He Is Good | Mark 1:5, 1 John 1:9 | The Practice of Confession

We are continuing a series on he is good, looking at Mark's Gospel, and again calling it He is Good because Mark calls his gospel, that's his title, the beginning of the good news.

And so that's the series that we're in right now.

And today we're gonna look at a space where the people come to John the Baptist and they all confess their sins.

And so today we're gonna be talking about the practice of confession.

Last week we looked at repentance, and then this week looking at what confession actually is for us.

So the text that we'll use for teaching today, we'll have a couple, uh, but one is Mark 1, verse 5, and then uh 1 John 1 9.

Mark 1:5

And so these are the texts.

They were baptized by him in the Jordan River, and then one John is if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

This is the word of the Lord.

Donald Miller is an author that I really like, and his book, Blue Like Jazz, really saved my faith early on.

And um actually I was given to given the book, I think, by my mom who got it from Larry or Sherry or somebody like that.

And uh, but Donald Book uh Donald Miller in his book, Blue Like Jazz, uh, says this incredible thing that I really I really love.

He says uh in his author's note he says, I never liked jazz music.

But I was outside the Baghdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone.

I stood there for 15 minutes and the man never opened his eyes.

After that, I like jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.

It is as if they are showing you the way.

I love that.

But I say that because this that's how I feel about this practice of confession.

I think confession, I love it.

I think it's beautiful, I think it's meant to be a beautiful thing for us.

Um so I don't know what your experience is with confessing your sin, um, but it's supposed to be this really, really awesome, beautiful thing that Jesus gives us as a gift in the world that we struggle with sin, that we have this space, that you can constantly come to Him without fear, without shame.

Um in my experience, I confessed my sin and some truth and counseling.

Um, and it literally led to Rainys and my relationship getting back together.

I've confessed my pride and arrogance and bitterness towards one of my best friends that I worked with as a pastor.

His name is Brian up in Wisconsin.

And at breakfast, I just confessed like all the I he was my boss, and I just hated working for him.

And uh I just confessed that to him, and it was like messing up our relationship and our friendship, and then doing that, confessing it over breakfast, like it just pieced our relationship back together.

Um and our friendship, we're still really good friends today.

Uh, I've confessed things to Rainey that I feared would just would destroy our marriage, and it actually served to make us stronger.

I've confessed sins that I've struggled with that I thought would never be things that I no longer struggle with, and in confessing them, they actually lost their grip on my life and faded uh from my life.

I've confessed my sins to God over and over and over, and he is always always forgiven.

And it didn't lead to a space where it's like, well, he always forgives.

I should just sin more.

It doesn't, it hasn't done that to me.

It's actually just made me love him and want to follow him more.

So confession, confession of sin.

It's supposed to be this really, really beautiful gift to us.

And so what I want to do is spend our time doing two things.

One is I want to give you a beautiful vision of what confession is given by Jesus, of like this is what you should think of when you think of confessing your sin.

And then I want to uh give us three reasons why I believe we should practice this and make this a consistent practice in our lives so that we experience Jesus as good.

So the first, a better vision of confession.

So to me, the best vision of confession comes from Jesus himself and a story he tells, and we talked about it last week with the prodigal son.

This is his idea of like, this is what repentance and confession looks like.

And so if you remember the story of the prodigal son, he goes away and lives and sleeps with prostitutes and spends all this money and does all this stuff, and then he decides in repentance to come home.

Um, and this is what it says.

Notice, notice what happens when he comes home.

It says he got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.

He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.

Now, don't move to the next slide yet.

But nothing's happened yet.

Like he hasn't confessed his sin.

The father doesn't know if he's sorry, the father doesn't know anything.

Nothing's happened.

And the first thing that we see is affection is the first thing that he walks into.

There's not a single confession yet.

I have no idea what's happening.

And so, what's it like to like step into confession?

What environment are we supposed to be thinking of that we're walking into in confession?

It's not shame and looking down on you and God's doing this.

It's like step into my affection.

What you're doing in confession is stepping into my affection.

That's the environment that the son walks into before he's done anything, before he said anything.

That's what that's the environment you step into.

And then notice the confession.

It's very vague.

