Confession

INTRO: Let’s be honest: every one of us is tempted to live like we’ve got it all together. We don’t like being wrong. We don’t like admitting weakness.

And we definitely don’t like letting anyone see the parts of us that aren’t polished.

If we could get away with it, most of us would walk around acting like nothing ever bothers us, nothing ever tempts us, and we never make mistakes.

We might accidently have an attitude like — “It’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way… to know me is to love me.”

Maybe a little part of us even acts like it to a degree.

And that’s exactly why confession is so hard. We’d rather protect the image than expose the truth.

We’d rather protect OUR image than reflect HIS image is really what we’re saying by that though.

When you sin and you know it, whether it be accident or on purpose — what’s your first thought? And what do you do about it? For many it might not be “let me talk to someone about what I just did — least of all God”…right? When we fail we would rather bury it and not bring it up, or act as if it didn’t happen, or try to take care of it all myself. But that’s the opposite of what a Christian is supposed to do.

(PPT) It doesn’t just start and end BEFORE being saved.

Romans 10:8-10

(PPT) V.9, “confess” and “believe” are in the aorist tense. That means it’s not about one specific time. It captures the “totality” of time.

Example: If you work hard in school you’ll graduate!…and you ask “When? How many times do I need to work hard?” — but it’s not a few times its overall if you do, you will succeed and graduate.

For the Christian life, confess and beleive isn’t just one time in your life, it’s the totality of it! Yes on the path to being saved and while staying saved!

ONGING, a life that is AGREEING with God. Thats what confession means, not just to say I believe, it means literally to agree with God.

V.10 makes it clear that whoever is doing this are the saved people!

So Romans 10 shows us that confession isn’t just a moment — it’s a lifestyle.

It’s the ongoing posture of someone who agrees with God, aligns with God, and openly declares Jesus as Lord not just with their lips once, but with their life continually.

And that’s exactly why John picks up the same idea in 1 John, showing us that confession is a continual part of a faithful Christian’s life.

1 John 1:5-10

V.5-6

(PPT) Light = perfect and good, Holy, but also revealing and enlightens!

God isn’t any inkling of corruption or unjust — He’s the source of perfection and goodness and LIFE.

The darkness is the ABSENCE of light and goodness. Life can’t grow there but rot and corruption and evil does.

Here’s the warning: Just saying I’m on God’s side, just using your your words as the world says that’s what confession is, doesn’t mean I am.

Confession isn’t “telling God we believe in Him”! Confession means to AGREE WITH, to agree with God’s light and align myself with what it reveals!

Light reveals I’m a wrongful sinner

Light reveals God is perfect and the life giver

Light of God reveals how to get in the light!

Where is my real walk? Is it the path the light has revealed? Is it truly as with Jesus the Light of the World as my companion?

I can’t be walking in the darkness and practicing the truth — the two cannot coexist. One will push the other out.

The fact that light reveals means God wants us open, honest, and cleansed! NOT hidden out of pride or even shame and pretending to be perfect!

V.7

When we walk in the light God does powerful and awesome things in us

Notice our fellowship is both with Jesus and also with ONE ANOTHER.

Jesus blood is the meeting point of every believer’s story — rich, poor, young, old, Arkansan & Texan. Being in Christ is the great equalizer!

It’s the same place we’re saved and Jesus pulls us into the same fellowship with one another.

In Christ WE have shared things

WE admit the same belief in Christ, WE will have similar experiences with struggles, WE have the same needs, purpose, and hope!

V.8-10

We ALL sin and ALL fail. And the person who claims otherwise isn’t walking in the light, they’re walking in denial.

(PPT) NOT just denial of sin they have, but by result they’re walking in denial of the CLEANSING BLOOD of Jesus.

The good news is this: the same light that exposes also cleanses. God doesn’t shine light to shame, He does it to save!

Confession is the turning point! It’s not God’s way of humiliating you, it’s not telling God something He doesn’t already know, it’s agreeing with what the light reveals is wrong and the path to get right!

V.9 is a PROMISE - God WILL forgive.

V.10 is also a guarantee, that if we keep dragging our sin back to the shadows, or letting it drag us to the dark, the Word isn’t what we’re living by but our pride.

ILLUSTRATION: WINDOW LIGHT, PRISON VS HOME —

Light is freedom and cleansing, and nothing keeps your from it except yourself.

