Kyle Boyd - Confession

So this week James is not here.

And so uh Kyle Boyd, one of the elders of Redemption Church Denver, is going to be teaching um and getting used to the camera all at the same time.

Um so there he is.

Thanks, Zach.

Yeah, welcome this morning to Redemption Church Denver.

Uh as Zach said, we're really glad that you're here joining us uh virtually.

Uh also as Zach said, I'm I'm Kyle Boyd.

Um I'm not James Rathman.

Sorry to disappoint.

Um I've been an elder here at Redemption for uh coming up on a year.

And um before we dive in, just a few quick announcements.

Uh over the last couple weeks, we have gone through uh a couple membership classes.

And uh just sort of a reminder to if you attended a class, uh a reminder to sign up uh for a membership interview.

Um you can sign up through through the app.

And just uh want to kind of set you at ease.

Uh interview sounds like kind of a scary thing, but it's don't be intimidated.

It's just sort of a conversation with an elder.

Um we just can't really think of a better word than interview.

Uh and then if if you weren't able to attend one of those meetings, but you'd still like to become a member, um, get in touch.

Uh the we'll we'll find a way to kind of set that up, probably just do a one-on-one kind of thing with an elder.

Uh, but you can I I think through the app or email at info at redemptiondenver.com.

So today uh I want to talk uh about an area of Christian life that has become increasingly important to me.

Uh it's an area of Christian life that I think often gets neglected, but that the Bible calls us to be central to our lives, and that is confession.

I hope that we as a church can develop a culture of confession.

And that might sound a bit odd, but I hope and pray that after reading through today's text and talking about it together, that um it will be a little bit more clear and that uh you'll help to be a part of that culture.

So today we're gonna do a quick dive into our passage from 1 John, and then we'll use that as sort of a foundation to do a deep look at confession.

We'll look at why we need confession, then I'll talk very practically about what confession is, talk about who we should be confessing to, and then look at what it means to receive someone else's confession.

So let's let's read our scripture for today.

First John chapter 1, 5 through 10.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

So let me start by asking you a few questions.

When you do something wrong, do you get defensive?

When you mess up, do you have an internal dialogue condemning yourself?

Do you ever attempt to make yourself look better than you really are?

Of course you do.

We all do.

But what is going on in our hearts that we're constantly trying to hide our mistakes and puff up our successes?

The Bible says this about confession, in addition to our passage from today.

In Proverbs 28, 13, it says, Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confess confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

Acts 3, 19 through 20, it says, Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.

So we see confession happening throughout the Bible.

What is happening in our hearts that we need confession?

First let me pray, and then we'll dive in.

Lord, thank you for this morning.

Uh thank you that you working in our hearts is is not dependent uh on my words, but that uh that your word is powerful and effective, and that your spirit um is moving in us today.

Um would you would you help my words to um to be meaningful?

Would you help uh all of our hearts to be to be impacted towards you, towards a deeper love and trust in you.

It's in your name that we pray.

Amen.

So what is confession?

Confession is admitting that you're at fault, that you've done something that you shouldn't have, or didn't do something that you should have.

Confession is central to becoming a Christian.

Before we can accept Jesus' saving forgiveness for us, our eyes must be opened to our need for being rescued.

A need that is a result of our condition of sin.

Romans 10 9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So, as you might have heard, confession is central to becoming a Christian.

But what we see in our passage here in 1 John is that confession is not merely a one-time deal where we confess our sin and then ask Jesus into our hearts and move on.

Nor is it something that we do only when we get caught in some big sin.

Rather, confession is to be a way of life for the Christian.

Note how in our passage that John is relating to confession as an ongoing thing.

He's calling us to walk in the light in present tense.

It's not if we confess once, but rather as we confess.

Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden when they felt the weight of their first sin.

And we are sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.

We live our lives carrying around the burden of our selfishness, of our anger, our lust, our desires to be in control and for power.

This is what the Bible calls sin.

And we hide from one another and hide from God.

We want to keep our sin in darkness.

But where God is, there's only light.

So we are separated from all that is good.

As it says in verse 5 through 6, God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Because God is perfect and just, he does not tolerate darkness.

