Training Camp: Developing the Disciplines
James 5:17
As some of you know, I meet regularly with a group of other pastors for prayer, support and accountability. It’s very important for pastors to have someone who can ask the tough questions, hear the struggles and pray for them. One time when we were gathered together, one of the pastors said, “Our people come to us and pour out their hearts, confess sins and needs. Let’s do the same. Confession is good for the soul.” In due time all agreed.
One confessed he was particularly vulnerable to lust, and struggled with pornography. The second confessed to being a closet drinker, sneaking away for binges regularly, and the third one confessed to a gambling addiction. When it came to the fourth one, he wouldn’t confess. The others pressed him saying, “Come on, we confessed ours. What is your secret or vice?” Finally he answered, “It is gossiping and I can hardly wait to get out of here!”
Today, as we continue our study of the Disciplines of the Christian life, we come to the discipline of Confession. We’ve been looking at a number of disciplines over the last few months – we started out with the inward, personal disciplines, meditation, study, silence, solitude, prayer, etc. Then a couple of weeks ago, we began looking at corporate or outward disciplines – submission, and service; next week we will talk about guidance and accountability, and on Easter Sunday we are going to talk about the discipline of worship and celebration. Today, we look at the discipline of Confession. “Whoa,” some of you may be thinking, “confession should be one of those personal inward disciplines, not something we do corporately.” But as we are going to see, it is very important that confession happen to and with one another.
You may have heard the old adage, “Confession is good for the soul,” but in reality, confession is good for the entire person, and for the body of Christ. But it is a very difficult thing for us to do, and is something that the church has gotten away from in many ways.
Be honest now – how often do we really engage in confession of our sins? I don’t mean some general confession “Please forgive me of all my sins,” but a genuine heartfelt sorrow and repentance for specific sins against God and others? I would guess it’s been a while – if ever. And yet confession is a vital ingredient in our spiritual maturity. Over the course of my Christian experience, as I have talked and read about great revivals hitting nations, or communities of believers, in each case the revival started with a small group of people getting serious about this discipline – humbling themselves and confessing to one another.
For some of us, the image that comes to mind when we hear the word “confession” is of guilt and conviction, even sadness and tears. John Kennedy once told his aide, Ted Sorenson, “I don’t mind the media taking pictures of me, except after confession!” If that’s how we feel when we think of confession, then we have a distorted view of what confession is, and what the results of our confessions are!
Confession is defined this way: “To surrender my weaknesses and faults to the forgiving love of Christ and intentionally desire and embrace practices that lead to transformation.” The ultimate result of confession is not guilt, sadness, depression and bondage – but freedom, release, joy and praise! This morning we sang, “I’m trading my sorrows, I’m trading my shame, I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord.” Do you know how to do that? It’s through confession! Confession is the act of laying it down – giving it up, trading it in.
Confession is something that is evidenced throughout the Bible. From the Garden of Eden, where God asked Adam and Eve what they had done, (even though he already knew) - through the letters to the church, confession is a part of the life of God’s people. Most of us are familiar with the first part of that definition – but today we’re going to look at the second part – the part where confession leads to practices that lead to transformation.” We’re going to look at a particularly powerful passage that speaks to the importance of confession in our lives as believers – it’s found in James chapter 5. We are going to look at verses 13-16.
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. 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. 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. 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.[i]
When James wrote this letter to the church, he wrote it in Greek. The entire New Testament was written in that language. In the original Greek, the word Confession is the word homologeo, from two words, homo meaning “same” and logos, meaning “word.” Confession, then, means “same words.” In our day, we would say, “telling it like it is.” That’s what confession is. It’s me, telling my situation, exactly like it is – no masks, no cover-up, no excuses or extenuating circumstances. It’s just what it is - my life, uncovered. Sound good? OK.
Now James says that this confession is to be done TO ONE ANOTHER…Doesn’t sound so good any more, does it? Sounds a little uncomfortable, even dangerous. It is, at first blush, but as we’re about to find out, if we can get beyond that first layer of discomfort, confession can be a key to great victory in our lives. Let me tell you why.
Why Confession?
