Prayer of Repentance

When was the last time you felt awe - the sweaty palms and tightening gut that results when understanding fails and mystery remains? Those who build places like Great Adventure spend $millions to scare us and we pay them to do it! When we are temporarily scared by an illusion of being out of control or in imminent danger, curiously for some of us, it is a pleasurable experience. I love a roller coaster that leaves me gasping and sweaty with fear! Why? Because somewhere in my mind I know the sensation is limited and temporary and that I my life in not really in danger!

But when we face something or someone that we cannot understand, a different level of fear grips us which most of us find very unpleasant. We do everything we can to destroy mystery, to define boundaries, and to find ourselves a place of comfort. That’s mostly a good thing. Why live with the fear of the unknown IF through inquiry and discovery the facts can be found?

Ill.- I am glad that someone investigated human disease and found out about the germs that cause many illnesses. There is no need to live in terror of dying from mysterious illnesses when, with some sound sanitary practices, the bacteria that spread disease can be eliminated.

But, when it comes to our worship, our approach to the Lord of all Creation, awe and mystery are perfectly in order. I’m not speaking of the attempts at awesomeness that result from secret rituals or impressive architecture rather like the fake fear we experience for a moment on the super coaster at Dorney Park!

I am talking about a healthy understanding of God as One around whom you and I can never extend our grasp, that He is Transcendent, standing apart from His Creation as One is greater than all created things. All our attempts to tame Him will be frustrated, for He doesn’t not intend to be tamed.

Sometimes some of us find ourselves upset by the God of the Scripture who defies definition and formulas. We read of His exploits and wonder what it means, asking - Who is He really? Why did He do that, allow that? What was/is His purpose?

In response to our discomfort many of us unconsciously adopt images for Him to which we can relate and, in the process, lose the Majesty. God asks "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you ever build me a temple as good as that?’ asks the Lord. ‘Could you build a dwelling place for me?" (Acts 7:48-49, NLT)

In our fear we are not unlike the ancient Israelis during the Exodus. They were camped around Mt. Sinai awaiting the Lord's direction. As the mountain quaked and smoked under His Mysterious Presence, they grew fearful. The Bible tells us - "Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”" (Exodus 20:18-19, NKJV) Later in the saga, when Moses went up the mountain again, after a few days they abandoned the Lord, preferring to make a lesser god - one less intimidating. In one of the more tragic episodes of the Exodus, Aaron capitulated to their demands and made them an idol, a golden calf. The result was amazing! "Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies." (Exodus 32:25, NIV)

What a lesson I find in that account.

∙ When we diminish God, when we take away His majesty and

make Him into a tame god, awe disappears.

With the loss of awe comes a loss of moral restraint!

Turn with me to a passage of amazing imagery - Isaiah 6:1-8

Isaiah experienced God in such a powerful way he was left gasping for breath, full of terror. What did he do? He did not run away. He did not make a golden calf idol he could understand and from which he could derive some temporary comfort. His humility is remarkable and he was filled with genuine repentance, with an honest sense of his own sinfulness in the Presence of the One who is high and lifted up.

I believe that one of the reasons the Church is so full of sin in our time is that her theology is so impoverished. We sing "Jesus loves me, this I know..." and as precious as that truth is, it is not all there is to know. God, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ, is approachable and that is a treasure for those of us who follow Him. Because we only see one side of God, we often are not properly humble. But, God is still the God of Sinai and the God of Whom the prophets thundered. He is the God that John met on the Isle of Patmos who revealed His sweeping plans for the triumph of His kingdom and the destruction of evil in those puzzling, but faith-inspiring passage of the book of the Revelation.

Believer, perhaps what you and I need most at this time is to make a fast from all our pious chatter to ponder the nature and ways of the Most High. In humility we need to invite God to impress on us that He is greater than our understanding and that He always will be!

Donald McCullough offers this observation -

“Our arms are too short to embrace the Divine Majesty... but you would never know this from life in most of our churches. Worshippers gather as though they are attending a football game... breathless from the parking lot, laughing... waving - as though it were entirely natural for humans to meet with God. It is no big deal - it seems - to encounter the Lord of the Universe. ... We move through chatty certainties about God: happy smiles radiating from smooth talking preachers who demonstrate no reticence to speak on behalf of the Almighty... it is all boring banalities with all the mystery of a meeting of the city zoning commission.” The Trivilization of God

When we begin to see something of the true revelation of God in His majesty, we will find ourselves praying in a way similar to Isaiah. Prayers of repentance will replace whining and self-indulgence. Our prayers for comfort, for ease, for prosperity will be set in the proper context of submission to God. And from that submission, we will find His restoration, His cleansing, and His preparation of our lives for service.

