Welcome To Church | Confession | 1 John 1:9, James 5:16 | Coleton Segars

The teaching text for today is from 1 John 1 and also James 5.

This is what John says first.

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

And then James says this.

Therefore, confess your sins one to another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

This is the word of the Lord.

But what we want as a church, and Colin, you might have to follow me with this if the clicker stops working here.

But the slides, we're having difficulties with the slides and stuff like that.

But what we want as a church is we want to be a people who practice the way of Jesus so that we experience the fame and deeds of God in our time.

And so what we've been looking at for the last several weeks is just ways that we can begin practicing the way of Jesus and actually focusing on that and pressing into a physical practice, something we can do with our hearts, our minds, our hands, our feet, something that we can actually do to put his word into practice so that we experience God's power breaking into our lives, out of our lives, into our families, and into our world.

And so that's what we want as a church.

And today I want to look at the practice of confession, the practice of confessing our sins.

Confession is difficult and it can be challenging to do, but at its bare minimum, what confession is, it is honestly naming to God and to others the hidden sinful things that you have or have not done without defending yourself, without qualifiers.

The practice of confession is just, I'm gonna just brutally, honestly name to God and to others the hidden sinful stuff that we have done, that we haven't done without defending yourself.

And so it sounds like I drank too much.

It sounds like I gossiped about this person, I watched porn, I cheated, I was sexually immoral with my girlfriend or my boyfriend or someone else.

I talked badly about or made fun of this person.

I judged them, I was hateful to that person, I spent too much money on, I was selfish with, I was greedy with.

It's just without saying, and the reason I did that was because you made me or they made me or life made me do this thing.

It's just honestly, without qualifiers, naming to God and to others the sinful things that we've done or the sinful things that we haven't done without seeking to defend ourselves.

Now, this practice, again, can can sound um, I think it can sound just small, like what good is that gonna do, just naming some of the stuff that we do.

Um, what is actually gonna happen in the midst of that?

But to me personally, without this practice, without confessing sin, uh, I would not be married today.

Uh many of you know um the story that I have um dating Rainey when we were we dated for about two years, and um it was going pretty well in like the the dating arena at the at the beginning, and then you know you kind of get comfortable with people.

And I was started working with this other girl.

We were doing ministry together and began having feelings for this other girl while I was dating Rainey.

And like Rainey and I were like talking about getting engaged and moving closer and closer to getting engaged, and then my heart was just kind of moving towards this other person while keeping that from rainy, and she would talk about it and be like, hey, I think this is an actual issue.

I'm like, no, it's not, you're crazy.

Um, don't worry about that.

I think in the biz they call that gaslighting.

Um, but uh just telling her you're wrong.

And so we end up going to counseling one day and uh to try and repair this relationship.

But for me, really, I was just going into this counseling session to go, I don't love her anymore, it's mostly her fault, and I'm perfect, and let's move on.

And uh, but I was gonna say that in like really godly language.

Um and so Rainey starts talking first to our counselor, who many of you have met, and uh just starts talking to her about like, hey, what's going on in the relationship, what's happening, and she brings up this girl, and like I just had this reaction.

I'm like, it is not her, like that's not an issue, that's nothing.

Like you keep bringing up this thing that's not real, and it's just not real.

And um, but Rainey continues to talk, and then Shannon, our counselor, looks at me eventually and it's like, all right, it's your turn.

And then I share why Rainey has done everything wrong, and she's the reason why our relationship has failed.

And Shannon sees right through it and just looks at me directly and just says, I just have one question.

And she's like, here's the question.

How big a deal, like, how important is that girl to your life and to your heart?

How how important is she actually to you?

And it was like this moment of time where like everything slowed down, and I was like, just lie.

Say that it's nothing, just say nothing.

And I was like, but I have no money, and this costs 50 bucks, I might as well just be honest and tell this lady.

And so in that moment, like, just I just said the words, I was like, actually, I think she is a bigger deal to my relationship and a bigger issue in my relationship than I think I've I've said before.

I think she's a bigger deal.

Like, those are the words.

I just confessed something that's been hiding in my heart.

That what's what's interesting is like Rainey knew it was a problem.

I obviously knew it was a problem, just wanted to hide it.

And then my counselor also was able to see, like, with giant red flags, that it was also a problem.

But even though everybody knew it, it was inside, everybody knew it, but it wasn't spoken yet.

