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A LESS WORRIED KIND OF CONFESSING

An interesting sermon illustration kind of fell into our laps the other day; in fact, it fell in about 15 times. Our Voice of Prophecy team had just returned from our huge Family Reunion concert at the Tivoli Theater in downtown Chattanooga. Our production team, headed up by Warren Judd and Colin Mead, had hours and hours of raw video footage and also 32-track stereo recordings of the 60-plus gospel songs we recorded with our hundred or so musician friends during an absolutely memorable four-day extravaganza.

Well, David Smith, our writer/producer, was back at his laptop preparing the five sermon scripts for this week of radio programs on the Bible topic of confession. But the editing suite where Jeff Aebi, our good friend from the Gaither studios, was working, was just right down the hallway. Jeff had the computerized ProTools software up and running, and the Soundcraft mixing board all wired up and ready to turn raw footage into beautiful CDs and videos and DVD concert packages.

And all at once, while these five sermons on confession were taking shape, one song from the concert began to run over and over. These technicians, you understand, “loop” through a particular song maybe 15 or 20 times as they sweeten the sound and search for alternate video shots and put together a final “master” which people like you finally see and hear. And so on that Monday afternoon, this song entitled “Jesus Saves” ran again and again and again and AGAIN. For almost the entire afternoon, David and the rest of the staff heard Margie Salcedo-Rice and Jesse Martin and the choir sing these unforgettable words by Joel Hemphill:

“Jesus saves; He still does. He’ll make of you someone new; Cleanse the sin that was. The Holy Spirit whispers, ‘No more must you be enslaved.’ Just believe it, Jesus saves!”

And then again: “Jesus saves; He still does. He’ll make of you someone new, Cleanse the sin that WAS.” Which, in a week of talking about confession and about having no fear when it’s time to confess, was the absolutely perfect message.

It’s maybe hard to communicate — but friend, so very important — these simultaneous truths. One: confession is vital; we have to do it. And two: we should never be afraid. For the Christian, fear should have no part when we confess our sins to God.

Let me ask you this question: why should saved Christians keep confessing their sins to God? He already knows, right? And if we read all that the Bible says about our abiding relationship with Him, we can even understand that great promise in First John 1:9 — “If we confess, He’s faithful and just to forgive us” — as guaranteeing that we’re actually forgiven even BEFORE we ask. We’re forgiven because of Calvary, which happened 2,000 years ago!

And yet, even though there is to be no fear, and even though we don’t need to agonize over our diaries and our high school yearbooks trying to remember old sins — like Martin Luther did — confession is still an important and ongoing spiritual discipline for the believing Christian. So today we ask: Why? Does it have something to do with that line from Joel Hemphill’s song? “He’ll make of you someone new; Cleanse the sin that was”?

Here’s a very interesting paragraph from a book on comparative religions, written by John Ankerberg and John Weldon. See what you think:

“The real reason we confess our sins to God,” they suggest, “is NOT to acquire a forgiveness already obtained, but to be reminded of the forgiveness we have and to retain our sensitivity to sin so that we may continue to grow in sanctification.”

In other words, you may be rejoicing in your security as a Christian right now. Praise God if you are. But friend, you’re still going to want to confess your sins to the Lord. Not to get forgiveness, but to keep being thankful for it. To keep yourself sensitive to what sin even IS, and where our enemy might still be lurking around trying to trap you in more of it.

In Pastor Bill Hybels’ wonderful book, Too Busy Not to Pray, co-written with LaVonne Neff, he spells out a prayer acronym some of you might already be using to great effect in your own spiritual journey. Have you heard this one? A - C - T - S? “Adoration — Confession — Thanksgiving — and Supplication.” There it is right in the middle of the pile: “C for ‘Confession.’” And this is for good Christians, for prayer warriors.

