WWJBD
Part 5 – Do What?
James 5:16
[Skit – Silent Friends www.onetimeblind.com]
James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
GULP. Do what? I don’t know about you but there are times I find it a bit intimidating to confess my sins to a God that I don’t have to look in the eye….yet.
Four preachers met for a friendly gathering. During the conversation one preacher said, "Our people come to us and pour out their hearts, confess certain sins and needs. Let’s do the same. Confession is good for the soul." In due time all agreed. One confessed he liked to go to movies and would sneak off when away from his church. The second confessed to liking to smoke cigars and the third one confessed to liking to play cards. When it came to the fourth one, he wouldn’t confess. The others pressed him saying, "Come now, we confessed ours. What is your secret or vice?" Finally he answered, "It is gossiping and I can hardly wait to get out of here."
You know why confession of sins is a difficult thing 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. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. (Foster Celebration of Discipline pg. 145)
And you know what? There is nothing further from the truth. In exploring WWJBD this last time, we need to unpack this idea of confession a bit more.
When I read the passage the first time on Tuesday, you know what jumped out at me immediately? That James said ….pray for each other so that you may be healed….”. Not forgiven, but healed. When we think of confession of sin, what is the primary payoff in our minds? FORGIVENESS. But James doesn’t say confess and pray for each other so that you will receive forgiveness. He says do this so that you will be healed.
At first you might think. “SO.” But at second pass doesn’t that kind of make you wonder? What does he mean? Obviously the primary thrust of confession of sin is seeking forgiveness from it. But forgiveness of sin is primarily a result of my confession of sin to God.
In Psalm 51:3&4 King David is praying a confession to God (post adultery) and he says, “For I recognize my shameful deeds – they haunt me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned.”
Because sin is a spiritual dynamic, our sin first and foremost is a vertical condition.
In other words, when we sin the offense is committed primarily against God. Because He is holy, our sin is offensive to that holy nature. That’s why David says, against you and you alone have I sinned.
Because that is true, 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.”
So because it is God who is offended by our sin, it is God who forgives us our sin when we confess it to him. That’s the beauty of the cross. Our sin was put upon Jesus in totality. All the sin of all the world was funneled through the person of Jesus into the care of the Father to be forgiven and forgotten. Holiness was satisfied. So your sins past, present and future for all eternity can literally be forgiven and forgotten because of this. And so John says when we sin, if we will confess our sins to him he reminds us of our forgiveness and ability to move forward forgiven.
So forgiveness of sin is primarily a result of my confession of sin to God. And so from there we try to understand a bit more clearly what James means when he says “confess your sins to one another and pray for each other (not so you’ll be forgiven) but healed.”
Because, while sin is primarily an offense against God, sin is multi-dimensional in its offensiveness. Your sin does hurt you and can hurt other people. The forgiveness that God offers only repairs the spiritual disconnection that sin creates. But it’s not only offensive to God. It is damaging to your spirit and other relationships in your life. And when sin is committed, regardless of what it is, it brings into effect hurts that need healing.
And it seems to me that James is implying here that the catalyst for healing in the other dimensions of sin (physical, emotional, relational) – the catalyst for healing is confession to another brother or sister in Christ.
Why?
Why would that be the case? How could God have designed the healing needed due to sin to be dependent upon our willingness to confess it to other Christians?
I decided to poll some people this week. I sent an email to several pastors and gave them the verse and asked them to offer reasons why this was a good thing. Here are a few reasons:
1. Confession Makes Us Vulnerable –
I confess, I had to look up vulnerable to make sure I understood it. (There, I feel better already.) Vulnerable means to be capable of being physically or emotionally wounded, open to attack or damage.
There is a degree of control we maintain when we keep our junk inside. And it is amazing the amount of pain and agony we are willing to endure to keep that level of protection intact. But when we consider our model, we see that Jesus was anything but protected.
In Philippians 2, one of the early Christians writes of Jesus and says, “Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing. He took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross.” (2:5-8 NLT)
Talk about vulnerable. While not in confession, but so that we could experience confession, Jesus’ example of making himself vulnerable is captivating. In that criminal’s death on the cross, Jesus was at the zenith of vulnerability. Even to the point where he refused the customary painkiller when it was offered to him. Remember that? He wanted to be completely alert for this greatest work of redemption. So he emptied himself of all pride and anything that might get in the way of his complete openness before God and man.
And because of his willingness to open himself to that vulnerability, we are made right with God. We are healed.
Rick Alvey writes, “God’s grace is sufficient, but the depth of God’s grace that I experience is equal only to the depth at which I depend on it. When I am vulnerable to confess my sins to a brother I am demonstrating and (hopefully) experiencing a greater depth of God’s grace.”
And so James encourages us to be vulnerable. In confessing your sins to other believers, we open ourselves up to the vulnerability that risks pain, but promises healing.
2. Confession Helps Us Relate -
Remember, we convince ourselves that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sins…right? Hardly.
I will never forget two weeks ago in Chicago when I heard Andy Stanley, Pastor of North Point Community Church say, “The reason I refused to stop working the way I was working when we started NPCC is because I was afraid that if I let God build this church, he wouldn’t build it as big as I wanted him to.”