Even though they all knew it, we had not moved towards healing until I actually said the dark things out loud, until I actually spoke and confessed the sin and the thing that I was hiding.

Like from that moment, like all of a sudden there was this break in our relationship and the oppression that we had felt in our relationship, and the love thing that I was like, I just don't even have any love for you anymore.

Like, there's something began healing from that moment on into.

I mean, we've been, you know, it's been 15 years, we've got a kid, it's going all right.

Um, but like it took saying the words.

And so confession and talking about our sin can feel like the small thing, but like everything I love about my life right now could be drilled back into one part of saying, like, man, I just confessed a sin out loud.

I wasn't even talking to God, I was talking to other people.

I experienced what James is talking about.

Confess your sins and be healed.

Like something can change in your heart and life.

And so for us, I want us to experience the healing and the gift that confessing our sin is supposed to be to us.

It is not supposed to be a space where you feel ashamed after you confess.

It is supposed to be a space where you unload, unburden yourself, and then feel free as you walk away from that space.

And so I want to give you three reasons why we need to practice confession.

And so the first, number one, confession is a way that you experience the unconditional love of God.

It is one of the ways that you experience the unconditional love of God.

The text says in the next slide here, if you confess your sins.

If it comes with that.

It's like not like when you, because the option is always there.

You don't have to.

It's something that we're, he's asking us to do.

And so if you confess your sins, then you will experience what God has for you, which is forgiveness and cleansing, if you do this thing.

Which means that you only experience that part of God's love for you if you will actually step forward in this thing.

Now, that part of God's love for you is always available.

God always feels, it's always available to Him.

It's not like it comes in when you do this, it is constantly there.

But you only actually step into that type of God's love, that forgiveness and cleansing that he wants to give you.

You only experience that if you will actually do this thing.

And the truth is, you really only experience how much people actually love you.

Because people can say that they love you all the time, but you only experience the depth of their love when you have given them reasons to abandon you, to leave you, and to hate you, and then they choose to stay.

When you give them reasons not to love you and they choose to love you anyways, that's when you experience the fullness of their love.

Something more full than just I love you because you're doing great.

Anybody can love a person that's killing it and doing great.

It makes sense.

If you're doing a bunch of stuff in your relationships or with the people around you and they're like, we love you, it's like, of course you love me.

I've earned it.

I've done good stuff.

If you don't love me, you're the psychopath, not me.

Like, there's something there.

Like when you're doing that thing and you're just killing it, it's like, of course they love you.

But when you actually give people reasons not to love you, when you give people reasons not to stay, and they choose to stay, and they choose to forgive, and they choose to love you anyways, you experienced a welling up of their love for you that you would otherwise not experience if you were just doing everything right.

And so that's what happens when we confess our sins to God.

When you confess your sins to him, you are giving him all the reasons why he should condemn you, why he should hate you, why he shouldn't love you, why he shouldn't abandon you, why he shouldn't help you.

You're telling him reasons why he shouldn't help you, why he shouldn't save you out of your thing.

You are you are actually giving him the reasons to condemn you.

And when you give him every single reason, when you confess your sin, you give him every single reason to punish you severely, to just abandon you completely and to hate you instead of love you, and to condemn you instead of save you, when you give him those reasons to do that, and instead of doing any of that stuff, he wraps you in his arms, he calls you his son, he calls you his daughter, and he says, I forgive you completely, I love you deeply, let's move forward.

That is when you begin to experience a real richness of his love.

If you were just righteously killing it, you'll never actually need those things.

That's why Jesus, when he's talking about the woman who's cleaning his feet with her hair and her tears, it's like, those who have been forgiven much, who've confessed much and needed my forgiveness, they've ex they love much because they've experienced a greater love.

They've experienced my forgiveness.

They have experienced something with me that's so rich and so deep.

And so this love, the reason why one of the one of the things we should confess is so that we experience just a greater, deeper love that is always available, but that we actually get to walk in if we actually confess.

We experience the unconditional, unstoppable love that God has for us.

I've been in church ministry for 20 years, 21 years, or something like that now, and um a lot of people can doctrinally align or ascribe to the idea that God, God loves me unconditionally.

He loves me unconditionally.

We can say that, we know that as doctrine, but the reality of walking with people in pastoral ministry, like people who can say, God loves me unconditionally, but the reality is in practice, we live like we're conditionally loved.

