A Humble Prayer for Sanctification
Psalms 36
April 28, 2019
It seems that recently we’ve talked quite a bit about the role of prayer
As it relates to our sanctification.
In studying the Model Prayer in Luke
And even some of those Imprecatory Psalms
We’ve been addressing the issue of prayer
As it relates to living a righteous life.
We hear our Lord’s command to pray:
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
We read those imprecatory prayers even like the most recent one in Psalms 35 where the Psalmist prayed:
Psalms 35:1-3 “Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, “I am your salvation.”
• We understand that there is a war raging.
• We understand that we have an enemy.
• We understand that we do not fight with conventional weapons, but that we fight in prayer.
We ask God to deal with that great enemy
Who is the deceiver and author of temptation.
But there is more involved in our prayer for sanctification
Beyond just an understanding of the threat of the enemy.
Tonight I would begin by reminding you that
THE ENEMY HAS A GREAT ALLY in his work of corruption.
What is that great ally?
YOUR FLESH
James 1:13-15 “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
None of us able to go to God in the midst of our sin and say,
“It’s not my fault” or “The devil made me do it”
The other culprit that must be dealt with is the flesh.
It is the human nature that is bent toward sin.
This is another battlefront for the believer.
As believers we war against the flesh.
And the common question has to do with how to stop sinning.
• How do I escape this habit?
• How do I overcome this temptation?
• How do I apply practical holiness in my life?
I don’t know of a single believer who has not at one point in their life
Been grieved over their lack of personal holiness.
The process to achieving this practical holiness is what we call: SANCTIFICATION.
Now there are some clearly defined principles of sanctification outlined for us in the Bible.
Just for reference, let me give you a few.
1) WALK BY THE SPIRIT
Galatians 5:16-17 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”
The Holy Spirit is the agent of sanctification.
He is the One who grants you victory over the flesh.
You will never find yourself walking in sin if you are walking by the Spirit.
(That is to say, if you are walking in submission to the Spirit
And according to the Spirit’s power)
The Spirit is our great ally in our battle against the flesh.
2) UNDERSTAND THE EFFECT OF YOUR DEATH IN CHRIST
Romans 6:8-14 “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
This is the PRINCIPLE OF IDENTIFICATION we talked about on Easter Sunday.
That when we placed our faith in Christ
God performed a supernatural and spiritual work on our behalf.
In a way that is beyond our comprehension, God identified us with Christ.
• We were bonded.
• We were united in His death
• We were united in His burial
• We were united in His resurrection
And when a person dies, his flesh is destroyed.
Often times this is hard for a believer to grasp
Because they see that their flesh still seems very much alive,
But the reality is that God has crucified it.
That means it only appears in control, it is not any longer.
Paul said the same thing to the Galatians:
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Or later:
Galatians 5:24 “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
The mistake of believers is that they do not realize that
Their flesh no longer has power to control them.
I’ve often used the analogy of the electric fence.
• If you’ve ever seen this with animals, it is the same thing.
• We used to string an electric fence down one of our fields, but after a couple of weeks we would turn it off because the cattle no longer tested it.
• And eventually, even when we would remove the fence it was nearly impossible to drive the cows past where it used to be.
They were free, but didn’t know it.
There are believers who live here.
They simply don’t understand that their flesh has been defeated,
That the prison door has been thrown open, and that the electric fence is down.
And so they live like sin is inevitable. IT’S NOT.
So Paul says, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body”
It’s not in charge anymore, so don’t let it act like it is.
So it’s just a matter of understanding the effect of your death in Christ.
3) FLEE TEMPTATION
1 Corinthians 10:12-14 “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”
We understand that God has promised to not allow temptation to be too severe and to allow a way of escape.
Part of our sanctification then is to escape; “flee” from it!
• If you’ve struggled with alcohol, stay out of the bar.
• If you’ve struggled with pornography, stay off the internet.
FLEE.
4) LIVE IN GOD’S WORD
Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
Psalms 19:11-13 “Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.”
Getting in God’s word and letting God’s word get into you
Is one of the best means of sanctification I know.
In fact, God’s word is the tool Christ uses to sanctify you.
Ephesians 5:25-26 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,”
John 15:2-3 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”
It’s just a simple principle that
It is harder to sin when you are living in the word of God.
5) SUBMISSION
Romans 6:19-22 “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”
Paul is pretty clear.
“present your members as slaves to righteousness”
That is that we adopt a slave mentality.
Escape the prison of sin. The flesh was crucified,
But don’t view yourself as a totally autonomous
(being free to do whatever you want.)
Instead, willingly present yourself to Christ as His servant.
It has to do with focus and commitment and direction.
It will help you not sin when you give yourself a new direction to go.
This is sort of the athlete principle.
• They are able to buffet their bodies and train and eat right because they are slaves to their goals and their professions.
• They don’t abstain from worldly pleasures because they love righteousness but because they want to succeed in competition.
That principle also works for believers who are able to sacrifice
Because we set the goal of righteousness.