So we walk through life with shame and guilt.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all feel the weight of our own shortcomings.

We all know we are not the people that who we should be.

And yet God does not leave us condemned.

Verse 7 says, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

And verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Because of Jesus, there is now no condemnation.

He has taken our burden of sin, and we must simply walk in the light.

And I think this is so crucial to understand.

It's easy to hear that verse, to hear we must walk in the light, and to think, I just need to be a little bit better than I was before.

But that's not what John is saying.

He's saying that walking in the light is just admitting that we need a Savior.

We just must confess.

We bring nothing to earn God's favor.

His grace is free.

We must admit that we are sinners.

In this passage, John is pleading with us not to fool ourselves into thinking that we don't need Jesus.

That makes God and us a liar.

Instead, we must walk in the light and confess our sins and our need for Him.

So let's dive a little deeper into confession.

That was sort of a walk through our passage in 1 John, but now let's examine sort of the why of confession.

What is it that confession does in our hearts and lives?

First, confession helps us to rightly orient our thinking and to bring it in line with truth.

As I kind of touched on already, it's really easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we're much better than we are and that we don't need God.

But confession helps us to see the myriad of ways in which we need rescue and see the goodness of God's forgiveness.

As Christians, we should be seeking to align ourselves with God.

And God is a God of truth.

So we should be seeking to be people of truth.

And part of being truthful is recognizing who we are and admitting that we are full on sinners.

Confession also helps us to reject our self-reliance.

The Pharisees were the religious leaders of Jesus' time.

And they were extremely good at following all the rules and making sure other people did the same.

And Jesus picked fights with them all the time.

The Pharisees were sort of the poster boars, put poster boys of checking all the boxes.

And it's easy for us to do the same.

If I just read my Bible more or pray more or overcome the sin that I've been struggling with, then I will get God's blessing.

But that's not how God works.

He desires a relationship with us.

He desires for us to be dependent on him, not to be totally self-reliant.

And I'm not sure if you remember this, but there was a time long, long ago, uh when we didn't have a phone with a GPS in our pocket, and you actually had to figure out where you were going before you got in the car.

And I don't have the worst sense of direction, but I also don't have the best one either.

And uh I would refuse to stop and ask for directions.

Once I spent over an hour lost just trying to figure out where I was supposed to be.

And that refusal to stop and ask for directions comes from my desire to look competent, to look like I know where I'm going, to be self-reliant.

I uh I've even put on my turn signal and realized that then I wasn't supposed to turn where I thought I was, but I turned anyways because I didn't want the person behind me to think that I didn't know where I was going.

And uh as stupid as that sounds, I think this kind of is kind of an illustration of uh the self-reliance that is prevalent in our culture and is even valued.

We want to be seen as people who are capable, who can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

We praise the self-reliant.

But Christianity is not about self-reliance, it's just the opposite.

God is calling us to trust in Him, not in our own strength.

And confession helps to show us that we don't have what it takes, that we need His strength.

Confession also helps us to fight sin.

In verse 9, John says that when we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confession is a powerful tool in helping us to grow in holiness.

Christian life is not primarily about being a good person.

That might be surprising.

If Jesus wanted to make us perfect after becoming Christians, he could have done so.

But instead, we're left with our sinful desires that are at war with our the new desires and the new heart that Jesus has given us.

And that forces us to go back to Jesus for grace when we find that we still are sinners.

At the root of all sin is pride.

And confession cuts our pride off at the knees.

That's why it's so hard.

We're admitting that we aren't enough.

When you practice regular confession, and you find that all of a sudden the gospel becomes very relevant.

You discover that even after years of being a Christian, you're still a sinner in need of a savior.

And you start to run to God for help and spend less time trying to hide your sin from him and from others.

And that is what the Christian life is primarily about: resting in the good grace of Jesus.

If you've been around redemption very long, you've probably heard James say that we aren't just looking for one more tip or trick.

And I think it's easy to see confession that way.

We're cultivating a relationship with Jesus and a dependency on Jesus, not tips and tricks.

Confession is a tool for doing that, just like prayer or reading our Bible or gathering with the local church.