We still, somewhere deep in our heart and in our minds, it's still this thing that's like, He loves me when I'm doing great, when I go to church, read my Bible, pray a little bit, give to the needy, sacrificially do this thing, I forgave a person.

He really loves me, very proud of me.

But then I like sinned this way and did this thing and did this thing bad and this thing bad, and we still live like certainly he's displeased with me, certainly he's mad at me, certainly he hates me now.

He loves me when I'm doing good and he hates me when I'm doing bad.

And we can live inside this thing where we're going like I his love is unconditional.

I know, I know, I know.

But in reality, it's like we live like it's very, very conditional.

And confessing our sin is a way to experience how much he actually loves us because you are giving him that space to conditionally love you.

You were telling him the reasons why he should conditionally love you.

And he chooses in that moment to see all of your sin and not condemn you, judge you, hate you for it, but to forgive you, to cleanse you, to love you in the midst of it.

I love what Bonhoeffer says.

I've read this quote a lot because it means a lot to me, and I returned to it many times in the midst of my own sin.

You are a great, desperate sinner.

And so 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, a sacrifice, a work.

He wants you alone.

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

With him, you can dare to be a sinner.

There are very few people in my life and probably in your life that you can dare to be a sinner in front of.

There are very few people that you can actually tell them everything that's actually in there without fear that they're gonna judge you, leave you, hate you, or just abandon you because, good Lord, you're disgusting.

But God is one of those people where He's like, You can dare to be a sinner with me.

I'm not shocked by the stuff that's in your heart.

There's a reason I chose to brutally kill my son on a cross.

There's a reason I did that.

Because I know what's actually in there.

I'm not scared of your sin.

I have crushed my son so that your sin could be paid for.

And so with him, you can dare to be a sinner.

You can bring the stuff that you're afraid to tell everybody else.

He will always forgive you of your sin.

He was always going to do that.

The passage says that he's faithful and just, which means like he has promised, because of what Jesus has done on the cross and those who believe in that, he has promised that because of what Jesus has done, I will always forgive your sin.

There's never a sin that I won't forgive based on what Jesus has done.

He has accomplished paying the penalty of all sin, past, present, and future.

And so because he is faithful, he will keep that promise.

There's never gonna be a sin where he's like, ah, sorry, I'm gonna break my promise here and not forgive that one.

He doesn't do that.

He's faithful.

But then he's also just, which means that he is, because Jesus has paid for your sin, he's not gonna require a double payment, as like a crude businessman would do or something like that, and try and steal from people.

He would say, like, I like it has already been paid for, therefore, there's no punishment to divvy out.

I have already punished that sin on the cross, therefore, when you sin tomorrow, he's not looking at that sin tomorrow and going, I have to divvy out new punishment.

That would be paying for a sin twice.

And so because he is just, he's like, I'm never gonna pay, ask you to pay for your sin because your sin has already been paid for.

And I'm a just king, I'm a just father, I am righteous.

I will treat your sin the way it deserves, and it has been treated that way.

Therefore, I don't have to treat you the way that your sin deserves because Jesus was treated that way for you.

And so he will always forgive you.

And confession is this space where you get to live in that reality, where you remind yourself again and again and again, I can tell you the horrible stuff, the stuff I can't tell anybody else.

You're the only one that won't leave.

You're the only one that will love me in the midst of this.

And in confession, we get to experience that.

Number two, confession leads to healing.

That's what the passage says in James.

Confession leads to healing.

Confess your sins one to another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

Confession can lead to healing, both spiritually and physically.

And sometimes these things are interconnected and they're not separate from one another.

But King David talks about this kind of spiritual experience of being healed and also like this physical thing that's happening in his life when he was hiding his sin with Bathsheba and didn't want to talk about it.

This is what he says.

Notice what he talks about, like happening in his body and in his life.

And he says, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night, God, your hand was heavy on me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

But 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.

And so what David is referencing in the midst of this thing, he's like, he is being oppressed by this sin.

It's poison, it's a bet the probably the best way to think of sin.

He has this poison in his life, and it's not just spiritually affecting his relationship with God, but it actually is having this physical impact on his life as well.

He's like, My bones are wasting away.

My strength is sapped, just the joy of life is like just being stolen from me.

And so what happens is when he confesses his sin, he brings that, it's like through his words, he is taking the poison that's internal and he's bringing that out and going, I just need this poison out of me.

And the way that we get the poison out, the way that God wants to do that is like, confess it.

Give the poison to me.

