Love One Another: Confessing
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Confessing
Confessing
Why is it so hard to tell the truth sometimes?
Many of us love to embellish the truth…
We pad our accomplishments
We reduce our mistakes (I only had 1 donut, more like 1 dozen)
We are constantly creating a false image of ourselves that if we are not careful will become an idol we worship over God.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
“We are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and our own being. We want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others, and so we try to make an impression. We strive constantly to embellish and preserve our imaginary being, and neglect the real one.”
There’s almost nothing more humbling than when God loves you enough to expose your secret life.
Truth
We need to realize that Jesus is Truth.. and as such as we imitate him, we must walk in truth.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
When we hid ourselves away from reality we are walking in sin and hindering our Christian maturity.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
The challenge this morning is to operate in the light, to operate in truth.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
When we are ashamed of our spiritual condition we have two choices:
We can create a false front and glittering image, spiritual cosmetology
We can be honest before God, ourselves, and others about our weakness and allow transformation to occur
We do not have the energy and resources to do both.
We need to be aware of our real enemy.
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The key to shame and sin prayer and confession.
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
The theme of suffering well is all through the book of James.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
Sick
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
“Sick” astheneo
used 33 times in the NT.
Weak / Sick / Ill
Types of Sickness:
mental ability Romans 6:19
spiritual condition Romans 5:6
General Physical Appearance 2 Cor 10:10
The Elders Duty to pray
And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Prayer of faith is a unique word only used twice in greek.
Fervent prayer; petition
The Message of James The Picture in Detail
it points to the seriousness with which the elders must ponder their response to an invitation to prayer over the sick with anointing in the name of the Lord.
The Letter of James B. Prayer and Healing (5:13–18)
The faith exercised in prayer is faith in the God who sovereignly accomplishes his will. When we pray, our faith recognizes, explicitly or implicitly, the overruling providential purposes of God.
We know that God does not always heal when asked:
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.
Let’s turn to something Jesus told his disciples:
If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
It’s not a blank check
The Letter of James B. Prayer and Healing (5:13–18)
To ask “in Jesus’ name” means not simply to utter his name, but to take into account his will. Only those requests offered “in that will” are granted. Prayer for healing offered in the confidence that God will answer that prayer does bring healing; but only when it is God’s will to heal will that faith,
The Message of James The Picture in Detail
In other words, he seems to speak of faith not as commitment to the will of God, but as conviction that it is the will of God to perform this healing.
When we pray in Jesus’ name, we claim to be acting for Him. Someone who prays that way will always ask only what is God’s will or what is subject to God’s will since that is always how Jesus related to His Father. It is impossible to pray in Jesus’ name and to ask something contrary to God’s will. These two acts are mutually contradictory.
John himself brings clarity to this point.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
Results of a community faithful in prayer
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Confess - exomologeo
confess; agree; praise
To admit to a punishable deed or sin
Healed iaomai
to become in a state of freedom from illness or injury after having been ill or injured, sometimes abstractly.
Yet practicing confession is often a difficult discipline to implement in our lives, partly because, as Bonhoeffer (1954) has noted, we often have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, but rarely do we have fellowship with each other when we despair and lapse into sinful patterns.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
“Does all this mean that confession to a brother is a divine law? No, confession is not a law, it is an offer of divine help for the sinner.
Martin Luther himself was one of those for whom the Christian life was unthinkable without mutual, brotherly confession. In the Large Catechism he said: ‘Therefore when I admonish you to confession I am admonishing you to be a Christian’. Those who, despite all their seeking and trying, cannot find the great joy of fellowship, the Cross, the new life, and certainty should be shown the blessing that God offers us in mutual confession. Confession is within the liberty of the Christian. Who can refuse, without suffering loss, a help that God has deemed it necessary to offer?”