Confession

Renewing Your Mind

Ligonier Ministries

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A prayer of genuine confession doesn't appeal to excuses or vows of doing better next time. It appeals to the mercy of God. Today, R.C. Sproul describes how we are to confess our sins in a way that manifests true repentance.

With your donation of an amount, request The Valley of Vision, a book of Puritan prayers to help enrich your own prayer life. You'll also get digital access to R.C. Sproul's video teaching series Prayer and the accompanying study guide: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/4406/donate

Live outside the U.S. and Canada? Request the digital teaching series and study guide with your donation: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/global

First time contacting us? We'll send you a booklet by R.C. Sproul for free, Does Prayer Change Things?: https://www.renewingyourmind.org/prayer

Meet Today's Teacher:

R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.

Meet the Host:

Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.

Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

Transcript

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0:00.0	As long as you think you deserve forgiveness or you deserve mercy, you haven't really repented.
0:06.7	A truly penitent person says, God, I understand, I have no claim at this point.
0:13.1	I forfeited all of my rights.
0:15.3	You have every right to destroy me.
0:17.8	You have every right to punish me according to the full measure of the law.
0:22.3	I ask that you don't. I plead with you that you won't, but I acknowledge that if you do it,
0:27.5	I have no grounds to complain against you.
0:36.7	Martin Luther, the famous 16th century reformer, famously said that Christian life is to be a life of repentance.
0:45.3	But do we really confess our sins as often, and specifically, as we ought?
0:51.3	R.C. Sprawl will seek to help us on this Saturday edition of renewing your mind as we continue
0:57.0	our study of prayer, focusing today on confession.
1:02.0	Prayer is a significant part of the Christian life, but it is also an area where many of us
1:08.0	struggle, so we are taking out time to work through this practical
1:11.7	series from Dr. Sprawl. Each time I've revisited these messages, I've been helped, so you
1:17.8	may wish to return to them again and again. Request lifetime digital access to the messages
1:24.1	and study guide when you donate today at renewing your mind.org.
1:29.2	We'll also send you a copy of the Valley of Vision.
1:32.6	All this to thank you for your generosity in supporting renewing your mind and the global
1:37.6	outreach of Ligonier Ministries.
1:41.3	So what does repentance, true contrition, look like?
1:45.2	Here's Dr. Sprawl on Psalm 51.
1:50.5	In our last segment in our study of prayer, I made use of this simple acrostic, the word
	...

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