Confession

I used to have this problem

as a child, my beliefs and what I was taught really presented me with few problems

but then I reached an age, around the time I became a teenager, when something new entered my life: temptation

that’s about the age where you discover and experience peer pressure, not to mention physical attraction to the opposite sex, not to mention thoughts of independence and "I know best"

and something terrible happened within my soul

I felt isolated

I felt all alone, as if I was somehow abnormal in struggling with sins and temptations

you see, in church, everyone had it together

I never saw anyone struggle with sin

the preaching never even hinted at temptations

and it didn’t help that the only verse that came to mind was this one:

(1 Corinthians 10:13) No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

the first part was somehow comforting: no temptation has seized me except what is common to man

that was good

but then the whole question became: "Nobody seems to struggle with temptation in my church. What’s wrong with either me?"

I still remember one pastor getting up and saying that in his entire walk with the Lord, he had never struggled with temptation in at least 30 years

that made me feel even worse

eventually, I made an appointment with my pastor and poured out my soul to him

the end result was that I found out I wasn’t abnormal

for some reason, he could agree with me in private that what I was going through was normal, and a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders

but the preaching never changed

it was as if, in private, behind closed doors, we could admit to having struggles, but publicly and from the pulpit, we had to pretend that we had it all together

now, I’m not suggesting that we all air our dirty laundry

but since when did we have to pretend that we’re never tempted and that we never sin?

what gives us the idea that all of our battles have to be private ones – that we can’t share openly with our brothers and sisters when we’re battling temptation in a specific area of our lives?

the result is that in many of our churches, we come across as superficially having it all together, while privately we’re dying a thousand deaths as we wonder, "Am I all alone in this?"

I came across these words by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy…he who is alone with his sins is utterly alone."

that’s how I felt a lot of the time – alone in my sins, living in lies and hypocrisy

some years ago, I began to break out of this mold

you’ll notice I try to be pretty frank about struggles and weaknesses

I’m done with pretending and putting on false pretenses

within the limits of common sense, let’s be real

let’s let each other know that we have struggles too

ironically, as we do this, it builds community and helps us battle temptation, because we gradually learn that we’re not all alone

I used to think that confession was something we did privately

I certainly hope that you regularly confess your sins to God

(Psalms 139:23) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

(Psalms 139:24) See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

(1 John 1:8) If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

(1 John 1:9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

we need to get alone with God and think through the various categories of sin listed in the Bible – the ten commandments or the seven deadly sins

we need to take responsibility for our actions and realize how easy it is to lead a deceitful life

certainly I think we should practice confession as part of our regular prayer life with God

I think we’ve benefited from the Reformation teaching that we’re all priests

we don’t need an intermediary besides Jesus Christ to confess our sins to God

we don’t need a priest or a confession box – we just have to go to God directly

but listen here: we’ve gone too far

we’ve abandoned something good in all of this, and what we’ve abandoned is very important

even Luther believed in mutual, brotherly confession

he wrote, "Therefore when I admonish you to go to confession I am admonishing you to be a Christian"

(James 5:14) 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.

(James 5:15) 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.

(James 5:16) 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.

the context is an illness

James just assumes that when we’re ill, one of the questions we’re going to ask is, "Is this illness the result of sin?"

it isn’t always, but sometimes God uses physical illness as a means of disciplining his children

it’s at least a question we should ask

but, as we examine our lives, and confess our sins, we’re not to do it alone, but to each other

the question we should ask is, "Why?"

"Why should we confess our sins to one another – why not just God?"

we run into problems in another passage

(John 20:23) If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

that’s a pretty powerful passage!

somehow we have the privilege of announcing forgiveness to others

we’ve lost something wonderful in our tradition if we don’t practice the confession of sins to one another as the Bible teaches!

let me list some advantages to confessing our sins to one another

FIRST, IT LETS US KNOW THAT WE’RE NOT ALONE

we’re too convinced that we are a fellowship of saints, when in reality it seems like more often we’re a fellowship of sinners

Richard Foster writes:

"We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin…We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lives and hypocrisy."

we need to learn that we’re in the battle together

we need to understand that we are not alone in our sin – that our brothers and our sisters struggle with the same temptations to fear, to pride, to whatever

we find out in mutual confession that we’re a community of people struggling together

what a relief it is to know that I’m not the only one left alone in my sins!

one of the things that the new generation demands is that the church "gets real"

they want authenticity – they smell phoniness a mile away

let’s offer them this authenticity – it’s biblical after all

let’s be open and honest about our struggles, and we all won’t feel so isolated after all

Dallas Willard goes so far as to say that lack of confession hinders our fellowship together

"Confession alone makes deep fellowship possible, and the lack of it explains much of the superficial quality so commonly found in our church associations."

confession deepens our fellowship and lets us know we’re not alone

THE SECOND BENEFIT OF MUTUAL CONFESSION IS THAT IT LIFTS A HUGE WEIGHT OFF OF US – THE WEIGHT OF PRETENDING

Gordon MacDonald, a pastor and author whom I greatly respect, fell into some sin which he kept secret for a while, before it became public

in reflecting on his sin and trying to hide it, he wrote:

"Almost no one bears a heavier load than the carrier of personal secrets of the past or the present…The person who carries a secret has sentenced himself to a dungeon…I know what it is like to live with a secret. And having dissolved that secret before God, my loved ones, and the church, I know what it is like to live once again in the light."