It will die in my hands, but for you, it will just crush you.

It will kill you and bring death to you.

But me, I can kill it and crush it.

And so David experiences that, like, then you forgave the guilt of my sin.

There's something spiritual happening there.

It's like spiritual oppression, but it's also affecting his life.

And this is what God wants for us in confession.

He wants us, I like, I want to cleanse your heart.

I want to cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

The stuff that's in there that's just doing all this, like I want to wash that stuff away because it's not gonna ever do anything good for you.

And so don't hold it in your heart, don't hold it hidden in your mind or in these spaces.

Don't do that.

Just get that stuff out of there.

Again, we don't have this quote, but I mentioned it last week.

Eugene Peterson says that sin is a, regardless of what people call sin in the world, it's still always and only a foreign substance.

It's always poison.

Sin is always poison.

And so to get it out of our lives through confession, like how do we get this out?

It's like you just you just talk about it and you honestly confess it to him.

And then he removes it, he forgives it, and then he cleanses you from it.

So it's no longer able to oppress your life, no longer has power over you, no longer has the ability to damage anything.

So not only that, but confession can also heal us physically.

Because sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes our sin, your sin, creates illnesses.

It actually has effect in your body.

And people can be sick, not because they're actually dealing with an illness or something, like you can call it something else, but like this is a sin issue.

Something's taking place.

This is oppression, but it's actually from your own sin.

James taught had just talked about this when he's talking about physically sick people.

And so a part of what he's saying when confess your sins one to another and pray for each other so that you may be healed, part of the thing that he's saying is like you can physically be healed from this as well.

Sin can affect your physical health.

Therefore, when you confess it and you're cleansed of it, it actually can bring healing in your body as well.

Jesus in the gospel says that, and I want to hit this or hear this, Jesus in the gospel says that not every illness is the direct correlation to sin.

It's not directly related to sin because they see this man born blind, and the disciples ask, Who sinned?

This man or his parents, which is why he's dealing with this illness, and Jesus is like, it's neither of those.

This man, this happened to him so the glory of God could be displayed.

And so not every illness that you face, anytime you're sick, I don't think it's ever wrong to confess our sin, but you also don't have to like search your life and be like, God, what have I done?

Why am I dealing with this?

I don't think it's wrong to do some of those things, but we don't have to live in that because not every illness is connected to sin.

But there are definitely people that Jesus heals, and before he heals them physically, he forgives their sin.

There's something there for him where he's like, I am, I your biggest need that's connected to your physical healing, your biggest need is your sins need to be forgiven.

The apostle Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 11, where he says that people are getting sick.

They're getting sick and weak because they're sinning with the Lord's Supper.

They're taking it inappropriately.

They're just, they're just basically spitting on the sacrifice of Jesus, and he's like, and y'all are actually dealing with illness.

There are things happening in your body that that as like it's it's judgment from the Lord because you were spitting on the sacrifice of Jesus.

And so it's connected to that.

And then honestly, it's all over the Old Testament where people actually experience physical difficulty and physical hardship because of their sin.

In the book of Judges, you see that like when the people of Israel they're loving the Lord and seeking him and that kind of thing, and then they turn away from him to idolatry and they're worshiping other idols and things like that.

The Lord allows hardship to enter into their story and enter into their life.

Not to punish them and crush them and kill them, and I hate you now.

It's just like this this hardship is supposed to be this thing that makes you realize we have sinned against life, has gotten so difficult and so hard.

I have sent, maybe I have sinned against the Lord.

And then they search their hearts and they search their lives and they turn back to seek the Lord.

And then every single time in judges where that happens, they they turn away from him in idolatry.

God brings and allows this hardship into their lives, and then they it leads them to turn back to him, and God heals their land and actually repairs a lot of the things.

You see that a ton.

And then one of the most prominent is uh one of the minor prophets called Haggai.

Um, God speaks to them directly over their sin.

They're they're not tithing their money, they're not being generous to the Lord's house, they're they're being selfish and holding it and focusing on their own lives and their own homes and their own stuff, and they're not actually sacrificially giving to the Lord.

And notice what he says in Haggai 1.

He says, The Lord says, the Lord Almighty says, Look, give careful thought to your ways.

You have planted much, but harvest harvested little.

You eat, but you never have enough.

You drink, but you never have your fill.

You put on clothes, but you are not warm.

You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

Give careful thought to your ways.

You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.

What you brought home, I, the Lord blew away.

