Confession and Prayer (Part 2 of 2)

Why exactly do we pray? There is a danger then in the way in which we listen and there is an equal danger in the way in which we speak.

The Spirit of God works, and he works through means. And the warning here in this exhortation is that if we're going to apply this process, we need to test our motives and we need to trust our relationships—test the motive in speaking and trust the relationship. You can't talk to everybody about everything.

You daren't! Some people, their mouths are like a babbling brook. They're just waiting for further information to be fed into the stream, and it's no sooner in the stream than it's gone downstream. You can't tell things to those people.

You need to look for people who are the Dead Sea. All of the information flows in, but it never comes out the other end. It simply is turned to God in prayer.

Or if you like to mix analogies, you need the person who is the firewall, who is the person who digs the dirty great ditch and says, The fire will not jump beyond here. If you tell it to me, together we take it to God, and the matter is finished and done with, and we move on. Test your motives, choose your relationships, and trust those you choose. And finally, in relationship to this, it is a good rule of thumb—and I've told you this before—to regard the area of commission as the area of confession. What I simply mean by that is, if we have offended against somebody with our words and often involving more people than the individual in the hearing of our words, then it is almost always right to go back to that person and to say that we are sorry, that we confess it, that we ask for their forgiveness, and that we perhaps even pray together and move on. But it may not be—indeed, I would go as far to say—as it probably won't be at all helpful to do the same thing with regard to our thoughts. To our words and our actions, yes. To our thoughts, no.

Now, you're sensible people, you can work this out. To confess sinful thoughts to God is always right. To confess them to each other is almost always not right, in my humble estimation. Now, you say, well, you probably have a self-interest in this. Well, I may, actually, in some way that I'm not prepared even fully to acknowledge, but it is a quite devastating experience as a pastor to have somebody unearth this kind of confession passage, and then they want to come and tell you all the bad thoughts they've ever had about you.

Please don't tell me them. Confess them to God. Because that's what I'm doing with all the bad thoughts I've had about you.

So fair is fair, right? What possible benefit is there for me to come and tell you things that I have thought, that are perverse, that are unkind, that are unwise, and that may actually be untrue? Tell me one benefit in that.

There isn't a benefit in it. The area of commission should be the area of confession. In my thought life, which God knows and I know, to God I go.

If I offend against you in my words or in my actions, I will come to you, and you should come to me. And it is in that context that we can expect healing to take place. Confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, so that you may be healed. Whether he has spiritual or physical healing in mind here, we can't say with any great authority, you know that. I think the cross-reference—and we'll move on from this—is Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount.

If you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother is something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar and first go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Dislocation of relationship with God, confession restores it. Dislocation of relationship with one another, confession and intercession restores it. So it goes dislocation, confession, intercession, restoration.

But if dislocation leads to repression rather than acknowledgment, then you create another whole set of circumstances that will eventually just jump up and bite you. Well, that's the exhortation in 16a. We go now to the observation in 16b.

Confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, so that you may be healed. And here's the observation. In a sentence, the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. If, like me, you were brought up with the King James Version, you know this half of the verse as, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Sounds very serious, doesn't it?

It actually is serious. Now, who is this righteous man? Well, we needn't go back all the way through this. We've tried to identify ourselves in the eighteenth verse of chapter 1. This is the individual who recognizes that there is no way that our attempts at righteous living or good living will be able to avail us a welcome into God's eternal presence.

Therefore, we're just in a dire position. Unless, of course, someone would come and live and keep God's law in perfection, and that that same person would then pay the penalty of the offenses of those who are unable to keep God's law. And that, of course, is the story of the gospel in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as a ransom for our sins, as the one who takes our debt upon himself that we might enjoy all the benefits of his righteousness.

Hence our song in royal robes, I don't deserve, I live to serve your majesty, covered over in a righteousness that God provides. This is the individual whose prayers are powerful and effective. The person who's put in a right relationship with God will reveal that right relationship with God in a number of ways, and many of those ways have been entertained and we have followed them through in the practicalities of James.

We don't go back to them now. The righteous man or woman, because they read the Bible and love the Bible, will strive to avoid all known sin. Remember, the psalmist also prays, cleanse me from my hidden faults and my unknown stuff. But the righteous individual avoids all known sin, because they realize what the psalmist wrote. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer.

Notice that. If I had cherished sin—cherish is a wonderful verb. It's seldom, if ever, used in public conversation.

It's still used in some of the marriage services, where we talk about cherishing our spouse. But the idea of cherishing something is not simply to have it around. It is to focus on it.

It is to be devoted to it. It is, if you like, to have a very nice toffee in your mouth and to eat it really slowly and to move it all around the places in your mouth and just going, Man, this is a fantastic toffee, you know? I don't want to finish this toffee.

I am cherishing this toffee. Now, you remember, we dealt with a double-minded man or woman earlier than the thing. The double-minded man receives nothing from the Lord. Why is that?