Dallas Willard writes, "We lay down the burden of hiding and pretending, which normally takes up such a dreadful amount of human energy. We engage and are engaged by others in the most profound depths of the soul."

if you have the burden of carrying some secret sin, it will be a huge relief for you to experience the lifting of that burden as you share, quite honestly, your struggles with another believer in Christ

THE THIRD BENEFIT OF MUTUAL CONFESSION IS THAT IT HELPS US AVOID SIN

(Proverbs 28:13) He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

in this verse, the confessing and the renouncing are tied together

closeness and confession force out evildoing

in confessing sins, and having someone pray for us in our area of struggle, we gain extra strength in our struggle

for a while, I was struggling with a particular temptation

so I sought out a believer at church who seemed to be genuine and authentic and normal

I went to him, explained my problem, and made a deal with him

every time that I fell into this temptation, I had to sit down and right him a letter explaining just how I blew it

let me tell you, that worked!

there’s nothing like old-fashioned shame and embarrassment to make one think twice before falling into sin

but the accountability that comes from confessing sins to one another makes it worth it

it even allows the other person to pray for us in that area

A FOURTH BENEFIT OF MUTUAL CONFESSION IS THAT IT HELPS US TO APPROPRIATE FORGIVENESS

(Psalms 103:12) as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

when we sin, after we confess our sins to God, it often doesn’t feel as if our sins have been removed very far from us

one of Satan’s names is the accuser, and he accuses us of sins sometimes long after we’ve confessed and God has forgiven us

so many Christians live with a false sense of guilt, not realizing that their sins are forgiven

Richard Foster writes:

"We have prayed, even begged for forgiveness, and though we hope we have forgiven, we sense no release. We doubt our forgiveness and despair at our confession. We fear that perhaps we have made confession only to ourselves and not to God. The haunting sorrows and hurts of the past have not been healed….[but] God has given us our brothers and sisters to stand in Christ’s stead and make God’s presence and forgiveness real to us."

the Book of Common Prayer contains these words:

"If there be any of you who by this means cannot quiet his own conscience herein but require further comfort or counsel, let him come to me or to some other minister of God’s word, and open his grief…"

Bonhoeffer makes the point that when we confess our sin privately, the sin almost appears to stay in the dark

but when we confess our sins in the presence of a brother, the sin is brought to light, and we experience the presence of God in the reality of that other person

so, we need confession

it helps us know we’re not alone

it lifts the weight of pretending

it helps us conquer sin

and it makes real for us God’s forgiveness

some practical hints:

if you want to practice this discipline, one of the biggest decisions you will face is the choosing of the person you will confess to

while theologically every Christian believer can receive the confession of another, let’s state the obvious

as a general rule, choose someone of the same gender

perhaps you could confess to your spouse, but don’t confess to someone of the opposite sex or you will be courting trouble!

it’s my belief that there are some things we need to confess that only another person of the same gender can truly understand

there are some things in my life that only another man would understand

and for women, there are some aspects of your experience that I will never understand as well as another woman

pray that God will bring someone in your life with discretion and maturity

confidences can be abused

you need someone you can trust

ask God to reveal somebody to you who is spiritually mature, who has compassion, good common sense, the ability to keep a confidence, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of humor

find someone with the right skills

if you want to learn how to receive a confession, there’s an excellent passage in Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline that I’d be happy to share with you

you need someone who can gently drag out the confession from you

there will be times you will need their help to be honest

you need someone who can be quiet, who knows themselves and humanity so well that they’ll never be shocked by your sins

someone who will be quiet, who will eventually lay hands on you at the end and announce God’s forgiveness for your sins

above all, show common sense in confession, but by all means, do it!

I’m going to close by reading a passage about the practice of what we’ve talked about, from Richard Foster’s book:

Although I had read in the Bible about the ministry of confession in the Christian brotherhood, I had never experienced it until I was pastoring my first church. I did not take the difficult step of laying bare my inner life to another out of any deep burden or sense of sin. I did not feel there was anything wrong in the least – except one thing. I longed for more power to do the work of God… "Lord," I prayed, "is there more you want to bring into my life? I want to be conquered and ruled by you. If there is anything blocking the flow of your power, reveal it to me." He did…

Foster began the process of examining his life and writing down everything he could think of

he divided his life into childhood, adolescence, and adulthood

he asked God to reveal anything in his life that needed either forgiveness or healing or both

whenever anything surfaced, no matter how small, he wrote it down

he continues:

Paper in hand, I went to a brother in Christ. I had made arrangements with him a week ahead so he understood the purpose of our meeting. Slowly, sometimes painfully, I read my sheet, adding only those comments to make the sin clear. When I had finished, I began to return the paper to my briefcase. Wisely, my counselor/confessor gently stopped my hand and took the sheet of paper. Without a word he took a wastebasket, and, as I watched, he tore the paper into hundreds of tiny pieces and dropped them into it. That powerful, nonverbal expression of forgiveness was followed by a simple absolution. My sins, I knew, were as far away as the east is from the west.

Next, my friend, with the laying on of hands, prayed a prayer of healing for all the sorrows and hurts of the past. The power of that prayer lives with me today.

I cannot say I experienced any dramatic feelings. I did not. In fact, the entire experience was an act of sheer obedience without compelling feelings in the least. But I am convinced it set me free in ways I had not known before. It seemed that I was released to explore what were for me new and uncharted regions of the Spirit. Following that event, I began to move into several of the Disciplines described in this book that I had not experienced before. Was there a casual connection? I do not know, and frankly I do not care. It is enough to have obeyed the inner prompting from above.

There was one interesting sidelight. The exposure of my humanity evidently sparked a freedom in my counselor/friend, for, directly following his prayer for me, he was able to express a deep and troubling sin that he had been unable to confess until then. Freedom begets freedom.

let’s pray

DashHouse.com

Sermon Index

New! Sermon Audio

Subscribe to DashSermons

Confession