Why?

Because of my house, which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with your own house.

Therefore, because of you, because of your sin, the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops.

I called, I God, called for the Drought on your fields and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the olive oil and everything else the ground produces.

I called for a drought on people and on livestock and on all the labor of your hands.

And so what he's referencing is saying, like, your sin, I have brought something into your life.

Because of your sin, I have brought a hardship into your life in order to please consider this so that you turn back to me in obedience, so that you turn back to me in repentance and confession.

So it's like, hey, because of your sin, famine has fallen on the land.

Because of your sin, you're actually dealing with issues and difficulty that you do not have to face.

These things are not things that you're supposed to, the world isn't supposed to be functioning for you in this way right now.

The reason it's functioning this way, the reason it's harder for you right now, the reason you can't figure, like, why, why am I constantly earning wages, but it feels like I'm just putting it into pockets that have holes in it, and I'm losing it.

Why can't I be full?

Why is that?

And it's like, your sin has caused this.

And he talks about the fact that, like, new wine, olive oil, but then he talks about people as well.

People aren't having children.

The livestock aren't giving birth either.

They're not doing these things like there is a judgment on the land.

And again, it's not to just crush them and to make them feel like all these different things, like, I just I just hate you now.

It's not that.

The whole thing is consider and turn back to me.

Sin can be connected to difficulties in our lives, and the difficulty is actually a kindness from the Lord to get us to step away from this thing that's um that we're actually doing, to turn back to him so that we may be healed.

And so the same thing can be true for us.

Confession is given to us as a gift, and the hardship is also given to us.

It's what you see with the prodigal son story that Jesus is talking about.

Like he goes and he's he's being sinful, and he's he takes his father's wealth and he goes to this distant land and he spends all the money, and then there's a famine in the land.

And the famine in the land is probably the kindest thing that God could have done for that prodigal, because that's the thing that ultimately leads him back to come home.

Like, I can't eat here.

It makes him consider and come to his senses and go, well, I guess I should just go home.

And it's like, well, God, that's really mean that you allowed such a famine and a hardship.

And it's like, well, right now he's poor, wanting to eat with the pigs and in a space completely separate from his family.

The kindest thing I can do is allow a hardship to turn his mind back to home and bring him home.

So we can call it mean when God allows hardship because of our sin, but it's actually the space of I'm trying to get your hearts to turn back to me.

And I will heal you.

I will actually bring you into a space where you're experiencing something, something better.

But for us, confession is given to us as a gift.

It's not something that, like, I don't know if I can do it now.

It's like the hardship leads you to confession, and confession is a space where we are forgiven and we are cleansed.

And it can lead to healing, not only spiritually, but also physically.

Again, I think this is something similar to what Rainey and I were experiencing.

I don't, I do think we experienced the forgiveness, I experienced the forgiveness of my sin from God, but I also know that it healed my relationship.

Confessing my sin to another person healed this dynamic that I had in my relationship with my wife or with my girlfriend at that time.

And then we got engaged and we got married, and it's going all right.

And so we need to see confession not as a way to shame us, but a way that God wants to bring healing into our lives.

It is a way to experience those things.

I love what Ray Ortland says.

He says, we don't conquer our sins by heroic willpower.

We just confess them to death.

All of us struggle with sin.

And if you think that you don't struggle with sin, you're lying to yourself, and that's your sin.

All of us struggle with sin, and some of you have struggled so long with the same sin that it makes you think, like, I just deal with this the rest of my life.

I just don't know how I'm ever gonna overcome this.

And you forget, like, God has never told you to overcome it.

He's never said, just do this on your own.

Just figure out how to stop sinning on your own.

He never does that.

He just says, What I want you to do with your sin that you struggle with, I just want you to constantly bring it to me.

Never stop the flow of confession to me.

Bring it to the way that you will put it to death is by giving that thing to me.

You can't kill it in your own strength.

You can't kill it with your own willpower.

You can suppress it with willpower, but you can't put it to death.

Give it to me.

I can actually put it to death.

And that's what he wants.

We don't conquer our sins by heroic willpower.

We confess them to death.

And then we experience the healing and victory over some of the sins that we've just walked in for so long.

And so we can constantly feel like, I can't confess this again.

He won't forgive us again, will he?

Like, yes, that is the power of the blood of Jesus.

That is what is available to us as Christians, that is what we claim to believe.

And so constantly bring that thing to him over and over.

