“I Have Something to Tell You” (Confession – Sermon 7)
Scripture: James 5:13-20 (The Message)
Text: James 5:16, Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”
Intro
Liberation Treatments are becoming commonly known treatments for people suffering with Multiple Sclerosis. The condition known as Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCVI), according to Dr. Paolo Zamboni, Italian founder of the Liberation Treatment, is a condition where the jugular and azygos veins are blocked which could be one of the causes of MS. He believes that Liberation Treatment repairs the blocked veins that are connected to the central nervous system.
The protocol for treatment requires that
-- Patients must sign a consent form stating they understand the risks
-- Assess the patient’s condition prior to treatment
-- Procedure is outlined
-- After procedure, the attending physician will discuss results with patient, further assessments to evaluate effectiveness of the treatment and blood thinner prescriptions are provided for a time after the procedure.
Today we’re going to look at confession. Confession is an invitation to undergo Liberation Treatment! There is poor health and well-being in the church and community-at-large. The answer to holistic well-being is addressing psychological and spiritual blockages not visible to the naked eye. In the Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan, N.Y., there is engraved the words: "All healing is of God; physicians only bind up the wounds." This is a work that God does with our involvement through confession and forgiveness, the end result leading to a relationship with God that is free of blockages and obstructions.
Addressing these blockages will help attain a healthier YOU! There are risks of course:
• You could become contagiously joyful!
• People could look at you ‘strangely’ and think you’re ‘odd’ or you ‘have a few loose screws’ if you know what I mean!
Confession started at Golgotha which, as stated by author Richard Foster, “came as result of God’s great desire to forgive…Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it…This was his highest and most holy work, the work that makes confession and the forgiveness of sins possible.”
Professor and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Williard explains that “Confession is one of the most powerful of the disciplines for the spiritual life. But it may be easily abused, and for its effective use it requires considerable experience and maturity…”
We must be careful not to understand confession as telling the deep dark secrets and sins of your life to every person you meet. Some people like to tell because of the emotional and social attention they get from it. There’s almost a sense of pride in telling their gory story. Confession is an act that makes attempts to mend, make well and move on. It should be carefully shared and selectively divulged with very trustworthy people who know what to do with your story.
Confession is hard for us. There are people here today who have stories to tell; stories that need to be told so you can be healed; so you can live a whole and peaceful life. But you’ve not told your story. I understand why you hesitate to tell your story. You see we have a problem in the church that is a problem of judgement and loose tongues. Foster recognizes it when he says, “Confession is a difficult discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners.” You are right that many people in the church think they’re better than you and will cluck their tongues and wag their heads that you could be “like that”.
Please be encouraged today to be told that not all of us will cluck our tongues and wag our heads. Some of us are very familiar with Galatians 6:2 and understand the value of trying to restore gently those caught in a sin, because we know how easily we can be tempted and find ourselves where you are. Some of us won’t judge you but will love you and help you, if you’re willing to confess your sins and get on the road to recovery.
As for the whole church we need to shift our thinking and begin to see the reality. The reality is we are a company of sinners first who are on the road to sainthood.
When we think of confession most of us may go back to the time in our lives when we first came to Christ. We confessed our sins, received Christ’s salvation and are now heaven-bound. Confession is often viewed as the necessary step leading to forgiveness that gets us ready for heaven. But we miss something very wonderful when our understanding of confession goes no further than that. We must change our thinking to learn that confession is something to help us to live life today.
Let’s touch on three themes of confession that are necessary for Liberation Treatment of the soul, of our mind, emotions and will.
1. Confession heals us
We know of course that confession means telling someone, something about ourselves. Dallas Williard writes, “Letting someone know our deepest weakness and failures nourishes our faith, creates a sense of being loved and gives rise to humility.” He suggests that confession is coming to a place of complete transparency. I was drawn to Williard’s word picture of lack of confession of sins as a type of obstruction in our psychological development toward great health. In years past Corner Brook Newfoundland was the logging capital of the province. Logs were floated down the Humber River to the logging mill. It was common that logs would become jammed and in moments a pileup occurred and the flow backed up. Loggers would run across the logs, skilfully avoiding a fall and being crushed by the pressure of force created by the logs. They were often successful finding that one log that was obstructing all the others. They’d work it loose if they could but sometimes the culprit required dynamite to break the logs free. But once freed there’d be a tremendous rush down the River as the logs flowed freely again.