Because they're double-minded. You can't ask God to forgive you from a sin that you're cherishing in your heart. Oh, forgive me for this. Can't wait to do it again. Forgive me.

I'm gonna try that again. Forgive me. The hypocrite can leave their sin and love it. The holy person leaves their sin and loathes it. And it is the righteous individual who is learning to keep short accounts with sin and that sin with one another—hence the confessing of our faults to one another—and this individual's prayers are powerful and effective. These individuals know they can come to God directly. They know that they may come intimately. They know that they must come humbly.

They know that they're able to come expectantly. Now, prayer is a vast subject, and it is not time for a discourse on it. But let me just give you one or two thoughts to stimulate your thinking as we move to our final point. Thought number one is simply this—that God's plans in the world include our prayers. If we go wrong there, we'll never pray. If our view of God's providence or God's sovereignty suggests to us that prayer is an irrelevance, then we will never engage in prayer. But somehow or another, in the mystery of God's purposes, he includes the prayers of his people in the accomplishing of his will. He commands prayer, and he moves our hearts to seek him in prayer. The Bible speaks of how God is both the inspirer and the hearer of our prayers. He doesn't ask us to pray so that he might discover what we need. Because, remember, Jesus told his disciples, Your father knows what you need before you ask him.

Oh, says someone, well, that's just what I'm talking about. If he knows, why would I ask him? Well, are you a parent?

The fact that you know certain things about your children's expectation doesn't diminish in any way the legitimacy of their ask or the tremendous delight that is attached to it insofar as you as a father, recognizing their expectation of you, is able to respond. Because, you see, our prayers speak of dependence. Of dependence. That is why the selfism, which is the pagan god of America in the twenty-first century—the pagan god of the twenty-first century in America—is self. Self. It's all about me. The answer is in me.

If I only look in properly, I'll be able to find it. God is his creation. I am part of creation. Therefore, I am part of God. Therefore, I am ipso facto somehow or another a little god in my own right.

The Bible stands against that at every point and says that the Creator of the universe, with whom we have to do, stands outside of his creation. And it is to him that we are accountable, and it is upon him that we are dependent. Every breath that we take, every move that we make, is directly related to him. And that's why it is dependence that gives voice to our prayers. That's why the children—and you'll see them all around in the hall here today. You'll hear them, and every so often you'll hear the real voice that says, Daddy, help! Daddy, my shoe!

Daddy, help! The Spirit of God comes and lives in our hearts and enables us to cry, Abba, Father. The reason we don't just talk about God as someone or something or as a cosmic power is because we've been made new people. Before we became Christians, God was something or someone, way up there. But now, when we were included in Christ, when we believed the Word of truth, when we accepted his gift of salvation, suddenly God became accessible to us. God became known to us. And we're quite prepared to say, I depend upon him entirely. And that same God delights in his children coming to him.

He delights in it. Again, Jesus said this—you remember, he said, Which of you fathers, if your son asked for a fish, would give him a snake? Or he asked for an egg, would give him a stone? He comes down for his breakfast, and you're there on duty.

This is a realm of which I'm unaware, but anyway, we'll continue the illustration. And you're there on duty, and you say, What would you like? And you say, I'd like a boiled egg.

So he gave him a bowl of cereal, a glass of orange juice, and just a stone in the egg cup. And he just put it there. Who would do that?

No one would do that. And then Jesus says, If you then, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him? Somehow or another, as if God is there in some way unwilling to bestow his blessings and his benefits upon his children, he loves it! He's not commanding prayer as an irrelevancy. He's not asking us to come and share our needs with him in some strange way.

No! Well, you say, Give me a definition. Well, actually, I can't give you a definition. It's hard. Let me give you a quote from Derek Prime, though, that might help us as we come to our final point. He says, There are times when God wants us to persist in praying for something so that we assure ourselves of our own earnestness and keep ourselves available to become part of God's answer to our own prayers. I'm thinking here of the conversion of close relatives and friends. There are other areas of concern where to persist in praying about them indicates a lack of confidence in God rather than a confidence in him. The distinction between the two probably has something to do with whether or not I'm asking God for something which is for my own personal advantage or something which I know God plainly wants for others. If I'm asking God for something for myself which I know may or may not be his will, then to continue to ask him for this same thing may well be inappropriate. Knowing he has heard my prayer, I may trust him to do what's best. On the other hand, if I'm praying for the conversion of others—for those whom the Father has given to his Son as a fruit of Calvary—then I'm right to continue in my asking until I see God's answer. For in some mysterious way, my praying, together with that of others, has a place in the unseen spiritual battle that goes on for men's souls. I seldom, if ever in this life, know what place my prayers may have. But I do know that when I pray, I have the privilege of opening the resources of heaven to those for whom I prayer. Well, there's an exhortation there in 16a, there's an observation in 16b, and 17 and 18 gives us an illustration. Our time is gone. I'm going to have to just give this to you in outline form and trust that you will actually do your homework.

Look at what it says here. Elijah—Elijah was a man just like us. That is very striking. Because anyone who knows anything about the Bible knows, in one sense, Elijah really wasn't just like us. Elijah was Elijah.