You will not conquer your sin by just trying to willpower, but you will be able to give it to him, and he can do it through confession.

And that's how we put it to death.

All right, number three.

Confession makes us love like Jesus does, makes us love like Jesus does.

So it helps us to experience the unconditional love of God.

It is this space where we experience the healing He is calling us.

Confess your sins so that you experience healing and trying to gift you something.

But the confession also forms us into a people who love like Jesus does.

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey, tells a story he heard from a friend of his who uh worked with prostitutes in Chicago.

This is what the friend says.

He says, A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for a two-year-old daughter.

Through sobs and tears, she told me her sordid story.

And at last, I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.

I will never forget the look of pure naive shock that crossed her face.

Church, she cried.

Why would I ever go there?

I already feel terrible about myself, and they just make me feel worse.

And then Yancy said this.

He said, What struck me about my friend's story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus, not away from him.

The worse a people a person felt about themselves, the more likely they saw Jesus as a refuge.

Has the church lost that gift?

Evidently, the down and out who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth no longer feel welcome among his followers.

What has happened?

What has happened?

And to me, I want us to practice confession because in a community of the church that practices confession of sin on a regular basis, if we will actually do this, people like that will not be alarmed or caught off guard by the sin of others.

Because we're constantly talking about our own sin.

In a community that's constantly practicing confessing our own sin, when you see someone else's sin, it won't shock you because you're so aware of yours.

You won't be sitting there going, and it won't be this space of like judgment on theirs because you know that you just confessed yours.

Oh, you would what you would do is like, oh, you're just like me.

You need forgiveness the same way that I do.

And it might be different sins, but it's like, oh, you're a sinner, so am I.

And I just confessed mine and received the unconditional love of God.

Do you know that that's available to you as well?

And so when we see someone else's sin, but we have been in a space of confession and receiving forgiveness, constantly doing that, we would be shaped into people who aren't sitting there wondering, can God even forgive that kind of sin?

We'd be like, of course he can forgive your sin.

If he can forgive mine, he can absolutely forgive yours.

And so a regular practice of confessing our sin, receiving the forgiveness of Jesus, receiving the love of Jesus, again and again and again, it will make us humble, it will make us gracious, and it will make us non-judgmental.

We also won't be people that are just fine with sin, like, oh, don't worry about that.

Oh, you're sleeping with somebody else.

I bet your wife loves that.

Don't worry about it.

Like that, we would not do that.

But it would also, it would absolutely make us go, you know that Jesus can forgive you of that.

You know that Jesus can cleanse you of that.

You know that Jesus can repair your marriage.

If you will talk to your wife about that and she is willing to do the work, do you know that what can happen in your relationship?

Do you know that he can bring a dead thing and bring it back to life?

And I know that confessing that sin might feel like death.

It will kill me to say those words, but then resurrection can happen.

Because resurrection only happens to things that are dead.

And so things that make it feel like I'm gonna die when I do this, it's like do that thing, because from that thing, God will raise you back to life and raise you into something else.

He can bring life from dead things.

And so I want us to be people who are constantly just very aware, not doing this to shame us, but just very aware of our own sin and then very aware of confessing it to him and then receiving his grace, his love, his forgiveness.

Because we will be able to love people like Jesus if we do that.

Because we will be people who have constantly experienced that love of Jesus.

We would confess our sin, experience the love of Jesus, and then be able to pour out our exact experience.

I just experienced the love of Jesus to a sinner.

Now I can pour that out on another sinner who needs the love of Jesus.

And we won't become whatever church that was that gave that lady a bad experience and going, I could never go to the church.

They will make me feel worse.

That was not the way that Jesus was to people, and that's not the way I want our church to be towards people either.

Sinners are supposed to feel welcome in the presence of Jesus.

He was a friend of sinners.

And he did not make it to where they could sin.

He just made it so comfortable to be around him, where it was like, I just, you know what I'm walking through, but you love me so deeply, and you can love the sin out of me constantly and forever.

And I want us to be a church where people can feel and experience the love of Jesus over and over and over again.

Not just once when they get here and go, this is a very friendly church, it's a very communal church.

I don't want people to feel like I belonged before I sinned there.

Now I don't know if I belong anymore.

I want it to be like, man, you yeah, you sinned this year, next year, yesterday, today, tomorrow, in an hour from now, and you feel the comforted ability to actually share those things with other people and know we are here, covered in the blood of Jesus, all sinners, loved by a friend of sinners, like that is who we are.

