Preparing to Confess

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Seven Words. That’s the limit. It’s not there is anything special about the number seven. We could chose five, ten, or twenty. The main point is that we are prepared. For the sake of those around us who need to hear the good news. And even for our own sake for our own understanding of God’s love for us in Christ, we need a short, a sweet, a substantive summary of the good news of our salvation.

Being prepared and ready is not my idea. It comes from God, through the apostle Peter. “Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that you have.” That is the disciple’s direction in 1 Peter. And that is what we are doing this Lenten season as we prepare for Easter and the celebration of Jesus who has conquered the grave and as we also prepare to confess the hope that we have in Christ.

Last week we saw a few examples of the seven word summaries of the Gospel. As we saw last week, none of the summaries say everything about Jesus and His work of salvation. They each used different words and different images. It would be impossible to include everything about Jesus in seven words. In fact John’s Gospel tells us at the end, if we tried to describe everything Jesus did and said there wouldn’t be enough room in the world for all the books!

Today, I would like to take a closer look at the components of a faithful Christian confession. When we open our mouths to proclaim the good news of Jesus, what are we going to say? Confessing the Gospel begins, in many ways, by confessing something about yourself. It begins by recognizing who we are as confessors. And who are we? Who are you? We are creatures. We are God’s creation. We are God’s handiwork. As Psalm 139 puts it, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And although we are made by our Lord God, we are not perfect. We are fragile, we are fallen; another way to say that is sinful. To confess the Gospel, involves admitting something about our sin. You don’t need a Savior unless you first recognize that you need saving.

Let’s look at a few of the Gospel confessions from last week:

“In Christ, God’s yes defeats our no.”

“God, through Jesus Christ welcomes you anyhow.”

Notice that Jesus is the focus on the confession. But also notice they aren’t only about Jesus. They say something about us. To be more specific they point out that there is something wrong with us. God defeats our no. God welcomes you anyhow. The first example - God’s yes defeats our no. It is referring to our no to God’s commands. That’s our disobedience. God clearly speaks how we often fail to follow the way He calls us to live. “No” also describes our response to God’s promises. That’s our lack of faith. God promises so much to us, and yet our faith is often so weak. This little word no captures the many ways in which we turn away from God. Or look at the second example confession. God welcomes you anyhow. The anyhow reminds us that God would be entirely justified in not welcoming us back to Himself. We have given Him many reasons to exclude us - from the way we treat one another, to the way we expect Him to serve us, to the way in which we idolize ourselves. “Anyhow” is a confession that we have no right to ask anything of God. Both of these confessions highlight that there is something about us that isn’t right. And that’s important, because the Gospel begins with the fact that this world (and each of us) is not right.

At one time, it was. The world was perfectly right. Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden and they didn’t need any more good news. Everything around them was good. It was very good! But ever since their no to God’s command, things have been wrong. The Old Testament story of the people of God is them doing wrong after wrong over and over again. It is a story of hurting themselves and others through their sinful actions. And it is a story that continues in your life and mine.

This is important for us to own up to who we are as we prepare to share the Gospel with others. It leads us to humbly confess that we are just as guilty as anyone else. This also helps us tell others why our beliefs in Jesus matter. Until people see and understand that there is something wrong, the idea of Jesus and His power to save won’t mean anything.

So the first step in crafting a confession of the Gospel in seven words is to think about how to talk about the need for a Savior. That doesn’t need to be the first thing we say, but it needs to be clear. And after have talked about the sinfulness, the next step is simple. And joyful! We speak Jesus crucified and risen. That is good news! It is Good news that Jesus came to this world to set us free from sin, death, and the devil. But not just that, He also saves from meaningless, from loneliness, from brokenness. He restores, He renews, He recreates. He brings us back to Himself. That is Good News!

The Good News is that God was in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. That is seven words right there! This confession picks up from language in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

2 Corinthians 5:17–19 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

God in the person of Jesus came to make all things right. He came to make things right which we had done wrong. To restore us and completely forgive us. God was in Christ, reconciling the world. He came for all people, all the world, to bring us back to the Father.

This is true. But this version of the Gospel doesn’t tell is everything that we need to know about Jesus. Much needs to be unpacked. But it contains the heart of the good news, and it might provide a good starting point for more conversations.

This week, I would like you to do some work this week. I want you to think about the people in your life who need to hear the Good News of Jesus. Think about where they are in life. Think about your relationship with them. Consider ways of describing what God has done for us in Christ. And as you do, jot some notes down. If prayer gets you thinking wirte it down. Take your bulletin home with you. Use it as a scratch pad to get ready for next week.

Amen.