Confession: Stop it and Talk with Jesus
by Billy Strother
Allow me to open with a confession: I dislike confessing.
Confession requires one to admit that she or he is deficient, failing, flailing, mistaken, incomplete, lacking, broken, disappointing, rebellious, prideful, weak, insufficient ... just to list a few negatives. Yes, I am all those things, as are you; but I just hate to admit it.
But the Lord’s formula is clear: no confession, no forgiveness.
I know I have my struggles, but as a church leader I have carefully honed the craft of looking holy. The pressure to look strong (spiritually mature, without problems, issues, or failures) remains ever present. Though I may look it, no one feels less holy than me on Sunday mornings. When I step into that building, my game face is on—smiles, courteous nods, a chuckle here, a sympathetic look there. Others share with me their own failings—they confess in a quiet corner before or after worship.
Sometimes they make an appointment to come to my office ... to confess. Just when I say, “I have heard it all,” here comes a confession that rattles me. A beloved church organist had been playing the church organ for 30 years. “Dr. Billy, I have been having an affair with my next-door neighbor for 10 years. Nobody knows; not my husband and not his wife. What should I do?” That really shook me. I never imagined a church organist, any church organist anywhere, would have an affair. I thought that it was somehow impossible for church organists to do that!
The new young first-time mother who is a corporate officer at a bank cradled in her arms that beautiful little girl only one-month old. “DB,” she starts, “I go back to work next week. No one knows it. I have embezzled $120,000. What should I do?”
A beloved church member came into my office, a very successful real estate agent. “DB, I have had an illicit drug addiction for 10 years. Even my dealer says I should stop. Nobody knows. What should I do?”
A senior adult church leader, in her 80’s ran the holy of holies ministry of the church—she led the comings and goings of the church kitchen, even communion prep. “Preacher, I have a terrible gambling habit. The bookstore is a front. My bookie owns it. I keep betting money with him I do not have. I have taken a personal loan against my house to cover recent losses, and my husband doesn’t know it. I hope he dies before he finds out. What do you think I should do?”
My first reaction is shock! Then I immediately blurt out, almost involuntarily, two solutions: “Stop it!” followed by, “We need to talk with Jesus right now!”
“Stop it” and “Talk with Jesus right now” has defined 40 years of hearing and responding to confessions. Those admonitions may be simple, but they are biblical.
The Pool of Bethsaida story is so powerful (John 5:1-15). Jesus asks a man disabled who had been living in the dirt for 38 years, “Do you want to get well?” The man starts making excuses and never says “yes.” Tired of hearing the man’s excuses, Jesus just ordered him to get up, to pick up the ragged piece of carpet he used as his mobile living room, and to walk away. And he did!
What a miracle, but it’s not the end of the story! For the first time in 38 years, he was walking. Being a Sabbath, he bumped into some religious leaders on their way to or from worship services. When they saw the disabled man now walking, they, instead of praising God, were indignant. The first century Jewish cultural custom was that healing someone was considered a work. So, Jesus had worked on the Sabbath in the doing of the miracle. When asked who healed him, so the leaders might bring a public indictment against Jesus, the man answered, “I do not have any idea. I didn’t catch his name. It is not my fault. He did it to me; I did not ask for it.” The healed guy was not going to take the blame and bring all of that religious heat onto himself. Then the man who got the un-asked-for miracle went looking for Jesus. He found Jesus in the Temple and had a brief, yet terse, one-sided conversation. It is the first time in 38 years the healed man would be allowed in the Temple—defective people and people whose sins were obvious were not allowed in the Temple. The healed man would return to the religious leaders and give them the name: Jesus. When Jesus was found in the Temple by the newly healed man, Jesus had one more order for him: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you! (v. 14).”
“Stop sinning.”
Near the end of his life’s journey, the Apostle John admonished us all (Christians to whom the letter was written, not non-Christian people) with these words in 1 John 1:8-10,
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
John lays it on the line—if we say we have reached a state of perfection beyond the capacity of sin, we are liars. But if we are honest and confess our sins, then Jesus forgives and cleanses us. Confession requires us to talk with Jesus right now.
Talk with Jesus
Our chances of stopping sin and receiving forgiveness are amplified when we invite someone else into our confession. James, half-brother of Jesus, explains:
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. (James 5:16, NLT).
Why bring someone else into that prayer conversation? When we confess to one another:
Confessing to someone opens the door to mutual accountability; accountability gives us a cheerleader to partner with us.
The invitation makes the confession real.
We can no longer hide the sin or failing, nor does it allow us to simply pretend we are dealing with it.
When we invite someone to partner with us in our prayers related to confession, forgiveness becomes incarnate. Instead of just wishing for forgiveness, confessed to another, forgiveness from Jesus becomes real when it comes through and is partnered with a flesh-and-blood friend.
Know this, I am no spiritual doctor prescribing “stop it” and “talk with Jesus” just for other people. I am a consumer first!
In those moments when the guy I see in the mirror is proved deficient, failing, flailing, mistaken, incomplete, lacking, broken, disappointing, rebellious, prideful, weak, insufficient, I commit to stop it and then immediately have a talk with Jesus. And when I confess to another Christian defining my failure, my chances of really stopping the sin and talking with Jesus about it exponentially increase. And then I am much more likely to find my forgiveness in Christ.
No confession, no forgiveness.
I am going to confess one more thing: in writing this blog, I have come to realize I need to confess more often.
