Praying Our Guilt

If you’re trying to evoke God’s blessing through the goodness of your record and your life, you are psychologically unable to admit dark, intense, turbulent feelings. You can’t admit who you are. You can’t look and see what’s really in your heart; not if the whole basis for your understanding of who you are is, “I’m good. I’m a good person. I have to get it all together. That’s the only way I know God will listen to me.”

We’re now looking at guilt and shame–having your heart broken under a sense of failure, liability, and general unworthiness. This particular psalm has eight verses in it, and yet, in these wonderful few verses, we actually see guilt and shame likened to a hole, to something we’ve sunk down in. We here have the sinkhole of guilt and shame, the rope that’s given to a person sinking in guilt and shame, and something about the climb out of the hole. The sinkhole is in verses 1–2, the rope is in verses 3–4 and 7–8, and the climb out is in verses 5–6.

This sermon was preached by Rev. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 12, 2000. Series "Psalms - The Songs of Jesus". Scripture: Psalm 130:1-8.

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