Now, those are just a few principles of sanctification
That I just wanted to give you quickly tonight,
But even before any of those principles become effective,
There is one principle that must first be in place.
HUMILITY
“Humility is when you believe you are who God says you are.”
Even though most in here have never attended Alcoholics Anonymous
I would imagine that everyone in here
Is likely familiar with their concept of self-awareness.
We’ve all heard the standard introduction:
“Hi, I’m so and so and I am an alcoholic”
Even people who have been sober for decades still introduce themselves in that way.
It is a principle of humility and self-awareness
To understand that there is a weakness in me
That I must never forget or else I am prone to fall back into sin.
THAT IS THE HEART OF THIS PSALM.
I call it “A Humble Prayer for Sanctification”
• Because it is a Psalm where David first acknowledges the human condition
• And he allows that honesty to drive him to God for help.
We actually have A HYMN we regularly sing that voices this same request.
“O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be. Let they grace Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”
Can you identify with that hymn?
So could David.
That is what Psalms 36 is about.
Well that was a lengthy introduction, but now let’s get into this Psalm.
It makes a tremendous practical point regarding sanctification.
Namely that when we pray for sanctification
It is not all just a prayer against the enemy.
It is also a prayer regarding our own sinful flesh.
We can divide this Psalm into 3 points.
#1 THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN
Psalms 36:1-4
You are actually already familiar with part of this Psalm since it is one of the passages that Paul used in that famous evaluation of humanity in Romans 3.
Here we have simply David’s rundown
Of the propensity of man to fall into sin.
His appraisal falls right in line with God’s appraisal all the way back in the book of Genesis.
Genesis 6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
And incidentally this didn’t change even after the flood.
Genesis 8:20-21 “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.”
It is very simply who man is.
Men are corrupt. Men are sinful.
And David even gets descriptive of the fact here.
1) HIS ABSENCE OF FEAR (1)
“Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; There is no fear of God before his eyes.”
What a tragic and yet accurate description of man.
• Sin is NOT a PARENT problem.
• Sin is NOT a CULTURE problem.
• Sin is NOT even a DEVIL problem.
SIN IS A HEART PROBLEM.
Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”
The LORD told Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”
That is what David says as well.
When you look at man you are overwhelmed by how much their heart loves sin.
In fact, THEIR LOVE OF SIN EVEN TRUMPS THEIR FEAR OF GOD.
2) HIS AUDACIOUS FLATTERY (2)
“For it flatters him in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it.”
David DOESN’T MEAN there that he hates his sin.
Rather David means that he hates the discovery of his sin.
He hates it when people tell him to stop.
See, he is flattered by his sin.
HE LIKES HIS SINFUL REPUTATION.
• He brags about the number of beers he can drink
• He brags about the number of women he can sleep with.
• He boasts of his crude language
• He boasts of the way he swindled his neighbor to get a good deal.
In short, he is proud of who he is
And he hates it when anyone confronts him for it.
3) HIS ALLOCATION OF FOOLISHNESS (3)
“The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit; He has ceased to be wise and to do good.”
This is what we would call a “depraved mind”
Romans 1:28-32 “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
They are those who call evil good and good evil.
I saw just this past week on social media a group of celebrities who support abortion but who are trying to get it outlawed to cook lobsters because they feel pain.
It’s just the highest level of insanity and foolishness.
4) HIS AGENDA OF FOLLY (4)
“He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.”
It is a man who fantasizes about the sin which he would commit
If given the opportunity.
Many a man laid upon his bed
And conceived all the wickedness that he WOULD do
IF HE COULD just pull it off.
He would then awake and set himself on a path to see it come to fruition.
That plan may be thwarted, but it didn’t stop him from trying to carry it out
Because “he does not despise evil”
And no one in here would argue with that assessment of humanity.
Humans are creatures that love sin
And will run to it with everything they have.
BUT HERE IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THIS PSALM.
David is writing those first 4 verses with one very important point.
I AM ONE OF THOSE HUMANS.
If you read those first 4 verses and apply them only to others
You are way too biased in your own opinion of yourself.
• You are of Adam just as they are of Adam.
• You are of flesh just as they are of flesh.
• You are human too.
“there is none righteous; not even one”
“there is none who does good; not even one”
David is not just lamenting a SINFUL CULTURE.
David is lamenting the SINFUL CONDITION of which he is a part.
This is what we call HUMILITY.
It is David being honest about what he is capable of
If left to his own devices.
David understands human wickedness.
And this understanding is essential to your quest to find sanctification.
TURN TO: 1 CORINTHIANS 10:1-12
Read those first 11 verses.
Do you remember all their mistakes?
So what’s the sermon?
(12) “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”
Do you suppose they could fall into sin, but you are beyond it?
No.
You had better understand the universal wickedness of man.
You had better understand the propensity of the flesh to run into sin.
The Wickedness of Man
#2 THE GOODNESS OF GOD
Psalms 36:5-9
In striking contrast to man’s wickedness is God’s goodness.