The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

And then he's cut off, and the father doesn't let him speak anymore.

He gets the confession, and it's a it's 19 words.

19-word confession that's actually pretty vague.

And the father didn't make him outline his sins.

He didn't make him like list them out piece by give me all of them.

You didn't mention the prostitutes in here, son.

Like he doesn't do that to the to the son.

He doesn't make him talk about, like, you know, it was a lot of money I gave you, and you lost it all, you you know, moron.

Like he doesn't do any of that.

He didn't check to see if he's really sorry.

It's like this very quick, vague confession, and the father cuts him off, and then you see the his response to the confession.

It says, but the father cuts him off and says to his servants, quick, bring the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, fattened calf, bring that sucker and kill it.

Let's have a feast and celebrate.

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.

And so they began to celebrate.

The confession happens, and the father just moves on with life like nothing ever happened.

Like that's the vision that Jesus gives us of repentance.

It's like, hey, you're sorry?

Great.

Let's just go back to being father and son.

Let's just go back to that relationship we had that was really sweet before, that then got bad.

Confession happened, and it's like, let's just move on like nothing happened.

Years of sin wiped away with 19 words.

Years of this kid being gone, doing whatever he wanted to do, comes back, dad.

I'm really sorry.

I really messed up.

Great, let's move forward.

Like that's the vision that Jesus gives us for confession.

And that's what he sits there and tries to tell the people like this is what you're supposed to think of when you go after you sin and you're going into confession because I call you into it.

You're stepping into a space of my affection.

You're going to give your sins to me through confession, and then you're going to actually just move forward with me as if nothing ever happened.

This is the idea that Jesus gives us for confession.

The father in this story never throws the son's sins in his face.

He's never like brings them up later.

He never talks about them again.

And actually, if you follow the story, the older son tries to talk about the younger son's sins, and the father removes himself from the party that the younger son is experiencing so that he doesn't have to hear it, goes out to where the older son is that wants to talk about it, and actually defends the younger prodigal, defends him.

That's the experience of like, we don't bring up other people's sins anymore.

We've moved on.

And so Jesus is trying to offer us this thing.

It's like, I don't know what your vision is or what you expect or what you think once you sinned and you feel the weight of that, and you're like, man, I struggle with that again and again and again, and the weight and the shame and the guilt.

And it's like, but here's the vision that he gives.

And it's beautiful.

It's like, man, just step into the Father's affection.

Before you've done anything, if you're making that move towards him, you're stepping into affection, giving your sin to him in confession, and then moving on like nothing happened.

That's the idea that he gives to us.

And so this is what we should do with our sin.

This is the vision that we should have.

To me, that's how we need to view it.

Ray Ortland, in his book that we'll do at some point, but it's called The Death of Porn.

It's a phenomenal book.

But this is what he says about all of us.

He says, the worst things about you are where God loves you the most tenderly.

We have to believe that.

The worst things about you are where he loves you the most tenderly.

God welcomes high maintenance people who keep coming back to him for more and more and more mercy multiple times every day.

He doesn't grow weary forgiving your sin.

We grow weary confessing the same sin over and over again.

We're like, oh my gosh, I did it again.

But he never grows weary.

He doesn't get tired.

He loves high maintenance people that continue to come to him over and over and over again.

And every time that you're doing that, it needs to be this space where it's like, I need to go and confess the sin, not run away from him in fear.

I need to move into his affection because I'm moving towards a God who has compassion on me before I've done anything right, before I've confessed anything.

I'm moving towards that God, giving him this thing that I don't want anymore to define me.

And then allowing him to say, like, great, let's move forward as if nothing ever happened.

That's what we're doing in confession.

And so I want that to be your vision.

I want that to be the thing that you think of when you the next time you sin.

I just want this to be the space that you're like, I can't wait to run to confession.

And not like to a priest.

I'm not saying that you're not that, but like running to him and to say, like, man, I want to experience your affection.

It's like, great, move towards me in this way.

All right.

That's the vision.

Let that, I want that in your hearts and your minds.

Uh why?

Why do we need to practice confession?

Three reasons.

The first is confessing our sin is how we draw near, is one way that we draw near to God.