1. Purification.
First, confession leads to purification. I John 1:9 tells us that, “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Obviously, confession is linked to forgiveness and cleansing. Confession is the means by which we are purified from the stain of the sins we commit. Sounds great - so far, so good.
Now, many of us have the idea that this confession takes place at the time of our conversion – we pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” and all our sins – past, present and future are gone in an instant. Well, that’s true, but salvation is not just an event – it is a process that continues. Paul tells us to “continue to work our your salvation with fear and trembling,” and James writes to Christians in this verse and instructs us to “confess our sins to one another.”
Confessing our sins regularly to God and to other believers is a necessary step in living a life of purity before God and others. Picture a man: he comes to God on a nightly basis and as he’s drifting off to sleep he prays, “Oh, yeah, God, I sinned today, forgive me,” how effective is that going to be in his life tomorrow? Not very – in fact, he’s going to eventually convince himself that he can do whatever he pleases, and cover it up at night with a thoughtless word of confession, and everything is cool between God and him.
HMMMM…you know what – it’s NOT cool! Hebrews 10:29 says that if we keep on sinning after we have tasted of the grace of God we are “trampling the Son of God under foot and treating the blood of Christ as an unholy thing.” Our salvation is not a “get out of hell free” card that gives us the right to live any way we please and then ask for forgiveness later! We are called to live lives that are progressively more holy – we are to have greater victory over sin as we go through our lives.
That will only happen when we are genuinely sorry for our sins. Now take that picture I painted earlier - of the guy at the end of the day asking God to forgive him as he drifts off to sleep – take that same guy, and place him in a relationship with a brother in Christ to whom he has pledged to be completely honest – absolutely vulnerable – and he’s there to confess those same sins, by name, out loud, face to face. Do you think he feels the guilt of that sin a little more? Do you think he’s going to think twice before he does that sin again? Confession helps us feel the weight of our sin, and it drives us to change our behavior. The goal of confession is purity – purity from the stain of past sin, and a life that is increasingly marked by purity from sinful behavior.
2. Unity
Secondly, confession builds unity in the body of Christ.
When we hide our sins, when we fail to confess our sins to one another, as we are instructed to do, we convince ourselves that the church is a community of “saints” - people who have it all together. We allow the enemy to convince us that we’re the only one who is this weak, no one else struggles like I do, I’m a pitiful excuse for a Christian. As a result, we hide our sins from each other, and we live in deception and hypocrisy. It causes us to have distance from one another and we look like hypocrites to unbelievers.
“No one else in the room is owning up to their failures – so I must be the only one – and I’m sure not going to be the first to admit that I’m rotten to the core!” We forget that we are also a fellowship of sinners, saved by grace. When we forget that, we tend to think that we are alone in our sin. We isolate, we deceive, we hide.
But if we realize that the people of God are first and foremost a fellowship of sinners, who have been saved by God’s grace, that we are all in the same condition, then we are free to hear the struggles of each other and to share the failures in our own lives. We discover that we are not alone in our sin. We are together in this thing – and we can encourage each other toward victory over sin, and the purity we talked about earlier.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences as the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins, everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought to the light.” I’ve experienced that in my own life – on both ends. I’ve found the joy of knowing that I’m not alone in my struggle, as I have shared the burden of my sin with a brother in Christ; and I’ve had others tell me how much it means to them to know that they are not the only one who struggles. We both experience the joy of forgiveness and the freedom of honesty. The intimacy and the strength of the unity in fellowship that is developed in those relationships cannot be broken. Confession builds unity.
3. Healing
Thirdly, confession brings healing. This passage from James is preached on all the time in terms of verse 14&15 –
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. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.
And then most of us stop – why? Because that’s all the easy, “feel-good” part of the passage! “Wow, people getting healed…” But the next phrase cannot be ignored – in fact it starts off with the word “Therefore,” which means that everything up to this point hinges on what is about to follow. “Therefore, confess you sins to one another, and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
Confession is part and parcel of healing. I believe that God heals physically and I believe that sometimes He does it instantly. We’ve seen it here in this church. Sometimes it happens over time, sometimes instantly, sometime it is the ultimate healing of bringing the sick person to heaven – that’s His call. Common sense tells me that there have been countless times in the history of the church where someone has gone to a brother or sister in sincere, godly repentance, and confessed a sin to them, and been prayed for, and they’ve not necessarily been healed at that moment of some physical ailment. We must leave the timing and form of physical healing up to God. This verse does not mean that all sickness is a result of unconfessed sin – Job’s friends accused him of that and God had to set them straight.