Hybels writes about the tendency we sometimes have to give God a generic confession: “Lord, please forgive me for all my sins.” “Lord, if I did anything wrong today, please forgive me.” Friend, those prayers are rather deficient, aren’t they? For two reasons. First of all, if you’re a born-again believer, you’re already forgiven. Secondly, that kind of blanket confession — “all my sins,” “IF I did anything wrong in the past 24 hours” — doesn’t do anything to remind you where sin might be creeping in. In fact, you’re almost praying along the lines that you DON’T see anything bad reflecting back at you in the mirror.

Bill Hybels then gets rather personal . . . with himself.

“I determined,” he writes, “that in my prayers, I would deal with sin specifically. I would say, ‘I told so-and-so there were nine hundred cars in the parking lot [of his Willow Creek Church] when really there were only six hundred. That was a lie, and therefore I am a liar. I plead for Your forgiveness, [God], for being a liar.”

Now, even though we may have “No Fear” when we confess, it kind of stings to pray to God that way. “Father, I am a liar. I just told a lie. I have a problem with telling lies. I just pretended that I accomplished something that I really didn’t accomplish.” What a painful prayer . . . even if you say it in your closet! But also what a tremendous help it is in inviting the Holy Spirit to fulfill Joel Hemphill’s song lyrics in our lives: “”He’ll make of you someone new; Cleanse the sin that WAS.”

Hybels visited once with a friend fictionally named Harry. And Harry shook his head in protest. “Look, preacher, I’m not a sinner. I’ve got nothing to confess.” Well, Bill hit him between the eyes. “You’ve been married 25 years. Always been faithful?” Well, the man confessed that as a traveling salesman, a few extramarital opportunities had come along when he was “on the road.” “How about adding a few fake items to your expense account?” “Everybody does that,” Harry sniffed. As if it didn’t count then. “Do you ever exaggerate to a client about when a shipment will go out?” “Sure,” Harry admitted again. “That’s standard in the industry.”

Well, Bill had him. “Look, Harry,” he pointed out, “you’ve just admitted that you are an adulterer, a cheater and a liar. Repeat those words after me — I am an adulterer, a cheater and a liar.”

Now friend, please note again. Jesus loves Bill Hybels and you and me . . . and Harry. Jesus loves adulterers and cheaters and liars. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John prove it. But a necessary part of the Christian walk, of staying a Christian, of abiding in Jesus and His love is to admit these things and accept Christ’s ongoing gifts of forgiveness and fellowship.

We described the other day how a tortured and tormented young monk named Martin Luther would agonize his way mentally through the Ten Commandments, searching for sins to confess. It was a fearful torment for him. But do you know that I read that very same suggestion from one of today’s brightest lights of grace-filled Christianity, my friend, Pastor Garrie Williams? Pray your way through each of the Ten Commandments, he suggests, asking God to show you where your life might be slipping out of kilter. When we pray in this A-C-T-S format, we’re doing the same thing. What makes the difference? Are we lapsing back into the legalism, the living hell that Luther the Reformer finally escaped?

Well, friend, those two words — “NO FEAR” — make all the difference. To confess when your salvation is already assured, guaranteed, made secure for all time, isn’t an act of terror, but an expression of hope-filled discipleship.

There’s an old line from a C. S. Lewis essay that we’ve used before . . . but it bears an encore reading right here. Notice his wording:

“Handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying,” he writes. Meaning “trying to obey.” “To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. . . . Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, A LESS WORRIED WAY. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

I want to tell you, friend, I cling to all of that. Obeying in a new way, “a less worried way.” Is it possible to confess in a less worried way? To say to our wonderful Savior, “Jesus, thank You so much for saving me. Thank You for Your gift of eternal life, promised to me at Calvary. Thank You, Jesus, for forgiving me for all my sins even before I ask.” Then a deep breath before you continue: “And Jesus, as I look at Your perfect life, as I read Your perfect Ten Commandments, I see in MY life these things that still aren’t as You want them to be.” And maybe you can almost hum the last line of your prayer: “Please, Jesus, I want You to make of ME someone new; Cleanse the sin that was.”

Because Jesus saves; He still does. Just believe it.