Confessing our sin is how we draw near to God, which may seem out of the ordinary, but even in Mark, like right here, confession of sin, John is calling them to this as a way of preparing them to meet the Messiah.

Like, how do you prepare to meet God?

Confess your sin.

This is going to create a space for you where you can actually draw near.

And in the next couple of verses, you see Jesus actually comes to where these people are.

And so confession of sin is how we draw near.

And I think for many of us, we think, well, that can't be true because when I sin, certainly I'm moving myself away from God.

And if I live sinlessly, my sinlessness draws me near to God, not my confession of sin, but it's not that way.

It's not our sinlessness that drives us to Jesus and leads us closer to Him.

It's actually our willingness to admit our sinfulness that is the thing that actually draws us near to God.

So, for instance, consider Psalm 24.

David writes, Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?

Who may stand in his holy place?

The one who has clean hands in a pure heart.

And so what you can think is, see, it says it right there.

Sinless, pure hands, clean hands, pure heart.

We need to be sinless in order to ascend the mountain of the Lord.

We need to be sinless in order to stand in the holy place.

But then you have to ask a question like, how do you get clean hands and a pure heart?

Like you don't crush it.

Like there's nothing outwardly that you can do to make your hands clean and make your heart pure.

There's nothing that we can outwardly do to do that.

The way that you get clean hands is a pure heart is by going to God and saying, I have dirty hands and an impure heart.

There's something wrong with me.

And I, if I'm going to ascend to you and draw near to you, it's not, I'm gonna make sure my hands are clean, I'm gonna make sure my heart's pure, I'm gonna just willpower this thing.

It's not that.

It is someone that's willing to walk to him and say, My hands are dirty.

I want to ascend and I want to stand in the holy place, but my hands are dirty.

My heart's impure, and I need you to do something here.

And it's like, man, that's how, that's how you do that.

Jesus is the one that actually moves us into this space.

But it is not announcing our sinlessness and doing that.

It is in the process of announcing our sinfulness.

Jesus says this in the Beatitudes.

He says, Blessed are the pure in heart, because the pure in heart see God.

And it's like, man, if you're close enough to see God, you're pretty close.

You drew near.

But again, the question is like, how do you get pure?

How do you get pure of heart?

And it's not anything.

Living righteously doesn't purify our heart.

That's not what doesn't.

It is walking up to the Lord and saying, I have an impure heart.

I have impure thoughts and impure motives.

Everything that I do, there's something broken in here, would you please?

It's in the announcing of those things, in the confession that we draw near to him.

And it's in that space that we actually receive the pure heart that he wants to give us versus the self-righteous heart if we're just trying to crush it and do it ourselves.

Again and again, Jesus talks about this, that this is supposed to be good news for us because how easy is it then to draw near to God?

It's like it's super easy.

You just have to be willing, because you don't have to elevate to a point and like follow all of these things.

You don't have to do that.

You have to literally lower yourself because the lowly will be exalted, not the exalted will be exalted.

It's exalted will be made low and the lowly will be exalted.

Those are the ones who draw near to God because they're willing to come to Him and not like, look at my accolades, look at my stuff.

It's not that it's like I got no accolades, I got nothing to offer here.

But everything that you have I need.

Would you please?

And he's like, Man, I love you in the spaces that you hate yourself the most.

Those are the places that I want to love you the most tenderly.

Jesus says this about the Pharisee and the tax collector.

He tells the story.

He says, Two men went up to the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, God, I thank you.

I'm not like these other jokers, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, tax collectors, or even this tax points to the dude.

I fast twice a week, give a tenth of all I get.

But then Jesus says the tax collector stood at a distance.

He wouldn't even look up to heaven.

But he beat his breast and said, God, have mercy.

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

And I tell you, this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.

For all of those who exalt themselves will be humbled.

And those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Who went home justified?

Who went home closer, exalted to the Father?

It wasn't the one that was like, I'm killing it.

Man, I just, I can't, like, can't stop, won't stop.

All I do is win, win, win, no matter what.

Like, that's not how we get there.

That's just for the younger people in the room.

It's the one who beat his chest and said, and just confessed, I'm a sinner and I need mercy.