And God uses these and uses confession supernaturally to draw us to Him, to deepen our relationship with Him.

Confession also lifts a burden.

Confession is really hard.

It's scary and it can hurt.

But bringing our sin into the light is the only thing that will relieve our burden of sin.

It's in our nature to hide our faults, to live with our shame, to hope no one finds out our secrets.

But that's no way to live.

God has so much more for us.

Christ came so that we don't have to live like that.

He looks at our guilt, he looks at our shame.

We are dead in our transgressions, and he takes the weight.

In Matthew 11, Jesus says, Come to me all who labor in there, heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

It's such a relief to come to come clean, to not have to carry our burden of sin.

You and I are not strong enough to bear the weight of our sin.

And Jesus wants, Jesus went to the cross to take that burden.

And confession is how we can give that burden to Him.

You get a splinter, and you don't think it's really that big of a deal.

But the longer you live with it, the worse it gets.

It festers, it starts to ache.

Once as a as a kid, I had to actually have surgery because uh a splinter got infected.

But uh you start working on it, you you dig it out, and that process hurts.

But when you finally get it out, it's such a relief.

And that's what confessing our sin is like.

It's not an easy process, but when we bring our sin to the light, when we confess our sins, it is such a relief.

So that was sort of the why of confession.

Let's look at what practically does confession look like.

I have sort of four ideas.

First, biblical confession is without delay.

We have to deal with it, deal with our sin immediately.

Not, well, they're not ready to forgive me yet, or this is just isn't an ink, this is a not convenient time.

No, sin must if sin has occurred, it must be dealt with immediately.

In Ephesians, Paul writes, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

What he's getting at is that if sin has occurred, we should be quick to deal with it, to confess it.

And sometimes this means you're convicted of sin and you call someone right away.

Or sometimes it means we wait to see them in person, or it takes a little while.

But whatever the time frame is, confession and reconciliation should be our first priority.

Two, biblical confession is specific.

Saying, I'm sorry, I hurt you, is not specific, nor is it really a confession.

To confess biblically is to try to use the specific biblical name for the sin that has taken place.

Charles Spurgeon, a pastor and theologian in the 1800s, said, Do not give fair names to foul sins.

Call them what you will, they will smell no sweeter.

What God sees them to be, labor to feel them to be, and with all openness of heart acknowledge their real character.

Specifically, naming our sin enables us to own the full weight of our sin and clearly identify what is going on in our hearts.

You're not merely frustrated, you're sinfully angry.

You're not just kind of out of it, you're selfish.

Not only does it help us to feel the weight of our sin, but it also helps us to connect the dots on what the root of our sin problem is.

It's not that one day I'm just tired and snap at my wife, or the next day I'm having a bad day when something comes up and I'm late for work, or then I'm just in a mad, bad mood when I'm short with a coworker.

I have a control problem.

I want to be in control of everything in my life.

I want to be controlling over God.

And if I'm specific in naming my sin, then I can see and connect the dots between all these isolated events and see the root of my sin is control.

And it's much easier to deal with our sin when we can identify it.

And it's much easier to identify the roots of our sin when we're specific.

So we have to be immediate, we have to be specific, and then third, we biblical confession is unqualified.

This means it's not time to play play the blame game, look for excuses for our behavior as we confess.

We need to own our own sin.

It's such a temptation to look for any way out of being accepting the blame of our own sin.

But that's not what we're called to do.

We need to say instead, God, I'm a sinner.

I shouldn't have done this, but I did, and I need your forgiveness.

Fourthly, biblical confession is sincere.

We need to mean it.

It shouldn't be a checklist that we get through and move on or just some process that we go through.

If we can't feel the weight of our sin, then that becomes the also becomes part of our confession.

You need to say something like, God, I've I've sinned against you.

I've sinned against my roommate in anger.

But I I still don't feel bad about it.

In fact, it feels really good to be angry.

But I know you've called me to be to treat others kindly.

Would you would you help to feel would you help me to feel the burden of my own sin?

So we must be immediate, specific, unqualified, and sincere in our confession.

But the point of confession is not to do it perfectly.

In fact, it'll probably always be a bit awkward and imperfect.

