I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.
– Psalm 38:18
This verse… Well, it’s 18 verses into a chapter just filled with sorrow over sin. The whole chapter starts, “O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath! For your arrows have sunk into me. Your hand has come down upon me.”
Psalm 38:18 teaches us how to confess our sin.
There is deep conviction of sin. As the psalmist, David, here is overwhelmed by his sin. He feels crushed by it. He’s groaning under its weight and he is confessing it before God. And this is so important for every one of our lives, when we sin to feel its weight. Not that we need to beat ourselves up over it, but to express sorrow before God for our sin.
God, I don’t want to think that. I don’t want to desire that. Lord, I don’t want to say those things. I don’t want to do those things. God, please forgive me. Not that he’s not willing to forgive. That’s the beauty of our God and the gospel, that Jesus has paid the price for our sins, that God is absolutely willing to forgive, that he’s quick to forgive. He loves us, which means we don’t need to fear or hesitate to confess sin before him, that we need to be quick to confess it. And with sorrow, realizing how serious sin is. You see that all over Psalm 38, and David feels it. “I’m sorry for my sin.” This is a part of repentance. It’s a brokenness over sin. It’s a sorrow over sin that leads to turning from it.
Psalm 38:18 encourages us to examine our hearts before God.
And so, I just want to encourage you today, and in a sense each day to pause. Examine your heart and ask God to open your eyes to sin in your life. And as he does, be quick to confess it with sorrow over it. See the seriousness of sin before God. And then continually when we sin, to end that moment, to stop when we feel that conviction, to let it soak in, to not push past it or gloss over it, but to stop in whatever way we can, and confess it to God, and express sorrow for it to ask for his forgiveness knowing 1 John 1:9, “When we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
That Jesus has paid the price for this. Oh, God, we praise you for your love for us. We praise you for your forgiveness of us. Jesus, we praise you for the cross and your resurrection from the dead that makes forgiveness of all our sins possible, that you would say to us oh, God, you remember our sins no more, that you would remove them as far as the East is from the West, that you wipe the slate clean, that you cleanse us of our sins. God, we want this. We confess even together right now as we pray. We are sorry for our sin against you, for turning aside from you, for rebelling against you, for the ways we don’t follow your ways.
This verse prepares us to receive God’s mercy and to share it with others.
And our thoughts, our desires, our words, our actions, our decisions. God, we pray, please help us to turn from sin. And if or whatever points we fall to sin, God helps us to be quick to confess it with Spirit-driven sorrow for our sin. Help us to hate our sin and its effects in our lives and others’ lives, to run from it by your grace, by your mercy. And God, help us not to keep this mercy to ourselves. Help us to spread the good news of your grace, and your mercy, and your forgiveness, and your love through Jesus with someone around us today. God, please help us to share the gospel, to weave threads of the gospel, the good news of your grace into the fabric of our conversations.
Help us to be a reflection of your mercy and your grace when people sin against us.
Prayer for the Bakkarwal People
And God, we pray for the Bakkarwal people of India who’ve never heard the good news of your grace and your mercy in Jesus. God, we pray that the Bakkarwal people of India, these people who have a hundred thousand plus, would be reached with the good news of your forgiveness, and your love, and your grace, that they might confess their sin to you, be forgiven of their sin through faith in Jesus and experience restoration to you forever. God, we pray all this according to your word in Psalm 38:18. In Jesus’ name, in the name of the one who makes all this possible. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
