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No Going it Alone

John 20:20-23                                                                 November 24, 2002

   After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

   [21] Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." [22] And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. [23] If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

James 5:13-16

   Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. [14] Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. [15] And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. [16] Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

 

         Each of the traditional disciplines we have looked at, prayer, service, submission and the others, all have a private and a public element to them. The discipline of confession is no different. It is both a private matter between the believer and God, and a corporate discipline that is carried out through the body of believers. As with the other disciplines, we must not make it a matter of law, or the focus of our actions. Confession is a discipline that brings life and freedom when it points us to Jesus Christ and His forgiveness.

         One of the central teachings of the Bible is the reality of the sinfulness of Humanity. We are sinners. Sin is defined the Bible as falling short. This is a term that was used by archers for missing their target. I have in the past hunted with a bow. One day I had a legitimate shot at a small deer. It was the first time I had ever had a real shot. I stood on my stand, I drew my bow, I closed my right eye, and I let the arrow fly and I missed the deer by 3 feet! I missed the mark, I had aimed with the wrong eye. Though I had intended to do it right, I missed. The Bible calls any miss of the mark of God’s standards sin. Sin is conceived in the heart and is birthed through our actions or inactions. When we know what is right and choose not to do it, it is sin. When we choose our own desires over the needs of others, it is sin. When our heart pursues anything other than the heart of God, it is sin.

         Isaiah 64:6 says:

    We're all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.

        Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.

    We dry up like autumn leaves—

        sin-dried, we're blown off by the wind.

Sin separates us from God. Sin breaks the relationship that God desires for us to have with himself. And the cost of sin is death. Death of our relationships, death of our purpose and death of our love.

         Jesus came to earth to offer us hope. To bring us forgiveness and to give us life. When we accept him as our savior, when we turn to him for life, we are forgiven of our sin. That is the reality. God nailed our sins to the cross of Christ, past, present and future. We are forgiven. But we do not always experience that forgiveness in our lives because sin affects us.

         King David has been called a man after God’s own heart. He desired to walk with God and he worshiped God faithfully. However, the book of 2 Samuel tells us of the effect that sin can have in our lives. One day lust grew in David’s heart, he committed adultery with the wife of friend, he conspired to have his friend killed and then took the woman as his wife. Anyone with a conscience can see the sin in this account, but David had gotten away with it. No one knew, and no one was the wiser.

         However, as time went by, this sin began to eat at him. Though he thought he was in the clear, it had an effect. Psalm 32:3-4

    When I kept silent (about my sin)

        my bones wasted away

        through my groaning all day long.

   For day and night

        your hand was heavy upon me;

    my strength was sapped

        as in the heat of summer.

Though unknown to any other, the guilt of his sin weighed upon him. He felt weak, he could not sleep, his very bones hurt from the pressure of his guilt. His sin, according to Psalm 51, was always in front of him, he could not escape.

         And that is what sin will do to us. We have all experienced this kind of guilt. We know we have sinned, we realize there is something in our lives that is holding us prisoner, but we can not face it. And so our sleep is disturbed, our concentration is disrupted, our digestion is upset and we feel like we are wasting away.

         This is not what God intended for us. Jesus came that we might experience an abundant, full, meaningful life for forgiveness, instead of the wearying, burdened, enslaved life of guilt.

         That is why God has provided a way for us to know forgiveness. I John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” To confess means to come clean. Confession is agreeing with God that we have sinned, then naming that sin. As we do, God frees us from guilt and begins a healing process in our hearts. The story is told of a shoplifter who writes to a department store and says, "I've just become a Christian, and I can't sleep at night because I feel guilty. So here's $100 that I owe you." Then he signs his name, and in a little postscript at the bottom he adds, "If I still can't sleep, I'll send you the rest."

         That is not confession! Yes, he admitted his wrong, but he did not come clean.

         Max Lucado writes, “Confession does for the soul what preparing the land does for the field. Before the farmer sows the seed, he works the acreage, removing the rocks and pulling the stumps. He knows that seed grows better if the land is prepared. Confession is the act of inviting God to walk the acreage of our hearts. "There is a rock of greed over here, Father; I can't budge it. And that tree of guilt near the fence? Its roots are long and deep. And may I show you some dry soil, too crusty for seed?" God's seed grows better if the soil of the heart is cleared.”

         The scriptures speak of confession as a two pronged tool or discipline in our lives.