The point is that we're admitting our faults to God and going to Him for grace.

Confession must be practiced in reality, not theoretically.

So who must we confess to?

We must confess to God, we must confess to our other Christians, and we must confess to those we have wronged.

First, confession to God.

He is where forgiveness and reconciliation come from.

King David, the author of many Psalms, and who the Bible describes as a man after God's own heart, he slept with another man's wife and then had that man killed to cover up for his sin.

Afterwards, he wrote, Again.

Against you, God, only have I sinned, which on the surface sounds weird and even wrong.

But his sin against others around him, he recognized, was fundamentally sin against God, and likewise God is the source of his and our forgiveness.

So we must make a regular habit of evaluating our lies, identifying and confessing to God, and receiving the refreshing grace of his forgiveness.

We must also make a regular practice of confessing to our fellow Christians.

James 5, 16 says, Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Christianity is not an individual endeavor.

God has given us one another to encourage each other and support each other.

Often, I found that it becomes really easy to confess my sin to God.

But then admitting that same sin to another human being feels almost impossible.

But God uses that act of confessing to others as a way to help us to see the humiliation and the guilt that we should feel as we confess to Him.

Helps us to see the reality of the grossness of our own hearts.

At the same time, it's often that we're feeling so down about our own shortcomings.

And as we confess to another Christian, God uses their words to encourage us and to remind us of the goodness of the gospel.

So it's really helpful to confess our sins, not just to God, but to bring them to other Christians.

And I would encourage you to have two people, two to three people, but at least two Christians in your life who you regularly talk to about your own sins.

Preferably someone local, someone who's involved in your life enough to be able to notice changes in your demeanor and ask the tough questions.

Someone who knows the tough questions, someone who knows what questions you don't want to answer, someone who knows the things that you go to for escape or fulfillment when times get tough.

If you're married, one of them could and probably should be your spouse.

But I think it's really important to also be talking with your struggles about about your struggles with someone else.

I have a couple guys here at Redemption.

Uh we've been meeting together once a week for about two years now.

And we started out by just bonding over some common struggles.

In fact, we barely even knew each other.

But it's been uh extremely transformative in my own life and in their lives to just be real with one another, to be forced to fess up to our sins and encourage one another towards the goodness of God.

And it's probably not surprising, we're now good friends.

So we must confess to God and confess our sin to fellow Christians.

But perhaps the hardest person to confess to is the person that you've wronged.

In Matthew 5, verse 23 through 24, it says, So if you're offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go.

Matthew 5:23–24

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

This verse is highlighting the importance of us dealing with um with problems in our relationships.

We must be quick to confess to those we have sinned against.

I want to reiterate that we must be sincere, specific, unqualified in our confession.

It's so easy to shift the blame, to have a conditional apology, to think, yeah, I hurt them, but did you see what they did to me?

But I encourage you to seek to be the first in your relationships, whether it's with a friend, your family, coworker, a roommate, girlfriend, or boyfriend, or your spouse.

I encourage you to be the first to confess and repent and ask for forgiveness.

This is something that the Lord has been working on a lot in my life, especially over the last couple of years.

It has become central to my friendships and really impactful in my marriage.

My wife Beth and I have been married for about eight years now.

And over those eight years, we've had our fair share of conflict.

Generally, it's her fault.

Yeah, just kidding.

Uh but uh often we get in arguments where we both just get so angry, and it feels like there's no way out, there's no way to resolve it.

But over the last couple of years, we have committed to confessing to one another, confessing immediately and unqualified.

And it's really helped us to grow our trust in each other.

And the same thing is true in my relationships.

It's deepened my friendships, and of course, it's deepened my appreciation of my need for God, deepened my appreciation of how good He is, in spite of the ongoing issues of pride and lust that I have in my own heart.

Here I I want to note that confession to other people is not just an excuse to air a dirty laundry.

It's not, I just really feel like I need to confess to you that your laugh is just super annoying.

Or I need to confess that I thought your sermon today was really boring and too long.

That's not a confession.

That's just an insult.

That's just unloading something off of our plates and dumping it onto somebody else's.