He was the daddy of all prophets. When Jesus takes his disciples unto the Mount of Transfiguration, who's there? Moses and Elijah. When John the Baptist steps on the stage of human history, who do they think it is? Elijah reappearing. When Jesus cries from the cross, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthini! Some of them thought that he was calling for Elijah.

And James says, Elijah was a man just like us. The word in Greek is homoipathos. Homoipathos. Sounds like homoipathic, doesn't it? Homoipathic?

That's exactly where we get our word. He was the same in nature. He was the same in emotions.

He was the same in his liability to weaknesses. And if you go for homework and read 1 Kings 17, 18, and 19, it will be time well spent. And you will discover that he had his ups—that's when he took on the prophets of Baal and gave them a real dusting—and he had his downs, when after that he was chased by Jezebel, and he went and he hid under a broom tree. Oh, it's so encouraging, isn't it? He who could take on these prophets and say to them, Why don't you call on your God some more?

Maybe they're in the bathroom or something. I don't know what's happening. And then eventually he turns in accordance to the God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, and he says, O God, glorify your name before these people.

And then, within a relatively short time, he's bought into the me generation. I'm the only person left in Israel. I'm the only one that's doing anything good. I'm so tired.

I'm so sick of this. I don't want to be a prophet anymore. Elijah was a man just like us. Now, why does he say that? Because of what he goes on to say. He says, And he prayed that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain for three and a half years, and he prayed again, and then it started raining.

A man just like us. How are we to make sense of it all? Well, first of all, notice that when he prayed, he prayed in earnest. That he prayed with God's glory and honor in view. That he prayed according to his understanding of God's will. And when you read your homework, you will discover the significance of 1 Kings 17 verse 1 and 1 Kings 18 verse 1, that somehow in the mystery of God's purposes, the cries of Elijah to God were directly in line with the will of God in relationship to his judgment over a three-and-a-half-year period on the people. So in other words, it wasn't some outlandish thing that Elijah did. Oh, I got an idea. Why don't I pray that it won't rain for three and a half years? What are you talking about? Where do you come up with that stuff, Elijah?

No. It was within the framework of God's revelation. That's why it is always vital that we allow our Bibles to direct and undergird and frame our prayers, so that what is revealed in the Bible is a promise we can pray for with absolute certainty.

Right? If anyone likes wisdom, let him ask God, and he will give to him without finding fault. So I can ask God for wisdom.

He promised it. It's God's will that we should be holy. It's God's will that we should be thankful and joyful and so on. Therefore, we can ask God with absolute certainty concerning these things, and we can pray these things for one another. But when there is no clear command or promise in Scripture, then all we're able to do is acknowledge that we must pray if it is your will. If it is your will. I've read my Bible, and I don't think this is in any way a sin.

I don't think it's a violation of anything. I don't know whether I'm supposed to live in Cleveland or to live in Glasgow. I don't know whether I'm supposed to marry her or stay single. I'm not sure if I should change this job.

I don't know whether to hire him or whatever it is. And I'm asking you for wisdom in relationship to this. But in terms of the specific decision, I've nowhere to go except to ask you for your help. And I'm about to make a decision, and I pray that I might do so in your will. And in my experience, most of my discoveries of God's will have been found not prospectively but retrospectively, looking over my shoulder and seeing again the amazing way in which God has chosen to take all the eventualities and apparent inconsequentialities of life and mold them together in order to fulfill his purposes. We're learning together about the biblical purposes for prayer and for confession on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Tomorrow is the last day we'll be studying the practical book of James, and if you have benefited from Alistair's recent messages through the last chapter of James, you can listen to his teaching through the entire book. The series is free to listen to or to watch using the Truth for Life mobile app or on our website at truthforlife.org. Just search for A Study in James.

While you're on our website, check out the book we are recommending today. It's titled The Lord of Psalm 23, Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host. This is a book that unpacks one of the most familiar sections of Scripture, where David writes, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Sometimes there are passages of Scripture that we are so familiar with, we can miss some of the deep, life-changing insights in those passages. And for many of us, Psalm 23 can fit into that category. Ask for your copy of the book The Lord of Psalm 23.

It's yours when you give a donation at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer. Just a moment of silent prayer. Some of us may want to cry out to God and say, I am the blind person. I am the dead person. I didn't know that I could have a fresh start.

I didn't know that you made people new. But I confess to you that that's exactly what I need. God hears the prayers of the penitent. He hears us when we ask Him to forgive us. Some of us need to be honest enough to say that our prayer life is, frankly, a manifold shambles.

That if the missionary family depended on us, there's no saying where they would be. And we want to ask you, Lord, to help us to be more diligent and more consistent in our prayers. Forgive us for wanting to tell things wrongly.

Forgive us when we want to listen perversely. Come and abide with your church, Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. You are the head of the church. You are our advocate with the Father. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Tomorrow we'll find out why no one is exempt from the danger of spiritual decay or backsliding. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.