And he's like, what I came to give, tons of mercy.

I got it in abundance.

Dump trucks of it.

I'd love to pour it out on you so that you could draw near to me.

Again and again in the scriptures, the godly people are not the sinless ones in the scriptures, excluding Jesus.

The godly ones are the ones who are willing to admit they're not very godly.

And so King David is a man after God's own heart, not because he was sinless, but because he was willing to announce his sin.

He was when Nathan comes to him, he's willing to be like, I need to, I have I have sinned against you and you alone, God, in the Psalms.

Isaiah, one of the prophets, in the presence of God, he's standing there in Isaiah 6 and swept up into the presence of God.

And the first thing he does is like, I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.

He starts confessing the sins of like his neighbors.

He's like, not just me, but like that bro over there.

Like he goes after it.

He's like, because what's, I mean, I'm just in this space, and what is what do you do in the space of the truly exalted one as you lower yourself, and that's how you draw near.

James says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

And it is confession.

It is confession of sin, not perfection from sin, that draws you near to God.

Psalm 138, the psalmist says, The Lord regards the humble, but he knows the proud from a distance.

I was like, man, I just don't want any distance between me and him.

And it's like, great.

Stop trying to crush it and just go to him and be like, I can't.

I can't.

I think I need cleaner hands and a purer heart.

I think my motives are jacked up and I need you to actually do something.

And he's like, I regard the humble closely, but the proud, I don't I don't know them very closely at all because they don't actually want what I can give.

It is confession, not perfection, that draws you near to God.

And so we need to confess because it's the way that we draw near to him.

And again, I think primarily we think I am close to him when I'm not sinning, and I'm far away from him when I am sinning.

And I just we just need to pivot on that.

I'm not saying go sin so that we can draw close.

Paul talks about that too.

He's like, should I just sin so that grace abounds?

No, don't do that.

But this is this idea that's like, but there's this space, it's like you live in a world where you will struggle with sin.

And so any chance that you get to just bring it to him, that's a way of drawing near to him because he never is like, sorry, you're coming with sin, back up.

He doesn't do that.

But like the leper when that walks up to Jesus and everybody else is freaking out, like lepers aren't supposed to touch people, Jesus touches him.

That's what he does with our uncleanliness.

That's what he does with those things.

He loves when we draw near with the things that are hurting us, broken in us.

He loves that.

That's how we draw near.

So confessing our sin.

We need to do that because it's a way of drawing near.

The second, confessing our sin is how we go against the grain of two natural but very detrimental tendencies.

Confessing our sin, and I'm gonna explain what the tendencies are.

But normally there are two things when we sin, normally are two things that we do if we don't do confession.

Because the truth is, in this world, it's not a secret, you're going to struggle with sin, whether you admit it or not, like you are going to struggle with sin.

The Apostle Paul in Romans 7, that's basically what he's saying.

He's like, I do what I don't want to do, what I want to do, I don't do.

Like even the Apostle Paul is struggling with sin.

And then Peter's struggling with sin, and in Galatians, Paul has to call him out.

All of the epistles, every almost every letter in the New Testament that Paul writes or Peter writes or somebody writes to another church or to Christians, they're primarily addressing the sins of the church and going, like, I'm writing this to help you understand like what you're doing isn't good.

You need to turn from these things, and they're calling out sins because the churches and the Christians in those churches are struggling with sin.

It's just the nature of it.

We're gonna struggle with sin.

And we have two tendencies, both are detrimental normally.

And so some people deal with their sin by uh wallowing in guilt and shame.

Um, this is what I call the Eeyore Christian.

Uh and again, no shame or shade or any other bad thing.

Like, if this is you, Lord bless you.

But I would just, there's something better.

Um, but Eeyore Christian, how you doing?

Better than I should.

It's like, what you praying for?

Something I don't deserve.

Okay.

Bad things happen to Eeyore Christians and they're like, that's right, that's what I deserve, that's what I get.

Good things happen and they're like, it won't last.

You know, I it's fun.

It's fun to be around these people.

Um at the end of the day, this person's tendency after they sin is to think that God is disgusted with them.

We are disgusted with ourselves, certainly he is disgusted with me.