And so we're able to pour that out on other people.

I want that for us.

So, a couple of things that I want us to do in order to practice confession.

The first, just practically, confess your sin unfiltered to God.

I would make this a regular practice in your day.

Figure out a time, make it your daily prayer time.

You do not have to make this the first thing you do.

It's not like I gotta confess my sin before God wants to talk to me.

That's not the way my son treats me.

I have to, Teddy doesn't walk up to me in the morning and be like, all right, Dad, here's everything I did wrong yesterday.

Uh, can I have breakfast now?

That's not a payment that we have to walk through.

But I do think that it's a space between you and God where you can go, like, I need to be reminded again of your unconditional love for me.

That's why I'm gonna tell you all the stuff.

I want to dig into my heart and into my soul.

I want you, Holy Spirit, to reveal to me, show me the spaces.

And let me just confess those things without filters to you.

One of the ways that you can do this is just by saying this prayer, if you want a prayer.

You can do this in your own way.

But this is a good one.

Uh you can use John 1.9, verse John 1.9.

It says, You can say, God, your word says, if I confess my sins, you are faithful and just and will forgive me of my sins, purify me from all unrighteousness.

And so, Lord, based on that promise, I confess, and then just confess.

And then you can finish that up with, Thank you for your promise to forgive and cleanse me.

The reason I like this, one, you're using the scriptures and the word is a sword, but then two, you need to be reminded of the promise itself.

It can be scary every now and then to confess our sin, and everything kind of mitigates against it, where you're like, I don't know that I can say these things out loud, and we need to be reminded, if I confess, then I experience this love that God has for me, where he forgives me of my sins and purifies me from all right, unrighteousness.

It's available, but if I step into this, and so I have confidence to step in to confess based on the promise that you've given me.

I do believe when we do something like this, confess our sins, I do believe we need to be sincere.

I don't think we should just be, you know, just in the same way that if you have somebody that you love and you really harmed them and hurt them, that you wouldn't walk into them and be like, oh, sorry about that.

We good?

Like you wouldn't do, I wouldn't do that to my wife.

That wouldn't work.

Most of you, like, that wouldn't actually like.

I don't think you actually mean that.

And so I do think we need to be sincere.

I don't think our forgiveness is based on the sincerity of our our our confession, but I do think we need to be sincere.

And I and I don't believe you need to dwell on it after that.

You confess your sin, you don't have to just live with it consistently and dwell on it, even though we probably will.

He's not dwelling on your sin.

And you don't need to do that either.

So confess your sin and unfiltered to God.

Second, I would encourage you to find a confessional community, which is basically like find another person.

Just find someone that you can, it can be multiple people, but finding one will be difficult enough.

Find someone that you can be brutally honest with about your sin.

Find someone that you can actually talk about the stuff.

Like you go, I'm afraid to tell anybody.

I'm gonna I'm afraid to dare to be a sinner in front of everybody, but with you, you and God, I can dare to show you who I actually am.

Find someone that you can be brutally honest with that won't judge you, that won't try to fix you.

Most of the time when people confess their sin, like, all right, let's get to work.

What are we gonna do?

Get some filters on your computers, we're gonna do this and that.

Like, that is not what James says.

James says, confess your sins one to another, pray for each other, and you will be healed.

It doesn't say, and then work really hard to fix a bunch of stuff in somebody's life.

It's like, I don't need your fixing, I need your prayers.

And so there's a space here where you're like, you need to find somebody you can be brutally honest with, someone that's not gonna judge you because of the stuff that you say, someone that won't try and fix you, but will listen and will pray for you.

And then you need that person needs to feel comfortable being brutally honest with you.

You need to also provide that for them, to give them that space, not to judge them, not try and fix them, but to listen and to pray for them.

And to me, it doesn't need to be anonymous.

Like the only, I I love the Catholic Church, but the only one of the one of the issues that I have is like the confessional thing that you walk through, it's like, oh, it's good that it's anonymous.

I no, it's not.

That doesn't say make it anonymous.

You're supposed to be able to look a brother or a sister in the eyes and tell them exactly who you are and what you're struggling with, and then from their eyes experience the love of Jesus looking back at you.

Anonymity isn't like, ah, you're forgiven, just whatever.

Like you're supposed to be able to see the person, you're supposed to be able to receive the love of Jesus through another person.

