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THE ART OF CHRISTIAN CONFESSION #3

AFRAID OF CONFESSING TO NEWSWEEK

Here in the U.S., as we fumble our way through another election year, candidates for office are increasingly being asked by a rabid media to confess the sins of their past. “Did you do such-and-such when you were younger?” “Did you ever try this certain illegal drug when you were in college?” One person seeking the presidency, apparently not learning from the experiences of a previous occupant of the White House, carefully dribbled out information about how long he’d been drug-free: seven years, then fifteen, then fifteen-and-a-quarter. News reporters began to grumble: “Why doesn’t he just TELL us?”

Well, friend, none of us enjoy confessing. I’ve put it off, and I’m sure you have too. I mentioned my friend Marvin Moore yesterday — and since this story is in his bestselling Christian book, The Crisis of the End Time, I’m not picking on him by sharing it here. Plus I’ve had these experiences too. But he describes a mistake he’d made going back to his college years more than a quarter century ago. He’s been a faithful Christian all these years, but for some reason, in the Holy Spirit’s timing, God had never really hit him with a conviction about this particular dust-covered sin. And now, all of a sudden, that sin was before him. “Marvin, you need to confess.”

Well, his reaction was the same as most of us.

“I would rather die,” he writes bluntly, “than confess that sin.”

The story has a happy ending — God empowered him with the strength to finally go to the person and make his confession — but it’s a fact that stark FEAR and raw SHAME are the two ingredients which we think are linked with the word “confession.”

In terms of confessing sins one to another — as the Bible commands us to do — that might well be true. In fact, it IS true, and we each know it all too well. But our discussion these past two days has been over confessing sins to God, our heavenly Father. Martin Luther, as we explored yesterday, made his own life a living hell as he pored over every microsecond of his past life. What had he forgotten to confess? Would God damn him to a forever in hell if he couldn’t dredge up every single fault and failing?

Well, friend, I’d like to devote today’s radio broadcast to just one simple thing: taking that word “fear” out of confession. Oh, I fully realize — and I’ve been through it — that confessing to each other is still going to be scary. But in our relationship with our heavenly Father, the right spiritual attitude should be the one we see on so many T shirts these days: “NO FEAR.”

Right away let’s strip away three huge causes of spiritual terror that should never be there. In his book Sources of Strength, Jimmy Carter points out correctly that most of us tremble to admit a mistake for two reasons: fear of condemnation and fear of punishment. Which is why a presidential wanna-be gives those carefully crafted answers about not inhaling. A Gallup Poll expressing condemnation could derail your White House hopes in a hurry. But friend, when you come to Jesus with your confession, those two sources of fear are gone. Will Jesus condemn you? No! Will He punish you? No again. Romans 8:1 says it so clearly:

“There is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And in John chapter eight Jesus made this truth so wonderfully personal and one-to-one when He said to a woman taken in adultery — a woman who hadn’t even had the chance to say her words of confession yet:

“‘Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus said.”

How about punishment? Friend, that’s the greatest foundation truth in the Christian religion. Jesus Christ has already borne our punishment on Calvary. We can confess our sins to Him knowing that the punishment for them will never land on us, because it already landed on Him!

So I say again: “NO FEAR.” And let’s return to the concept we were considering yesterday: this possible “gap” of lost salvation between the time a Christian stumbles and sins . . . and that moment when he or she confesses. Are you and I, as God’s precious children, saved . . . then lost . . . then saved . . . then lost . . . then saved — in an ever-repeating cycle of DIS-inheritance and reclaiming? Again, the answer is no. Again the result is “NO FEAR.” If you’ve come to Christ and given your life to Him, friend, you can grow and mature and confess your faults in a loving atmosphere of “NO FEAR.”

Here’s another paragraph from President Carter’s book, this from a chapter entitled “Knowing and Being Known.” Notice:

“Jesus has always known us,” he writes. “His understanding and His love for us are perfect and absolute. We can share with Him the truth about ourselves, both good and bad, in the certain knowledge that He will forgive — HAS forgiven — our every sin and flaw, and can guide us to a better life.”

Have you ever thought about that? I mean, really thought about it? You remember the sad story where President Clinton, when the Lewinsky scandal was just breaking, called his old friend Dick Morris on the phone. “I didn’t do everything they’re saying,” he said, “but I did do something.” And then he asked: Would the people of the United States stand for it? If he admitted the whole thing? Well, Dick Morris ran one of those quickie phone surveys and came back with the results: no, they wouldn’t. If the people knew the truth, knew HIM, knew his inner demons, what he’d done . . . it would be the end. “Well, then,” Clinton is said to have responded, “we’ll just have to win.” Meaning with a campaign to NOT confess, to cover it all up.

Well, friend, we’re all there too. Afraid. Afraid of condemnation, of punishment, of our own impeachment trial. Afraid that if we confess, or before we confess, God will cut us off from His grace. But as Carter points out, Jesus already knows! He knows it all, and still loves us. In a later chapter, entitled “Facing Up to Sin,” our 39th president writes again:

“Fortunately, God’s willingness to hear our confession and forgive us completely is inexhaustible.”

This is what made the difference for Martin Luther. As Edwin Booth points out in his book, Martin Luther, The Great Reformer, this young seminary professor began to study and teach on the doctrine of the Cross. And here he found the truth. Here he found assurance. Here he discovered what God’s attitude was toward sinners. Booth writes:

“In the historic work of Christ he found the proof of God’s everlasting affection. Around Christ and the crucifixion, then, he wove his hope.”

“I felt myself to be reborn,” he confessed, “and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”

Before we close today, let me share another precious anecdote, to balance out some of the Protestant flavor of the week thus far. Some of you know the tremendous and touching story of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the Catholic priest who was falsely accused of sexually abusing a young seminary student. The story was completely false, but what agony this quiet servant went through before his name was cleared. And perhaps what sustained him most was that God DID know. His friend and Savior Jesus surely knew the truth. Later, as you also may recall, Joseph Bernardin died a premature death due to cancer. The beloved Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago was laid to rest November 14, 1996.

In the incredible book, My Brother Joseph, by a former priest, Eugene Kennedy, the author includes a very personal and intimate bit of confession from Bernardin in the flyleaf of this bestseller. It’s in Joseph’s own handwriting, and what he says is so insightful and appropriate to our study. Listen:

“I must always keep my eyes focused on Jesus,” he writes in his tight, cramped handwriting. “He must be the center of my life. I must ‘let go’ so He can work in and through me. I must visualize the Jesus with whom I am intimately united, with whom I am in love (I must not be afraid to say this) as a real friend, a manly person who — even though He is God’s Son — shares all the human feelings I experience: joy, sorrow, doubt, anxiety, etc.; one who will give me strength and support; one who understands and loves me despite my sins and weaknesses; one who will embrace me and give me comfort and a sense of security if I let Him. In short, I must trust Him completely.” Then he adds a P.S.: “If I do I have NOTHING TO FEAR — regardless of the pain and frustration of the present moment.”

Did you notice that? “I have nothing to fear.” “He understands me,” Bernardin wrote in amazement and praise. “He loves me despite my sins and weaknesses.” “I can trust Him completely; I MUST trust Him completely.”

Friend, have you felt that your sins kept you away from Jesus and this kind of hope? They don’t have to. Jesus already knows! He knows NOW! He loves you NOW! And He’s waiting to hear from you now too.