And so they run from him.

And in this space, a person who feels like this doesn't feel after they sin, they don't feel like they can read their Bible.

They don't feel like they can pray because why would God want to hear from somebody like them?

And they definitely don't feel like they can confess and ask for forgiveness because they just sinned and are in no space to ask for anything because they've just screwed up so badly.

And so this type of person, their tendency in guilt and shame is to run away from God and hide until they feel forgiven.

And then they will move slowly move back closer to Him.

The second tendency, that's the first.

The second tendency people have when they struggle with sin is to just redefine what sin is and isn't for them.

So these people don't want to struggle with sin either.

They struggle with it, but they don't want to, but instead of wallowing in guilt, I actually really love this entrepreneurial spirit of them, instead of walling in guilt, they just chart new paths and just change the rules for themselves.

And so this type of person thinks, my sin is only sin because those people call it sin.

And what I need to do is just redefine sin for me so that my natural inclinations and the things I just want to do are no longer struggles, they're actually right for me to do.

There's a number of issues with this, but one of the primary issues with calling sin righteousness or trying to redefine sin is that you can call rat poison drinking water, but the impact it's gonna have on your life is basically the same.

It doesn't matter what you call it.

And so sin can only pay in destruction.

And so calling sin a good thing and not a bad thing for you doesn't make it any less bad internally for you.

It still leads to destructive things in you, it'll still rip you apart.

Um redefining sin is like a person with cancer going, like, you know what, I'm gonna make myself make my cancer go away by like buying me a like a Gucci suit and like doing like just wearing like really expensive clothes that look really great.

It's like, man, you might look like you don't have cancer, but internally something's dying in there.

Like you need actual help.

You need to get that out, the clothes.

Aren't going to do it.

And so, in the same way, redefining sin to meet your natural inclinations and to match whatever lifestyle you want to live isn't actually going to get you what you want.

It's going to actually leave you dealing with the consequences of sin consistently in your life.

But even more than that, and that's rough enough for redefining sin, but even more than that, what's interesting about people who want to redefine sin is they want to redefine sin in their lives because what they want is to be declared righteous even though they sin.

And so what they're actually looking for is like these things that I do that people call sin.

I don't want to be a sinner, I want to be someone who's right.

And so they choose to try and redefine what sin is for them so that they can be right.

I'm just living my truth.

I can be right even though there's this universal idea out there of sin.

And so they just redefine it.

And what's so interesting about this is like they want to be declared righteous even though they sin.

And what they don't even realize they're asking for and longing for is what Jesus actually gives.

Like the whole message of the gospel is you can be righteous though you sin.

They're actually right in their longing.

I want to be righteous even though the world calls me a sinner.

I want to be righteous.

And Jesus is like, that's exactly what I offer you.

I offer you righteousness though you sin.

And so the idea, but but he doesn't do it by redefining what sin is.

He actually just takes your sin from you and then hands you his righteousness.

And he's like, though you sin, give me that.

Let me give you this.

But he doesn't change the word and he doesn't change the definition of certain things.

He actually just takes your sin in order to give you something better, and you can be righteous though you sin among him and in front of him.

And so both of these things are tendencies.

Either we wallow in guilt and shame, or we try and change what sin is because we just don't want to deal with it.

The person who is wallowing feels the weight of their sin and they feel they they need to forgive, need to be forgiven.

And if they once they feel that, then they can move forward.

The person who's redefining sin wants to be righteous even though they sin.

And next slide here, this is what John says.

He's like, this is possible for you if you confess your sin.

If, if you confess your sin, he's faithful and just and will forgive you.

So you will be forgiven of your sin.

And then he will cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

You want to be righteous though you sin?

This is available to you.

It's just not available in the ways that our natural tendencies tend to lead us.

It's like just come to just bring those things to him.

Allow him the space to go, like, I will actually give you what you're longing for.

You don't have to wallow under the weight of sin and guilt and feel like I just got to carry this.

Like, no, I want to carry it.

And in the same way, you don't have to redefine sin and then live with the destructive consequences of what it's going to do to you, because sin actually is death and will destroy things in your life.

You don't have to live with that.