Folks, when we commit sin it becomes an obstruction to the flow of relationship with God. It blocks joy. It blocks happiness and contentment. It blocks our sense of God in people, nature and life-worship. It blocks emotional connection to community and interaction with God in public meetings like this one. We become cauterized in the soul, cauterized as in ‘seared’. Medically speaking being cauterized is the act of burning or searing a body part to remove or close off a part that will create more damage to the body. I use it here to illustrate the opposite as it relates to the effect of not entering into confession. What did Paul say to his young protégé Timothy? He said people will fall away from the faith, listening to deceitful doctrines of evil spirits and demons and their consciences will be seared (1Timothy 4:2) as one sears cattle with a branding iron. When we do not confess our sins as we ought, we block the flow of the shed blood of Christ to the heart and soul of who we are. Lack of blood means lack of oxygen and we die. Lack of confession can lead to death.
So, what is the alternative? Williard paints the positive picture that confession results in absolution. The alternative is absolution. Absolution is defined as the act of freeing from blame or guilt.
The means to absolution, of being free involves an important step. It is the act of inviting God to show us how we need healing and forgiveness and upon receiving answers we act on it through confession. We have to be prepared to deal with certain sins and face what’s going on for what it is. In some cases we can confess to God and need go no further. But other things require external support and accountability. We must be open to vulnerability and transparency but as noted earlier, it requires maturity and caution.
James 5:13-20 is usually understood to be a reference to physical healing. There is that element for sure but I am confident the passage is more suggestive of psychological healing and spiritual healing through forgiveness of sins (verse 16 – confess sins so you may be healed).
In the process of confession there comes about a desire for restitution. Williard suggests that we have an innate force in our personalities that requires restitution when we confess a wrong-doing. We have to make it right.
I read the story of Festo Kivengere, former Anglican Archbishop of a Southwest Region of Uganda (Kigezi), and leader of the African Enterprise evangelistic team. He says, "My uncle, the chief, was sitting in court one day with his courtiers around him when a man came and bowed in the African way. He was rich in cattle and was well known as a man who sought God through the spirits of dead relatives. He had come with eight cows which he left some twenty yards away.
'I have come for a purpose, sir,' the man said.
'What are those cows for?' asked the chief.
'Sir, they are yours.'
'What do you mean they are mine?'
'They are yours. When I was looking after your cattle, I stole four and now they are eight, and I am bringing them.'
'Who arrested you?'
'Jesus arrested me, sir, and here are your cows.'
There was no laughter, only a shocked silence. My uncle could see this man was at peace with himself and rejoicing.
'You can put me in prison or beat me up,' the man said, 'but I am liberated. Jesus came my way and I am a free human being.'
'Well, if God has done that for you, who am I to put you in prison? You go home.'
A few days later, having heard the news, I went to see my uncle. I said to him, 'Uncle, I hear you got eight free cows!'
'Yes, it's true,' he said.
'You must be happy.'
'Forget it! Since that man came, I can't sleep. If I want the peace he has, I would have to return a hundred cows!'" Confession leads to restitution! Kivengere says that later his uncle did come to Jesus Christ!”
2. Confession keeps us from sin
Too many people won’t take the risk. Some won’t embrace ‘closeness’ and ‘confession’ which are both critical to right behaviour and accountability. So they come to church and fellowships living a superficial religion. They go to work or school and never have a thought of God in the process or feel a sense of spiritual connection. Their homes are toxic and their attitudes constantly negative. Their presence smothers people who’d rather keep a distance than engage them. It is dreadfully sad that many cannot be kept from sin because they will not enter the door of confession where it all begins and first of all be free of sin. There’s no darker life than the one that walks it alone. The person who carries the weight of guilt and blame and never finds release is to be wept for through prayer.
One of the reasons we confess our sins to one another is because of our ability to effectively pray for one another. Our text says that we are to do two things. We confess our sins to each other and the response to that is, we pray for each other and we’re reminded that prayer is a powerful force to be reckoned with when it comes from a person who lives right with God. It changes us! It keeps us accountable and protected through prayer that we may overcome! It guards us from repeating the behaviour that destroys us and supresses us from all that God has in mind for us! It provides Liberation!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who opposed Nazism. He was involved in plans to assassinate Hitler which got him arrested in April 1943 and executed in April 1945, just 23 days before the Nazis surrendered. Bonhoeffer said, “A man {person} who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light.”
Someone is still struggling with this idea of being “exposed”. You see a lot of risks and rightly so. There are risks. Williard reminds us, “It is said confession is good for the soul but bad for the reputation, and a bad reputation makes life more difficult in relation to those close to us, we all know. But closeness and confession force out evildoing. Nothing is more supportive of right behaviour than open truth.” If you will be free from sin you have to take the risk.
WRAP
Confession is the only Liberation from sin
Confession is commanded in Scripture, not only to God, but to one another
What steps should you take this week to enter confession?
May we experience this Liberation Treatment and be healed!
