No Longer A Slave: 03. Freedom Through Confession

Introduction - Repentance is HARD!

In our last lesson, we talked about the need for us to have godly sorrow if we are going to have a repentance that pleases God and brings freedom from sin. Godly sorrow will lead us to a healthy fear and hatred of our sin and what it has done to us spiritually. It will lead us to drop everything to make things right, to seek restoration with God and one another, and to confess our sins. All of these will happen if we have a godly sorrow that leads to true repentance… But unfortunately, as we talked about in our last lesson, we find ways to make “repentance” easier and more comfortable than it should be… and when we do this, it is often (if not always) the case that our repentance is not biblical. It instead is worldly sorrow.

One way that we tend to make our repentance easier is in the area of opening up with others and confessing our sins.

There are many ways we can make confession easier. If we do make a confession, we may make it vague… or leave something out… We may never go to the person we actually sinned against… Or maybe we just never confess sin at all… The latter probably being the popular choice of those who are enslaved to sin…

We don’t tell our brothers and sisters what is going on, and the closest we come to a confession during prayer to God is, “forgive me for my many sins, in Jesus name, amen.” We don’t really open up and confess sin. We desire to keep up appearances so everyone will think that we are doing well, and because of this, the darkness inside of us gets worse and worse and freedom never comes.

For our lesson this evening I would like to talk about three points regarding confessing sin… the first point I would like to discuss is the necessity of confession...

The Necessity of Confessing Sin

1 John 1:5-10 - Faithful Christians Confess Sin

Let’s consider for a moment what the Apostle John says in 1 John 1.

“5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” (1 John 1:5–10, NASB95).

John shows in this passage how important it is to be honest about our sin… When we are not, there is a lot of deception going on in a person’s life… There are two groups of people in this passage who are being deceptive…

In verse 6, those who are walking in darkness, but are confessing that they know Jesus… Their confession of knowing Jesus is being contradicted by the way they live… They are lying when they say that they know Jesus.

The second group of people are those who are saying that they have not sinned… In verse 8, John says that those who say such a thing are deceiving themselves, don’t have the truth in them, and are making God a liar because He would say different. These two groups of people are deceived, and are not right with God no matter what they may claim.

But then you have a third group of people… those who are walking in the light…

Look at verse 7… Those who walk in the light, what do they do? What do they have? They have relationships. They know God and are in fellowship with His people.... But they also have forgiveness of sin. Why is that? It is because as they walk in the light, the light reveals all of their imperfections to them… IT reveals their sin. They see their sin, and are honest about it… They confess it and receive mercy.

So you have three groups here...

Those who are confessing to know Jesus but are walking in darkness.

Those who confess they have no sin

Those who are walking in the light and confessing sin

The question I would like each of us to ask is, “which of these categories do we fall in if we are NOT confessing sin?

If we are either enslaved to sin or are putting up a front that everything is all right when in reality we are a mess spiritually, we fall into the first category.

If we are not confessing sin regularly, even though we may not proudly say the words “I have no sin,” I believe we fall into the second category. If we don’t regularly confess sin, our lack of action is, in a sense, making the claim. Our actions/lack of confession say to God and to others, “I have nothing to confess.”

If we are not confessing sin, it is not because there is not any sin in our lives to confess, but rather it is because we fear embarrassment or awkward conversations… or it may be that we are not seeing the sin in our lives because we either are not studying scripture or have become calloused to our sin because we have been walking in darkness for so long… It is not because we don’t see anything lacking in our lives… If we are walking in the light, confession will be present.

This is a sobering fact because we often may think the opposite is true… We may think that those who are faithful to Christ will not confess sin… We think that someone who is walking in the light is living a perfect life. But this is not true. Sure, being perfect and like God is the standard we are striving for, but we don’t meet it… Everyone walking in the light does sin. And since they are walking in the light, they do what is necessary to receive mercy.

The truth is: We are not walking in the light if we do not see sin in our lives and confess it… Faithful Christians confess sin. They see their sin and are honest with others about it.

If you or I cannot remember the last time that we have confessed a sin to God or to a brother in sister in Christ, we are probably walking in darkness… Confession is a necessary prerequisite to receiving mercy. John says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If we confess our sins we can be cleansed…

What Does Confession Look Like?

Ok… Let’s move to our second main talking point for this lesson. If we do overcome the fear of confessing our sins and want to do so, what should a confession look like?

Free Of Excuses - 1 Samuel 15:24; 2 Samuel 12:7-13

“I am sorry, but if only you did not do this, then I would not have responded this way.” Don’t blame someone else for your sin and don’t blame the devil for it. James says that we sin when we are led away by our desires and are enticed and give in! You are the only one who is ultimately to blame for your sin.

If we say things to brush some of the blame onto someone else or if we try to minimize our sin, real repentance is not present.

I like to look at the contrast between Saul’s confession and David’s confessions in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.