You just get to bring it to him and be like, I want to be righteous though I sin.

He's like, great, I specialize in that.

That's actually what I do.

I do those things.

And so all you have to do with all of those things, he's like, don't try and do this one or this one.

Just bring it to me and let me deal with it.

Because he can deal with it better than us.

I love the honesty of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that says this really amazing thing.

He says, You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner.

Now, come as the sinner that you are to the God who loves you.

He wants you as you are.

He does not want anything from you.

He doesn't want to sacrifice a work.

He wants you alone as you are.

You can hide nothing from God.

The mask you wear before others will do you no good before him.

He wants to see you as you are, and he wants to be gracious to you as you are.

You do not have to go on lying to yourself or to others as if you were without sin.

With him, and I love this last line, with him, you can dare to be a sinner.

You do not have to be afraid to be a sinner in front of him.

He's like, actually, that's who I came for.

I came for those who are willing to be like, I think I got problems.

He's like, you do.

But I really would love for you to get closer to me.

Dare to be a sinner with him.

Just bring those things to him.

Dane Ortland, the son of Ray, says this.

He says, uh, God sides with you against your sin, not against you because of your sin.

He always sides with you against your sin.

He never looks at the weight of your sin or the number of sins and is like, the ledger's kind of heavy on the other side.

He never does that.

He always just snags it.

It's like you're on this side, he just snags that sucker down.

He's like, this is the one I choose every time.

He always, always sides with you against your sin.

So the truth is you're gonna struggle with sin and he takes your side every single time.

Let him restore you the forgiveness that you're actually looking for by carrying the weight yourself.

And then don't redefine what sin is and be like, I'll just make, I'll make myself feel better.

I'll make myself feel more righteous by changing things.

Don't do that, it won't actually do it in the long run.

But let him call you righteous though you sinned.

That's what he wants to do.

So you can just bring his your sin to him.

Just bring it to him and let him do that.

So step into his affection and confession and give your sin to him.

So that's the second one.

Those two tendencies are not healthy for us.

And confession is supposed to be the arrow through which it's like, oh, this is perfect for both of them.

What we're longing for in this one and what we're longing for in this one, confession actually leads us into that space because Jesus has done a really cool thing.

The third, we need to confess our sin.

And this is, I mean, I don't have favorites because I like all of it, but this is my favorite.

Uh confession is how we put sin to death.

We need to confess our sin because confession is how we put sin to death.

If you struggle with the same sin over and over and over and over and feel like I'll never be rid of it, this will define my life for the rest of my life.

Confession is how you put sin to death and get rid of it eventually.

Ray Orland, again in this book, he says, we don't overcome sin by heroic willpower, but by confessing them to death.

You don't overcome sin by like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna figure out a way.

Like, it's not that.

It is confessing then to death.

Sin thrives in the dark.

That's where it gains all of its power.

And so shame thrives in the dark.

I mean, there's actually like psycho psychologists that would agree with everything that the scriptures have said about this idea.

Like things grow in the dark, and so talk about them, bring them into the light.

And as you bring the sin that you did into the light, all of a sudden it shrivels and it shrinks, and it can't live there.

At least it won't grow there.

It can't.

It thrives in the darkness, but it dies in the light.

Again, John says this that Jesus helps us with this.

If you confess your sin, he's faithful and just and will forgive you your sin and then cleanse you.

He will cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

And it's not like just a theoretical idea, it's like there's things, like you have sin and it has agency and it has something that it's doing in you, and he wants to remove its power from your life.

It's not just this flaccid thing that's doing nothing, like it's actually doing something.

He actually wants to cleanse us.

The word for cleanse is the same as like to purify, like to remove sickness from your body, like the lepers and stuff like that.

If you've ever been sick, like Teddy is sick right now, eventually he will get better, but it won't be all at once.

It'll be like it's slowly getting better, his head doesn't hurt anymore.

And then all of a sudden his cough will get a little bit better.

Then all of a sudden it will be his nose.

He can breathe a little bit.

Like y'all know how this naturally works with healing that happens in your body.

And Jesus is saying the same thing.