Without confession, that light is like a window light from within a prison cell: it’s high up, it has bars on it, you can see it, it’s somewhat revealing, but you don’t get to experience the light outside in freedom. You don’t get to open the window and go outside and bask in it…the prison cell is our secrecy and pride keeping us contained in the dark unable to experience the light.

But with confession, it’s like a beautiful window at home where you open the curtains, let a lot more light inside the house, you let it warm, you open the window and feel the breeze, you can go outside and enjoy it. When we confess, we can experience the goodness of the sun’s light (SON).

Confession breaks the prison walls down and flings the windows open! Confession is essential for the Christian life to be living and walking in the light.

1 John 2:1-2

Jesus is our advocate and our propitiation.

The Light is where Jesus your advocate meets you, propitiation is what He’s done to clear your path to Him!

And He calls each of us to petition for one another as well!

And when you sin and or are tempted or are struggling to the point you’re feeling beat up spiritually — do you ever think about reaching out to someone to confess that?

For many the answer is probably not, right? Because we often just take the position of “I’ll take care of it…I don’t need anyone knowing about that…no one needs to know I mess up or about my messy side.” My guess is many of us don’t do that. Maybe many of us don’t realize we’re supposed to do that! You might say “that’s my sin, I’ll address it with God” — yes you need to, but because we have this urge to be so individualistic we don’t realize that God intends for us to involve one another in these spiritual matters. We’re meant to share our burdens and struggles, if we’re not we’re leaving a lot of fantastic spiritual help on the table. If we have blessings we need, and I mean blessings we are not meant to be without — why would we leave that unaccessed? It’s unwise and frankly it’s un-Biblical to do so.

We’re meant to go to one another and say “I need prayers, I need you to petition on my behalf because I did this and struggle in this way , and I don’t want to any longer.”

James 5:13

(PPT) No matter what your circumstance is, your response is to GO TO GOD! In all times of life there is a spiritual response you should have because we are a spiritual people.

Either in prayer or praise — your situation should drive you to God.

Remember that in the rest of this section, that because of what Jesus has done YOU can go directly to God! Thats awesome. You have access to the creator who is also your father.

James 5:14-15

Sickness isolates you physically…but maybe emotionally, especially if we’re very sick like James is talking about and we start feeling or thinking “woe is me…what have I done to deserve this? Does anyone care about me?” — and James the man of action says “here’s what YOU can do”.

(PPT) YOU take the initiative! YOU call the elders, don’t just wait for them to notice you’re gone…

We have this tendency to say “why haven’t they noticed I’m missing? Why hasn’t anyone reached out to me? Why is no one coming to me?” — but James says, “no, YOU go and ask for them”.

Yea yo can pray for yourself but you need people praying WITH you and FOR you.

The emphasis isn’t necessarily on Elders or on the oil — it’s on the prayers of faith! When you have righteous people praying over you and caring for you it’s a powerful thing! Remember James said ch.1 if you lack wisdom pray for it AND don’t doubt He can! Doubting prayer isn’t powerful, but prayers of faith by righteous people are.

We need people like that in our lives praying for us individually. And if you’re still asking “Why do I need others” the answer is simply “because that’s how God designed us to be”. Wisdom says don’t go against that then!

God added you to the BODY of Christ. You are a body part. There is no body part that exist on its own. That means when you’re sick or sinful, you need to invite others into your life and into your circumstances and struggles for prayers and believe that it will help!

James 5:16a

Based on the fact that prayers of faith HELP TO SAVE —— Confess to “one another”! That doesn’t just mean to the elders.

(PPT) If you’re in Christ then you are the type to give confession and receive, you ask to be prayed for and you pray for others! We have a reciprocal relationship in Christ.

You’ve been given responsibility by Jesus to bring good news and blessings of God to others and also to bring the prayers and confessions of others to God!

IF you’re in Christ, YOU have this responsibility AND you have this same need to confess sins and having other people praying for you!

The attitude of your sins are between you and God will keep you in your sins and keep you sick. If your attitude is to keep sin hidden, then really your sins are between you and Satan. You think you’re going to win that battle one on one? With God you absolutely with, with the Church you absolutely will — but fighting a secret unconfessed battle against sin and Satan alone, you will lose every time.

If it weren’t so we wouldn’t need Jesus as our savior. Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

If we could, there would be no need for Jesus’ sacrifice. But we can’t.

Jesus made us a body, HIS body, and when one part of the body is sick or injured the rest feel it and are meant to help fight off the infection and lend to the healing!

A maturing church is a confessing one. That doesn’t mean that we’re a church without sin but it does mean we need to be a church without secrets.