And we must note that it is God’s goodness TO wicked man.
David actually lists eight of them here.
1) HIS LOYALTY (5a)
“Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens”
You remember the word as CHECED, God’s loyal covenantal love.
Humans are fickle, but God is loyal.
2) HIS FAITHFULNESS (5b)
“Your faithfulness reaches to the skies”
God keeps His word.
He is both loyal to humans and faithful to them.
We read it back in the days of Noah that God said
“Despite man’s wickedness I will never flood the earth like that again.”
We certainly could not say that man does not deserve another flood.
It’s just that God has remained faithful.
2 Timothy 2:11-13 “It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
3) HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS (6a)
“Your righteousness is like the mountains of God”
Man does not despise evil, but God most certainly does.
He is a shining contrast to humanity.
4) HIS JUDGMENTS (6b)
“Your judgments are like a great deep”
Man is a fool, but God is wise.
Man makes foolish decisions, but God never does.
And by the way, those first 4 realities all make two very distinct points.
They are attributes which man does not deserve
AND they are given beyond measure.
• God is loyal “to the heavens”
• God is faithful “to the skies”
• God is righteous “like the mountains”
• God’s wisdom is deep as the oceans.
He doesn’t just give a little loyalty, He gives immeasurable loyalty.
He doesn’t just give a little faithfulness, it is immeasurable faithfulness.
You get the point?
God is good to sinners who don’t deserve it.
5) HIS PRESERVATION (6c)
“O LORD, You preserve man and beast.”
Here is where David’s point begins to take shape.
That God, despite the wickedness of man,
Has a loyalty and a faithfulness
To continue to preserve him anyway.
Do we not see that in Scripture?
Psalms 8:4 “What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?”
Matthew 5:43-46 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”
Luke 6:35 “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.”
Despite man’s wickedness, God is still kind to them.
God still cares for them.
6) HIS CARE (7)
“How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.”
This isn’t just redeemed men, but all men.
They all are cared for under the protective hand of God.
• What is it that keeps the sun from scorching the earth to a crisp?
• Who is it that keeps the sea at bay?
God is the sustainer of creation.
All He has to do is stop caring for the world for 1 second
And everything falls into chaos.
And yet, despite the wickedness of men, God still offers that care.
7) HIS BENEVOLENCE (8)
“They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.”
God provides even for wicked man.
• He sends rain.
• He provides water.
• He provides food.
And man hardly deserves it.
Yet it is God who provides it all.
8) HIS LIFE (9)
“For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.”
God even grants life to sinful and wicked men.
• They don’t keep their own hearts beating, God does that.
• They don’t cause the sun to rise…
• They don’t enlighten the mind with knowledge…
Everything man knows and everything man enjoys
Is only because God has graciously allowed him
To know and enjoy it despite his rebellion.
But you understand here where David is coming from.
We have on one hand sinful man who rebels against God at every turn,
But on the other hand we have a gracious God
Who does not treat them as they deserve.
Well that reality leads to the final point.
#3 THE REQUEST OF THE REDEEMED
Psalms 36:10-12
Here is where that humble prayer for sanctification comes in.
Because I know what I am; I’m a sinner who runs to sin.
And because I know who God is; a gracious God who cares for man.
My request is that this gracious God
Would save me from my own wicked inclinations
And deliver me into righteousness.
The request is:
“O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You, And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.”
David already acknowledged that God was loyal and righteous
And here David asks God to “continue” being that way.
But David asks it with specifics:
(11) “Let not the foot of pride come upon me, And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away.”
In other words, “be loyal by not letting me slip into pride.
Be righteous by not letting the wicked tempt me into sin.”
It is a prayer that God would protect him from pride and temptation.
PROTECT ME FROM MY OWN SINFUL INCLINATIONS!
And you see WHY:
(12) “There the doers of iniquity have fallen; They have been thrust down and cannot rise.”
• David knows the end result of falling into sin.
• David knows where that is heading.
James told us:
James 1:15 “Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.”
And so David is asking God to continue being loyal
BY NOT LETTING HIM FALL INTO PRIDE OR TEMPTATION.
That is the other side of that prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.
“Lead us not into temptation”
On one hand we ask God to break the arm of the wicked.
But we also pray that God would control our sinful flesh.
This is the humble prayer for sanctification.
“Let that grace Lord like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.”
And here is the good news.
HE DOES!
Jude 24-25 “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
And here is the key thought for the night.
People often get this mentality that God is faithful when we are faithful.
(I actually saw that posted on facebook this week)
“If you will be faithful to God then He will be faithful to you.”
David would answer that by saying,
“If that’s true I’m sunk!”
The reality is that we are faithful to God only because He is faithful to us.
• It is God who doesn’t allow our feet to sleep.
• It is God who sanctifies us and fuels our faithfulness.
• It is God who is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
David’s prayer is that God would work out that sanctification in him
Because he is one of those wicked humans that so quickly runs to sin.