         The first prong is private confession. 1 Tim. 2:5 says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” It is through Jesus that we can go the Father in confession and in prayer. Private confession is the work of meditation, study and prayer. In prayer we ask God to shine the light of his truth and purity into our lives. We ask him to reveal to us the sin that we are keeping hidden. We let the scriptures speak to our hearts and uncover the secrets that we are hiding, and then name them in God’s presence. Agreeing with him that we are sinners, and accepting the forgiveness his offers.

         If you know Christ, you stand forgiven before the Father, however, your experience of that forgiveness is not realized in your life, until you come clean with God. Think about it, he already knows, and he still loves you. In fact, we are told that while we were yet in our sins, Christ died for us.

         The first prong of confession in our lives is private confession.

         The second prong is corporate confession. Now hear me right, corporate confession is not standing up and giving of testimony boasting of all your sins. Corporate confession does not necessarily mean going on public record with your sin. On a radio program, people were invited to call in and tell stories about kids. One lady told how her family had company for dinner, and after dinner she put all the food scraps in a big, black trash bag. Forgotten on the back porch, the trash the following morning was strewn across the deck and back yard. The family did not look forward to coming home to pick it all up after church.

         During church the children's sermon was about how it is important to keep God's earth as good as it used to be in the Garden of Eden. He had a black plastic trash bag and emptied it on the platform—coke cans, papers, and wrappers. He then asked the children, "Now, what does that look like?"

The lady's son stood right up, hands on hips, and loudly said, "Well, it looks just like my house!

         That is not corporate confession eitherl. Corporate confession is confession before God in the presence of a trusted mature believer. The role of that believer is not to counsel, not to excuse, not even to join in the confession. Rather the role of that believer to declare the reality of God’s forgiveness in your life.

         Have you ever been so burdened by guilt that no matter how much you prayed about it, the burden did not seem to be lifted? Is there a secret in your life that so enslaves you, that you can not get past it? This is the time for confessing your sin to another believer. The scripture from James 5 that we read this morning says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” In the act of coming clean before another flesh and blood person is a healing action.

         In South Africa, the world has been amazed at the peaceful transition from Apartheid to democratic rule that has occurred. Healing of generations of injustice and hurt is occurring every day. What is the source of this healing? Most of it can be related to the truth and reconciliation commission who have called for all who have been guilty of political crimes from all sides to confess those actions and then to receive amnesty and forgiveness. In this act of confession there is a recognition of the dignity of the victim and a humbling of the accused. The commission has been the source of restored families, and restored hope. As South Africans confess their sins to one another, they are experiencing healing.

         But Jesus tells us corporate confession involves something more than confessing your sins to one another. In one of the first resurrection appearances, Jesus said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." There has been a lot of discussion about this passage. Some would suggest that only ministers can pronounce forgiveness and that they are to judge the sincerity of the confession. But that is not what Jesus is saying. Instead, I believe he is declaring that we can speak God’s words of assurance so that individuals will know the forgiveness He has offered. If another is confessing to God in our presence, our role is not to judge, but to speak God’s forgiveness and to love that person as Christ has loved us.

         Understand, this is not a spur of the moment event. Nor is it something you should ever enter lightly. It may take weeks of disciplining yourself until you are ready to confess before another. How do you begin?

1.      Ask God to reveal to you sins that are keeping you enslaved.

2.      Seek God’s leading for a person you can open your heart before. Choose this person with care. It must be someone who is trustworthy, mature and open to hearing your confession. When you believe God has shown you who to speak to, tell them what you are planning so they can prepare their hearts.

3.      In prayer, meditation and study, ask God to reveal those sins in your life that are hold you back from following him completely. Let his light shine into the cracks and crevasses in your life. Let him examine the library of your mind, let him open the closets of your heart and uncover whatever is hidden.

4.      Keep a journal of this examination. Courageously write down whatever comes to your mind.

5.      Then do the hard part. Go to your brother or sister in Christ, and before this person, confess your sins to God. Don’t hold back. Let another person see into your heart.

6.      Finally, accept the forgiveness that is pronounced. Symbolically leave that list with your sister or brother. And hear the word of the Lord, Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

  

         Through confession you can know freedom and fulness of life. It begins by accepting Jesus’ gift of salvation. If you have never done that, then you are a slave not only to guilt but to sin. Come to Jesus, then find total freedom by confessing your sins one to another that you may be healed.