Do you tell every single person every single thing going on? No — you need TRUSTED and CLOSE brothers and sisters in Christ. You don’t have to come up after each sermon and announce it. But you do need your “battle buddies”. And your battle buddies are those you can’t fool, that won’t let you go, that won’t turn from you.

We don’t hide reality from each other, and just show up and smile and say “I’m good, we’re all good” and then go and live our lives isolated and struggle alone. Thats not what Jesus wants and not how He designed and commands us to be!

The design is that we live in community that shares openly and cares. We haven’t normalized confessing sins to each other, we’ve normalized “keep it bottled up”, and we’ve normalized if someone does come forward after a sermon that its a walk of shame — but the real truth is that its not. It’s often the ones striving the hardest after Jesus and forgiveness and maturity that do that.

Maybe you don’t know where to begin with confessing something to someone, so here are some things we’ve all been guilty of or may struggle against in the future —— Confessions Like: (PPT)

I’ve been impatient with my family and lost my temper…(did you ask for prayers about that?)

I’ve entertained lustful thoughts…

I’ve been too proud…

I’ve been greedy and materialistic...

I’ve had misplaced priorities…

I’ve not been worshiping God with the right heart lately...

I’ve been spiritually lazy and was fine with it…

If we know we all here deal with this and more and we all here are guilty of the same things, why do we leave the prayers of righteous people on the table un-utilized.??

You have something powerful at your disposal, the prayers of righteous men and women, and you say “No thanks, I can handle it” — scripture says that’s a foolish position to take, and you will stay trapped in bad sinful habits, and if you don’t overcome them you will not reach heaven.

God designed confession as a necessary part of a successful Christian life. That means without it, you won’t make it.

If you’re struggling with something are you doing everything within your power to defeat it? James says here’s one of the biggest things you NEED to do, confess them to each other.

James 5:16b

We’ve heard things like prayer is powerful and it works…do you really believe it?

Who is the righteous person? Someone who is in a right covenant relationship with God. Look around right now — you’re surrounded by them. NOT perfect people, but righteous people. Because they were baptized into Christ to be saved, they were made righteous and because they remain loyal and devoted they remain righteous.

James says their powerful prayers can be used for YOUR sinful situation and you need to recruit them to pray for you!

James 5:17-18

He’s not saying “Elijah was a dude like us and not all that special”, not it’s the opposite. James is saying a faithful Christian is like Faithful Elijah, who is human yes, but devoted to God and capable of being a powerful representer of God!

Don’t leave faithful people Un-utilized in your life. “I tried and it didn’t work” — try again! Was it the prayer or you that didn’t work? Keep praying and trying.

James 5:19-20

Does that make you uncomfortable? The fact of the matter is God uses us “ordinary” Christians to do awesome eternal work.

Jame’s final remarks of his letter is that following Jesus is NOT a solo project.

He says “ANYONE” and “SOMEONE”, not someone we deem “special” within the Church like the preacher or the elders.

YOU need to feel the weight of that. We’re not spectators, we are participants in God’s rescue mission!

Someone that brings back a sinner and helps restore them by praying, teaching, whatever — anyone who does this saves another soul from death.

WE are in the soul saving buisness! Yes Jesus saves and atones and forgives, but Jesus’ brother James inspired by the Holy Spirit says clearly “YOU have a role to play in that! Jesus is working through you, you’re a worker Jesus works through to help save people!”

It’s not just about you and Jesus, it’s about you and Jesus and the rest of us.

Jesus may want to use YOU to save THEM, or THEM to save YOU. You’re a worker to bring God’s blessings or bring them to God.

Whether it’s becuase they’re sick, or in sin, or hurting and they confess their sin to you - you have a role to play in bringing that to God. When confession happens that’s your moment to work for restoration!

AND God may be wanting to work through those around you to save and keep YOU... Will you let them?

CONCLUSION:

From John’s call to walk in the light WITH ONE ANOTHER….and Jame’s instruction to confess to one another we are meant to understand that the Christian who tries to fight sin alone will lose.

Confession isn’t humiliation, that’s pride talking.

When you confess to God and trust your brother or sister in Christ, and be trustworthy too, you’re not just “getting something off your chest” —— you’re stepping into the light where God works to cleanse.

This place is full of people who struggle like you, fail at time, and need forgiveness just the same as you.

Are you walking in the light or are you staring at it from afar beneath a prison window? Don’t let pride keep you prisoner any longer.