Saul, after being confronted with his sin, confessed to Samuel after making a whole bunch of excuses, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice” (1 Samuel 15:24). Even when he finally says he had sinned, there is still some kind of blame given to the people. But David, when he was confronted with his sin by Nathan in all of its ugly details, he is brief and clear. He said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Sam 12:7a, 13). There were no excuses. He simply confessed his guilt before the Lord. He made it clear that he rebelled against God.

Specific - James 5:16; 1 John 1:9

Say exactly what it is that we did. We did not commit an indiscretion, faux pa, misstep, blunder, etc. We are not just misunderstood… We don’t confess that we are sinners. We confess our sins. We are specific. James 5:16 says “Therefore confess your sins to one another…” 1 John 1:9 says “if we confess our sins” (not that we are sinners). Sometimes, especially in group prayers, being more general is ok, but whenever we are confessing our sin to those we sin against, to God, or confessing to someone about a sin that we are dealing with, there is a lot of value in being specific.

Complete: Confession = Say the Same Thing

If my confessions are lacking in an area, this is where is can happen… My tendency at times is to confess in a way that still does not reveal everything that I did. I may hold something back to save face.... to make myself look better… Or I may only confess a few outlying sins instead of the big sin that is the cause of the others…

Keep in mind that the word confession literally means “to speak the same thing.” Our goal is to confess to God and to others everything that He would say we’ve done wrong, not just the ones that are more comfortable for us to confess.

Who Should We Confess Sin To?

This last point brings up one more question I would like to answer before closing the lesson: Who should we confess our sin to?

God - Psalm 51:4

Of course, all of our sin is ultimately against the LORD. In Psalm 51:4, David says, “Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.” (NASB95). David desired restoration first and foremost with the God who he had rebelled against, so he cried to the LORD for mercy.

We always need to open up with God and to confess to Him what we have done… Yes, it is true that He already knows because he saw every gruesome act and thought, but we need to humble ourselves before Him.

The person/people we sinned against - Matthew 5:23-24

We may think that if we just confess our sin to God that this is good enough… We don’t need to tell other people, right? God says otherwise! Jesus says in Matthew 5, “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” (Matthew 5:23–24, NASB95). This is a sobering verse because it shows that God does not even desire the worship of those who are unwilling to be reconciled with those who they sin against. Jesus is showing that there is a correlation between restoring relationships with others and restoring our relationship with God. We should desire restoration with the one who we sinned against. Yes, our sin is ultimately against God, but this does not excuse us from needing to humble ourselves before those we sin against.

A third party (a brother or sister in Christ) - James 5:16

James tells Christians in James 5:16: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed...” (James 5:16, NASB95). This verse comes is a conclusion to a thought regarding how powerful the prayers of God’s people can be on someone’s behalf who is sick and in need physically AND spiritually.

Confessing sin to other Christians is hard to do. We often fear the worst in this area. We tend to reflect our self-disgust and self-condemnation onto others as an excuse not to let others know what is going on… We tell ourselves that if we open up with other Christians, they won’t want to be around us anymore, they will think the worst about us, and that they even don’t want to be bothered with our problems… These are lies that we tell ourselves. We just assume that no one wants to help us or that they will respond in ungodly ways if we opened up, so we stay silent.

Yes, it is more than likely the case in any congregation, including here, that there are many who are too busy with their lives and don’t really want to help you with your sin problem. There are always many in every congregation who would much prefer that you go to someone else to confess your sin…

But there are many in every congregation who, if you were honest with yourself, want to help you and can be helpful to you… You could probably even give their names...

And consider this… why does God give local congregations elders/shepherds? Because he desires his people to have men watching over you who care about you and who have the maturity and wisdom to help you… Let them do their work.

There are plenty of people here who want to help you and won’t think bad things about you in you confess sin.

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Confessing to all three (God, the one we sinned against, and other Christians) of these does usually does reveal that our desire to be cleared of our sin is strong and that it is genuine… If for instance, we only want to confess to God, but we want to hold the information back from other people, then there are good reasons for us to question our repentance. If we do not desire to seek restoration from those we have sinned against, then there is a problem, and if we are unwilling to open up with other brothers and sisters in Christ in order to get help and accountability, then we may still be trying to protect our image and to hide what we have done… We are told to confess to all three in scripture… God tells us to do this for our good! He knows what is best for us, and He knows what will bring lasting freedom from sin. Trust Him, and open up with others about your sin.

Conclusion - Psalm 32

To bring our lesson to a close, please consider the words of David in Psalm 32. He says this based on his own experience of confessing his sin to Nathan the prophet and also to the LORD, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!” (Psalm 32:1–2, NASB95).

Blessed is the one in whose spirit there is no deceit.... David learned this… Only when he was willing to confess his sin… only when he was honest before God regarding what he had done… was he able to receive freedom.

We can experience the freedom that David did… But only if we confess our sin… Only when we tell God and others everything that God knows we have done… only then, there can be healing.... only then can sin be removed.