When you confess, you actually, yeah, you actually give him the space to begin removing this unrighteousness from you in a way to cleanse you from these things where it's like it no longer, it had a hundred percent grip on me, but now it has 99.5 grip on me.

It has that type of grip on me.

And so when we confess, he cleanses us and so that it loses its grip on you.

Many times I think we pray to Jesus if you struggle with sin.

You pray for Jesus just to take away the desire to sin, or we take away this struggle that we have with sin.

And I think this is his way of telling you, like, I've told you how how I want to do that.

Here's how I do that.

Here's how I take away these desires.

Here's how I take away these things that have a grip on you.

As you struggle, keep bringing your struggle to me.

I'll never grow weary of forgiving you.

I'll never, you'll never outsend my grace.

You'll never, there's nothing you can ever do.

Just keep bringing those things to me.

Confess it to me.

And every time you confess it to me, I will kill it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more until you walk in more freedom and more freedom and more freedom.

That thing that you thought I could never stop doing, that thing you thought I could never feel good about, that thing you thought I'd never get it out of my brain and stop caring what people think about me, or this or that, or whatever.

I'll never do that.

It's like eventually he will walk you into freedom away from that thing, and you'll be like, man, remember when I used to struggle with that so much?

He's cleansed me of that.

He's taken that away from me.

Ray Ortland says, uh, your sin cannot have the final say over you once you've handed it over to him.

And I think for many of us who struggle with sin, like it has, it seems like it has the final word.

This is gonna be the rest of my life.

I'm gonna deal with this the rest of my life.

And it's like, man, not when you bring it to him.

Not only does he not hold you to it and be like, I'm gonna bring this up later when you're really doing poorly, like, no, that's not him.

But even on top of that, like he's not gonna bring it up.

But it's like also it's not gonna be the thing that defines your life forever.

And that's why he calls us, like, you struggle with sin?

Of course you do.

Bring it to me because I don't struggle with sin.

I was actually the only one who didn't struggle with it.

Like, I can help you in this space.

Jesus has given us confession, confession as a weapon that we can use against the darkness.

The enemy, it's it's actually really creative.

The enemy tempts you to sin, and what he's trying to do, the enemy tempts you to sin, and what he's trying to do is defeat you and make you think that God hates you.

But then what you struggle with, if if you will, if you'll if you'll press into confession, what actually ends up happening is like it leads you to experience more of the affection of the Father, and then it leads you ultimately to grow in confidence that he's going to forgive you and give you grace.

And so you grow in confidence, like, oh, I think he's actually forgiving me, I think he's actually showing me grace.

And then it leads you to freedom from sins that you thought you'd always struggle with.

And so the enemy tempts you to try and drive you away from God, but in confession, we actually experience the exact opposite.

And it's this really amazing thing that, like, if you if he's trying to tempt you to sin in order to drive you away, but that tempting thing that he's given you ultimately leads you closer to him, he's gonna eventually go, like, I'm gonna look for a different path to try and drive them away.

Then it just makes sense that like I'm just gonna try, he will be stopped in that way because that sin, every time, whether you struggle with it and press into it or not, every time it leads you closer to the Father, and what he's trying to do is lead you further away from the Father.

Then he's like, Well, I need to try different courses of action because this isn't working, and he will be stopped in that particular way.

And confession for us, that Jesus gives us this thing, it's like, use this against him, use this as a space that you don't have to actually allow these temptations to be things that make you fear, am I being driven away from him?

No, it's actually this thing that's like, even if I step into it, I know that I can draw near to the Father.

Because confession is supposed to be this really beautiful thing that Jesus purchased for us through the cross and his resurrection.

It's this space where it's like, man, I've sinned terribly.

Come and confess.

Step into the Father's affection.

Tell him, give him the junk that you don't want, and then move on as if nothing happened because he wants to do that with you.

He does not want to sit there and eye it and look at it and look at it from multiple angles and be like, well, what could you do better next time?

What about this?

He doesn't want to do that.

He wants to say, I'm gonna interrupt you.

Thank you for the confession.

I want to interrupt you right here.

I want to go back to just being father, son, father, daughter.

Like, let's just move forward.

Let's just do this thing.

And so, for you, confession is a weapon.