But there’s more to the word “healed” than physical healing. It also means, “to be made whole.” It’s the same word Jesus used when he said, in Luke 4:48, I have come to “heal the broken hearted.” There is a healing that comes to the soul when confession is made to a brother – particularly a brother that our sin has wronged, and forgiveness is given. When we carry around the guilt of sin in our lives, it makes us sick. Listen to David’s words from Psalm 38:
1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 For your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down upon me. 3 Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. 4 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. 5 My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. 6 I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. 7 My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. 8 I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. 9 All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. 10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. 11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away.
12 Those who seek my life set their traps, those who would harm me talk of my ruin; all day long they plot deception. 13 I am like a deaf man, who cannot hear, like a mute, who cannot open his mouth; 14 I have become like a man who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply. 15 I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God. 16 For I said, "Do not let them gloat or exalt themselves over me when my foot slips." 17 For I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me.”
Some of us can relate to those words of David. We feel sick, inside and out. Wounds of sin fester in us, guilt overwhelms us. Emotional stress has caused physical breakdown. How does David find release?
18 I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin…21 O Lord, do not forsake me; be not far from me, O my God. 22 Come quickly to help me, O Lord my Savior.
CONFESSION is the key! Confession of sin, confession of weakness, confession of need. Honestly telling it like it is.
1. Be Specific. Confession must be specific to be effective. General confession may bring relief fro guilt, but won’t bring victory and healing. We need to be as specific as we can – but not lurid in the details. Don’t cause the person to whom you are confessing to struggle as a result of your confession – be specific but be discreet.
2. Be Sorry. We must recognize that we have offended our Lord – David said, “Against You, You only have I sinned.” Our primary sin is against the Lord who has saved us by his blood – and to Him primarily we need to be sorry.
3. Be Repentant. Our sorrow is wasted if it does not drive us to change our behavior. We need to develop a desire to please him, and a hatred for the sin that plagues us. We must be willing to make right the effects of our sin – restitution, asking and granting forgiveness. How has our sin wounded others? How do we bring health to that wound?
4. Be Careful. We must use discernment when we are giving confession to one another. Some people might not be able to receive our confession because of sin in their life – like gossip, for example. We need to carefully pray that God will direct us to the person to whom we can develop this discipline. They need to be mature, wise, compassionate, and eager of our spiritual maturity and health.
1. Be Humble. Remember your own sin. You have been where they are. Nothing they have done is beyond the reach of the cross.
2. Be Quiet. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in their heart. We need not “drag” it out of them, or dismiss their sin with inappropriate, off hand comments. Be silent.
3. Be Prayerful.
a. Pray for discernment – before, during and after the time together
b. Pray for the person – for their openness and honesty – for their forgiveness
c. Pray with the person – prayerfully demonstrate the love and forgiveness of Jesus. Remind them of the promise of Scripture, pray for healing of wounds, restoration. Remind them that in Jesus they are forgiven – rejoice with them in the freedom from guilt!
Confession bring wholeness, it promotes healing. Unity and intimacy in the body of Christ result when we are honest and vulnerable with one another. Forgiveness and release from the burden of guilt comes when we submit to one another, and to God, and tell it like it is. We are driven to abandon that sin, and live a life of purity and holiness.
Oh, that we would know the joy and freedom that comes from real confession! David wrote these words:
1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord"-- and you forgave the guilt of my sin. 6 Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him…10 Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. 11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!
When we confess, and find purity, unity and healing, we have reason to rejoice, and be glad, we have reason to sing! So let’s sing praise to our God, whose unfailing love surrounds those who trust in Him!
Close the service with songs of praise and freedom from sin:
The Lords Prayer
Amazing Love
Merciful God
[i] The Holy Bible, New International Version Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society