This is powerfully illustrated in a story from the book of Ezra.

Ezra 9

After years of warnings that they needed to repent and turn from their sins to God, the Jewish people met with the judgment of God in form of an invasion by the Babylonian Empire. Their temple was destroyed, the walls of their cities torn down, and many of the strongest and brightest people were taken into slave service.

For 70 years this captivity continued, but then God moved on the heart of the Babylonian king and on Nehemiah’s heart. A move to restore Jerusalem began. For several years people were allowed to return to Judah, the temple was rebuilt, the city began to flourish. Nehemiah and Ezra, who worked alongside of him, wanted to avoid a repeat of history and so they searched the Scripture, reading it and calling people to obedience.

When the worship of God resumed at the Temple in Jerusalem, Ezra was overcome with holy awe, moved deeply. He humbled himself before God. His prayer of repentance is what we are about to read.

READ

This prayer of repentance simply fascinates me! What passion, what depth of sincerity!

Many of us who have less than awe of God, repent like my kids did when I made them say, “sorry” to their siblings. When Jay pounded on his brother, I’d say, “Go and tell him you’re sorry.” Because he wanted to avoid further problems with me, he would grudging say, “I’m sorry,” but his posture and his tone of voice said something very different. They said, “I’m only doing this ‘cause Dad’s looking on, but when I have the change I’ll pound you again, harder.” He had no change of heart, no sincere desire to change. He felt justified in his actions and was only complying with me because I was bigger and stronger.

Have you ever had to deal with insincere apologies, with half-hearted “I’m sorry’s?” It’s not pleasant, is it?

Most of us would prefer no apology to a half-hearted one, wouldn’t we? Yet, how often do we offer up prayers of ‘repentance’ with little remorse, with no real sense about how our words and/or actions have sinned against the Lord God.

Believers who have an immature view of God may approach Him with words of confession and repentance, but their behavior won’t really change much because their words are motivated less by a real desire to please God and more by some sense of obligation to insure their entrance into Heaven or get other prayers answered!

Ezra re-discovered the nature of God. When he felt the shame of his sin, he did not run to hide, nor did he make excuses. Instead, he made the choice I want to urge on us today. His whole demeanor became one of repentance. He prayed not only with words but with his actions. He tore his clothing, pulled out his hair, and sat down in silence for the whole day. Then, and only then, did he attempt to speak.

Re-read v. 6, 10-11, 13

Notice on whom his prayer is focused. His prayer of repentance is not about relieving a guilty conscience or removing some obstacle to God’s blessings. He is focused entirely on God, on how the actions of the people have offended God’s holy nature and caused God’s reputation to be diminished before the world. IF we have seen God’s holiness, we like both Isaiah and Ezra will have no other reaction other than shame and guilt. Our sin, and we are all sinners, will grip us and we will desire only to be restored to His love.

Ezra is awestruck by the fact that God had not wiped them all out. Read v. 8, 9

The great mercy of God, His willingness to forgive and restore is an amazing fact about God that gets lost in the deception of sin too often. We cannot grasp that despite His high holiness and our depth of corruption, He loves us! But when the Spirit breaks through our blindness and we begin to see that He is full of mercy, gracious, and willing to accept our confession - we break through into a new and wonderful place with Him.

John assures you and me,

"If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.

My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely. He is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins but the sins of all the world."

(1 John 1:8-2:2, NLT)

Yes, we sin, even those of us who have accepted Christ and who are filled with the Holy Spirit. But, if we agree with God about those sins, humbling owning them and turning from them, He makes us clean as new!

Is that an excuse to live as we want, abusing God’s mercy and goodness? OF course not. It is an invitation to come with confidence to the only One who can make you and me holy, acceptable to our Father.

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Close:

Believer are you casual about sinful habits in your life?

Do you find yourself making excuses, refusing to deal with things that need to change?

Do you often hide from God by failing to pray, not attending worship, or seeking diversions?

If so, then you need a new revelation of the nature of God. Re-examine your assumptions about Him.

Let Him impress on you the Majesty of Himself.

And then, as Jesus says, “Come boldly to the throne of grace, to receive mercy!”

That mercy is released by our sincere confession, our true prayers of repentance.

May the Spirit give us ears to hear what He is saying to the Church.

Amen.