And so it's a space that you can put sin to death in your life.

And so, if you're struggling with that space and the enemy tempts you in these different spaces and things like that, I'm not saying that there's not wisdom that you can put into place.

But confession is always available to you.

He isn't tired of receiving your confession, and he's not tired of you.

And so he doesn't grow weary of you being like, again, he doesn't do that.

It's this space where he has compassion on you.

And so every time you sin, confession is supposed to be this space where it's like, man, you're just reminded of the beauty of what Jesus has done, the love that he has for you, and you get to walk into that space and then toss that junk to him, and he's like, Okay, I'll see you next time.

Like that's what it's supposed to be.

All right, so for you, if if you struggle with sin, um again, of course, there's no way around it.

Um I would just encourage you to make running to Jesus in confession your knee-jerk response, not a let me process this and wait till I feel better before I can go before him and talk about this thing.

Make confession the thing that you step into so that you're actually stepping into and have the vision in your mind, like, what am I doing?

I just sinned and I need to confess to him.

What am I stepping into?

You were stepping into hugs and kisses and according to what Jesus has talked about in the prodigal son.

The son runs home, deal with compassion, starts hugging him and kissing him before anything even happened.

And it's like, man, what a gift! Like, consider that to be the space that you're actually walking into.

And then bring your sin struggles to him.

His grace, you cannot outsin his grace.

You cannot do that.

And then move on with him.

Trust that he is moving on with you and going, I he wants to move on as if nothing happened, and let's move forward together.

That's confession.

I love this practice.

I think it should be so freeing for us who struggle with sin and just live in this world where we're dealing with it.

And so allow this to be a space where you experience the goodness of who God is.

Let me pray.

Father, I just I love that Dietrich Bonhauffer quote.

I can dare to be a sinner with you.

Lord, I think there are so many Christians that um wonder what you think of them and fear that maybe you're displeased with them and think that they might be going to heaven um but they won't be well received when they get there.

They'll just skirt in.

Uh Lord, I pray um that you would just change that vision, that uh they would believe they are absolutely loved by you.

That the the reception in heaven won't be like, how'd you get here, but like this ongoing celebration of slow clapping them into heaven.

God, I pray that that would be the idea that they're just uh you love them, you care for them, and that this space is a thing that you gave us in this world while we deal with sin.

This is a gift that you've given us so that we can always be set right with you, move closer to you, and experience you though we sin.

That we can experience all the gifts that righteous people deserve according to the scriptures.

We can experience all those things though we struggle with sin.

Would you set that in our hearts in Jesus' name?

Amen.

We're gonna take communion and celebrate that we can be righteous though we sin, because someone became unrighteous uh even though uh we deserved all of that.

And so uh that's what the bread and the and the cup, the juice that we have here and the bread.

It's like, man, it's his body, it is his blood.

He became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God.

And so though we sin, and though our sins are like scarlet, they are washed white as snow because of what he's done.

And so allow this space and take time in your seats to step into the Father's affection, to give him your sin, and then just move on, like nothing happened.

And then when you do it again, practice it again.

Put that into repetition because you're shaped by what you do repetitively.

And so do those things.

Um, but take some time and just consider like, man, what a gift that this is true for us.

We don't have to move in fear in confession and wondering, will he shame us?

Like, no, he has no shame in him.

And so he wouldn't shame you because he can't do that.

And so, for us, allow this to be a space where you experience the Father's love for you again.

Uh and take some time.

Confess sin.

Ask the Holy Spirit, where have I sinned?

He will point those things out to you, and then allow those things to be just things that you're just giving to him and going, I don't want that one either.

I don't want that one either.

You can do it like paper, you know how people do with money and they do that?

Just do that with your sin.

Okay.

That was funnier than you guys laughed at.

It's not on the podcast, though, they already cut it.

All right.

Uh, if you helped us uh serve communion, come on up.

Thank you for doing that.

Uh, y'all, every week we have people set up this front and all this stuff, and it's really beautiful.

So thank you guys for doing that.

But take some time, uh, grab the elements from us and then hold them, uh, and then let's commune together.

Go back to your seats, and we will commune together through the liturgy that we do.

But come as you feel led.