Confessing should happen when there's clear damage done between you and the other person.

Being quick to confess and ask forgiveness of someone can also be an opening into some deep and good conversations, especially with non-Christians.

It can be a little weird and different.

And it usually sticks out when someone is open and uh honest to confess and right or wrong.

It can lead to evangelism opportunities.

Biblical confession cleans the air of our relationships, it ensures that everyone is on the same page.

When biblical confession takes place, there's no mistaking what took place.

It's not easy, but it's necessary.

Again, confession shows us our weakness and points us to God's grace.

And that brings freedom and strength to your relationships.

Nothing will do greater damage to relationships than not doing this, but nothing will bring greater health.

Is there someone that comes to mind that you need to reconcile with?

Someone who you need to confess to?

I'd encourage you to make it happen today.

I also want to touch on what it looks like to receive confession.

Maybe even sometimes this week, somebody will come to you and say, You know, I've been hiding the sin for a long time, and I just need to confess it to somebody and bring it to the light.

What do you do?

What should your response be?

First, we should remember our status as fellow sinners.

Paul, the apostle of Jesus, who wrote a good chunk of the New Testament, called himself the worst of sinners.

We should likewise see ourselves humbly.

We need to fight off thoughts like, man, I can't believe she did that.

Or I would never go that low.

No, none of us are above some specific sin.

As part of creating a culture of confession here at Redemption Church, we want to have what I call a no-flinch policy.

What that means is if someone confesses sin to us, we don't flinch, we don't run.

Instead, we say, I'm right there with you.

I'm a sinner too.

I know it's so hard to not fall into that temptation.

But I'm with you.

We should also be quick to apply the gospel.

We should not minimize or dismiss sin, but rather point to the grace that is in Jesus.

Our instinct is to say, oh, it's not that bad, or you didn't really mean it.

But that isn't helpful at all.

That's either enabling someone to continue down a wrong road or dismissive of their shame and guilt.

Instead, we should say something like, You are forgiven.

Jesus knew you would do this or think this, and yet he still went to the cross for you, specifically for you, to forgive you of this sin.

And I'm with you too.

I'm for you.

I want to help you.

I want to be with you as you navigate through this.

And then we should pray for one another.

The source of our forgiveness, the source of our righteousness is God.

And so we should go together to Him.

So when someone confesses, remember, no flinch policy.

Don't run from their sin.

Remember, you are a sinner too.

Apply the gospel and pray.

And this is the same in the context of someone confessing sin against you, where their sin has wronged you.

All that still applies.

We should seek grace and reconciliation.

However, I want to point out it doesn't mean that things are better just like that.

Sin does have real consequences and causes real hurt.

And so it's okay if it takes a while to heal.

Sometimes it takes a long time to heal.

But we should, as much as possible, seek grace and forgiveness.

What would a group of people look like who practice this together?

What would a culture of confession cause a people to look like?

I think it would cause us to look like a people who are humble, who pursue truth, who are genuine and kind, who hate sin, but who treasure Jesus?

I think it would be a great place to be.

So I want to just close with a couple more questions of reflection.

Are there people in your life who you have wronged?

Do not delay in reconciling with them.

Are there secret sins that you have been hiding?

Walk in the light.

Confess.

Have you gone to Jesus for salvation from your sin?

If you've never done so before, don't delay in accepting the grace of Jesus Christ.

Confess that you need a Savior and that you need Jesus.

If you have any questions about becoming a Christian, we'd love to talk with you.

The weight of our sin is so great that God had to send his only perfect son in your place.

But his love for you is so great that he was glad to do it.

Let us not live in pride and arrogance, imagining that we are without sin.

Let's be a people who humbly see and admit the wretchedness in our hearts and are rooted in the grace and mercy and forgiveness of Jesus.

The Bible says that he knew us before we were formed in the womb.

God saw that we would reject him, that we would have thoughts and desires and motives that were twisted.

And yet, he still sent his son Jesus for us.

And Jesus, facing death, a torturous, humiliating death, knew that you and I would reject him with our lives.

And he chose to die for you and me.

So let us confess our sin to him and to one another.

Just as we read in 1 John.

Amen.