That is what actually forms a community that makes it beautiful.

If the only way that I can confess my sin to you is be like, yeah, yeah, I really struggle with sin.

You will know nothing about me, and you won't ever actually know what's going on in my heart, but a handful of people will.

And I'm not saying that we're supposed to walk around the communities and please don't do this, walk around every single person and be like, I got a list of my sins today, and I just wanted to share them all with you.

I'm not saying that you do that, but I do think that you need to have one person at least to actually practice what Jesus is saying.

I can be honest with you.

And so find a confessional community.

And then if you're going to do this, go to the next slide here.

How to receive someone's confession.

You do not try and fix them.

Here's how you receive if someone comes to you to confess their sin here and they confess it, first thing that you can do, and I encourage you to do this, just ask them, hey, is there anything else you want to tell me that you haven't told me?

Because normally what happens when we we step in to like, I finally have the courage and the faith enough to step in and confess my sin.

We get so scared that we don't go deep enough.

It's like, I did this, I did this, and like that felt like that's good enough.

And so to give them permission to go a little deeper, like, hey, you can dare to be a sinner with me.

You do not have to stop here.

If there's more, feel free to share that more.

And so ask them, is there anything else?

And then the first thing after that, you need to you need to tell them is like the blood of Jesus cleanses you.

You are forgiven.

Like you don't need a sacrifice, you don't need to pray the Hail Mary's to get forgiveness.

The first thing they need to hear is like, the blood of Jesus cleanses you, you are forgiven.

There's nothing else.

You don't have to go give money, you don't have to buy anything, you don't have to do anything for the church.

He has done everything.

All you have to say to them back is like, what a gift.

The blood of Jesus cleanses you.

You slept with someone else, cheated on your wife, cheated on your husband, looked at porn all day, whatever, like, and they're telling you those things.

Anything else you want to share about what's going on in your heart, anything else you want to dare to be a sinner with me.

And they tell you everything.

The blood of Jesus cleanses you, you are forgiven.

And then pray for them.

Pray that they would experience the gift of God's grace, the gift of his forgiveness and cleansing through Jesus.

Confession is a gift for us to experience the unconditional love of God, to receive healing, not just spiritually, but also physically.

And in the relationships that have been busted because of our sin.

And then confession will help us grow into people who love like Jesus does.

And so I want us to practice this in your own life.

My marriage exists because I confessed my sin to my girlfriend at the time.

And I don't, I we're not close enough yet, all of us, to where I feel comfortable sharing the ways that I've confessed my sin to other people in this church and other sins that I've confessed to my wife, that I have experienced the fame and deeds of God breaking into my heart and into my soul, and the power that has been broken over sin in my life because I just said the words out loud.

And we're just not close enough to share some of those things yet, but you need to know that stuff is real.

I have said things to people, sins that I've struggled with that I've like, I'm just gonna deal with this forever, and just saying it out loud broke its power over me.

And now I had another person willing to bear the burden.

Like some sins are just too strong for you.

You need another brother, you need another sister in your life to just fight against that thing with you and to pray for you in the midst of it.

And like all of a sudden, these things that we just thought never, these strongholds that would never break, these things would never happen.

They happen because we actually practice the scriptures.

We put Jesus' words into practice and we've experienced healing from that thing.

And I want that for you, and I want that for us.

The vision that God has for your life is not to just wrestle with sin the rest of your life and die and finally be done with it.

The vision that He has for you is one to walk in the victory, to walk in the freedom.

And it is for freedom that Christ has set you free to not be burdened and beat down by this stuff, and it's available to us through Jesus and to put his words into practice.

So I want that for us.

And so be defiant when your heart and your mind tells you, don't say this stuff out loud.

They will reject you because the enemy will say that to you.

They that you're gonna tell them that?

What will happen if you do that?

How will they think of you?

How will they treat you next?

Like even though they say you can dare to be a sinner with me, what will actually happen?

And you will have all of these things come into your mind to try and scare you into staying in the dark and keeping those things hidden because poison wants to stay hidden and it will do its dirtiest work when we don't bring it out.

But you have this opportunity to be defiant, trusting in the promises of Scripture to actually say that stuff out loud, and so practice confession.

Do it to the Lord, find a confessional community, and then when somebody comes to you, make sure you know how to respond to that thing.

Don't try and fix them.

Jesus is the one that can fix them.

And the blood of Jesus cleanses them.

Let me pray.