For a young, driven, church leader to hear someone like Andy Stanley stand in front of 70,000 church leaders and openly admit that dirty little secret that so many of us deal with as reality was completely freeing. I relate.
And that is another thing that confession to other brothers and sisters does. It helps us relate.
It helps us realize that maybe those people whom I am convinced could never struggle with this junk that I deal with….can and probably do. Or at the very least, they struggle. They have their baggage. And while it might be different from mine, it is all sinful behavior that is getting in the way of our relationship with God and I AM NOT ALONE!
Again Jesus as the example. In Hebrews 4:15 speaking of Jesus the writer says, “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin.”
That phrase “all the same temptations we do” needs to soak into you for just a minute.
Plug yours in man. Whatever direction you tend to be pulled – Jesus was pulled. He has experienced the temptation to be full of himself. I am sure when those Pharisees came at him with Trapping Questions about the Law, Jesus faced the temptation to say “Nice try buddy – I wrote it. I am it. Give it up!”
Jesus has experienced the temptation to gossip. I am sure there was a part of him that was tempted to tell everybody that it was really Judas that he was talking about when he said “one of you is a devil!”
Jesus has experienced the temptation to give into his humanity when beautiful women approached him.
Jesus experienced the temptation to bail on the plan when he was praying in the garden and the pressure was getting pretty heavy.
So read “all the same temptations that we do” and breathe a sigh of relief that you are not in this alone. If Jesus has been there, you can bet the person sitting next to you has been too. And so have I.
And only when we are willing to make ourselves vulnerable to a trusted brother or sister and just say it….only then will we realize that we are not alone. We are joined by everyone who claims the gift of grace.
And it’s a travesty that some of us are living in this darkness. That there are some of you who are convinced that there couldn’t possibly to anybody who deals with your junk. It’s like as a church, we are moving in the same direction, yet living in isolation from one another. There’s a reason why Jesus died to save more than one person. Because everybody needed it and everybody needs to know that we are all still dependent on him daily to heal us through it.
3. Confession Keeps Us Broken –
This might sound strange to us when we consider the fact that our hope in Christ is to be healed….not stay broken. But listen to what the Psalmist says, “The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Several times in the last few weeks, James has brought us back to the story of Jesus and the prostitute and the Pharisee. Remember what Jesus said of her as she poured perfume on his feet….. “they who are forgiven much, love much.” When you live in the valley of a broken heart, you aren’t perpetuating guilt, you are recalling unthinkable forgiveness.
In Genesis you remember the story of Jacob wrestling the Angel of the Lord (I believe it was Jesus). And the Bible says in Genesis 32:25 “When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket. v31 The sun rose as he left Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.”
When you’ve been blessed by the grace and presence of God, you walk with a limp because you are not the same. And Jacob lived with that limp the rest of his life. He lived with the gentle reminder that he encountered God. And while it was a painful experience, he was redeemed through it and he has never been the same since.
Listen to what Pastor Steve Abernathy says of confession of sin; “To confess means to actually stop “spinning” our sin and judge our own lives like Romans 12:3 says we should.”
Romans 12:3 says, “Be honest in your estimate of yourselves…” When you look another brother or sister in the eye and in your redeemed freedom from sin say “I struggle with this….” You are reminding yourself of the unthinkable forgiveness that was given you. You are pressing on the scars left from the sin you were rescued from. And you are admitting that in the presence of a holy God you are broken and dependent. Because we all are!
4. Confession Confirms God’s forgiveness –
Ultimately our healing (emotional, physical, relational….whatever) our healing is ultimately from the heart of God. Why does he use our confession of sins to other brothers and sisters to facilitate this healing?
Jon Hudnall writes, “Sometimes healing begins in confessing to a friend because it gives life to the truth that there is sin in my life.”
See, when we confess our sins and we are reminded of our spiritual healing, God’s forgiveness is confirmed
John 20:23 Jesus said to the disciples, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven…”
God uses our willingness to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to be broken in relation to each other as the conduit for the healing that comes as a result of our holding onto guilt because of adultery or bitterness because of anger or pride because of envy. When your brother or sister reminds you that God has forgiven you of this sin….your heart begins to release the poison that is crippling it.
So James says to us, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
That’s why.
So, now what? Now that we have a little better grasp of What Jesus’ Brother Would Do….what should we do with it?
2 Thoughts, real quickly.
1. Pray for a spirit of Confession – Pray that God would begin to give you the courage and the confidence to be open to finding someone in your life who you can become accountable to through confession. Pray that your spirit would be willing to invest your healing (whatever that might be) in this idea of confessing your sins to another brother or sister.
2. Pray that you would be Confession Worthy – Maybe the reason that more brothers and sisters aren’t confessing their sins to other Christians is because the reality is they don’t know any that they trust. Maybe we aren’t confession worthy. Maybe we aren’t trust worthy. Maybe we are not demonstrating the fruit of the spirit that would cause people to be drawn to us in the effort to practice confession.
Pray that God would develop in you a heart that would be willing to confess and that he would enable you to become a brother or sister who is confession worthy to someone else.
Let’s pray.
