Introduction
Not too long ago God seemed so far away from me. I prayed. I felt nothing. I read my Bible. I heard nothing. I went to church. I experienced nothing. I sought the presence of God, yet he seemed so distant. Why did God seem to elude me? How could he let me sacrifice all my efforts to come into his presence and yet never seem to show up?
Have you ever felt this way?
As I trudged through this spiritually dry time, eventually I heard God's voice. His message was undeniably clear: "Rick, I'm not hiding from you. You've been hiding from me. And before you can come into my presence and enjoy fellowship with me, you must uncover the secrets of your heart and confess the sins of your past."
His words pierced my heart. They were true. I had tried to cover up my sinful secrets. I didn't want anyone to know the truth, especially God, that I was a sinner. My Bible fell open to Isaiah. While God spoke through the prophet to the children of Israel, but his words were meant for me. "But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide [His] face from you so that He does not listen" (Isa. 59:2). I don't like to admit it but I harbored sin - habits, words, actions, and attitudes - which I had tried to conceal. Rather than admit my sin, I had hoped that my spiritual activities of praying, Bible reading, and going to church would cancel it out. Or, at least that God would overlook my sin because I was being so "spiritual." It did not. And, he would not.
It was time to be honest with God. I learned that day an important spiritual truth: Confession precedes worship. Communion with God is preceded by confession before God. God is a holy God and anyone coming into his presence must rid himself of sin. God has never demanded perfection, but he has expected honesty. And if I wanted to engage his presence I had to come out of hiding to acknowledge my sin.
Scripture reminds us that God despises sin and God deals with sin. Before engaging in authentic prayer, there had to be honest hearts. Before celebration comes confession. Holiness precedes happiness.
I. Confession is being honest about who we are
To confess means to admit or concede. It involves stripping away layers of disguise to expose what is really at the center of who we are. Confession is the discipline of making an honest appraisal of ourselves.
I have a confession to make. I'm in the market for some new golf clubs, so recently I visited one of our many golf shops in the area to test some clubs. The salesman, an older gentleman, greeted my kindly and inquired of his assistance.
"I'm interested in some new woods."
"O.K.," he said, "What are you using now?"
"Oh, I've been using some cheap clubs. I don't remember the brand."
"How far do you hit your driver?"
"Well, to be honest with you. I don't hit a driver. I use a three-wood off the tee."
"What kind of distance do you get?"
"Oh, I get maybe 230-240 yards. But I would like to get more distance."
"Wow! That's pretty good," he said. "I wish I got that kind of distance with my three-wood."
Now let me say that hitting 230 to 240 yards with my three-wood is true sometimes, such as when the fairway slopes downhill and there is a hurricane gale behind me. We golfers always think we hit the ball farther than they do because when we are looking for lost balls we hunt ten to twenty yards ahead of where it actually is. Believe me, I done this many times and have assisted others in the hunt for lost balls where they aren't.
The salesman picked out a few clubs and invited me to the hitting area. He put a swing speed gauge in place and I hit a few balls while he recorded the swing speed. After hitting a few balls he told me what my swing speed was.
"Oh, I said. And what kind of distance does that produce?"
"About 200 or 210 yards."
Uh oh. I had been caught.
So I confessed: "Well, maybe I don't hit it as far as I thought."
Honest appraisals aren't very fun, but they are very revealing.
Our word confession comes from the Greek words homo and legeo, which combined literally mean "to say the same thing." Confession is the conviction of agreeing with God. God's sin meter does not lie. It always tells the truth. And there are times when we have to agree with the Father that we aren't a spiritual Tiger Woods. Sometimes we get the ball of our righteousness barely past the ladies tee.
If confession is agreement with God, then sin is disagreement with God. It is choosing to live our lives by our values instead of God's, our wills instead of God's, and our plans instead of God's. Confession is to own up to the fact that our behavior wasn't just the result of bad parenting, poor genes, jealous siblings, or a chemical imbalance. Any or all of those factors may be involved. Human behavior is a complex thing. But confession means saying that somewhere in the mix was a choice, and the choice was made by us, (like my choice to lie to the golf club salesman) and it does not need to be excused, explained, or even understood. The choice needs to be forgiven. And it is forgiven when we admit to our dishonesty of trying to live on our terms instead of God's. That's where confession comes in.
II. Confession begins with God
Confession always begins with God. If it did not begin with God, we would simply compare ourselves with others. And I can always find someone who is not as good as me, even in golf. If other people are the standard for determining how good or bad I am; I will always make myself look better than I really am. But when I compare myself with the absolute holiness of God, then I recognize that I fall miserably short every day.
We need to view sin as God views it. God doesn't measure our sin against someone else. God sees sin as a rebellion against his authority, as despising his Person, and as defiance of his law. W. S. Plummer said, "We never see sin aright until we see it as against God. . . . All sin is against God in this sense: that it is his law that is broken, his authority that is despised, his government that is set at naught. . . ." It is not the size of the sin but the majesty and holiness of God that makes our sin so grievous in his sight.
Such a view leads one to honest confession.
Just ask David. After his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, David cried, "Against You - You alone - I have sinned and done this evil in Your sight" (Psa. 51:4). Look at Isaiah. When the prophet was overwhelmed with a vision of God's holiness, he cried, "'Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, [and] because my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts'" (Isa. 6:5).
Charles Steinmetz, a genius, worked as an electrical engineer for General Electric in the early part of the twentieth century. On one occasion after his retirement, when the other engineers around GE were baffled by the breakdown of a complex of machines, they finally asked Steinmetz to come back to see if he could pinpoint the problem. Steinmetz spent several minutes walking around the machines, then took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and made a cross mark on one particular piece of one particular machine.
To their amazement, when the engineers disassembled that part of that machine, it turned out to be the precise location of the breakdown.
A few days later, the engineers received a bill from Steinmetz for $10,000 - a staggering sum in those days. This seemed exorbitant, so they returned it to him with a request that he itemize it. After a few more days they received a second, itemized bill:
Making one cross mark: $1.00Knowing where to put it: $9,999.00
The hard part of confession, for us, is knowing where to place the mark. Confession always begins with our understanding of the holiness of God. And when we come before him, asking him to put the cross on the right spot, he does it every time.
III. Confession prepares the soul for the seed of God's presence
Confession is like preparing the ground for a planting a crop. Think of your soul as soil. God's presence is the seed. Confession is removing the debris of sin so the presence of God can grow.
When my Daddy decided to plant a garden behind our house, he had Mickey, my twin brother, and me remove the rocks and pull the weeds. We didn't particularly want to do this job, but Daddy said we should so we did. The big ones - both rocks and weeds - were easy to spot, but hard to move. Once the boulders and larger weeds were off to the side we thought our job was finished, only to discover smaller rocks and weeds. These were easier to move, but it took a lot longer.
Such is the case with confessing sin. The big sins are easy to see, but hard to move. It is the bad habit that is hard to break. The unlovely attitude that goes down deep in our conscience. The hurtful actions that have been repeated so often that it is engrained in the fiber of the flesh. The addiction that controls the body. The smaller sins are easier to move, but take a lot longer. The unkind word. The lying. The cheating. The gossiping. The gluttony.
My daddy knew that before he sowed the seed the ground had to be worked. God knows that before the soul is prepared to encounter his presence sin must go. Confession is the act of inviting God to walk in the soil of our soul removing the debris. God's presence grows better if the soil of the heart is cleared. And a cleared heart is less likely to sin again, because sin will look and feel less attractive.
IV. Confession becomes the bridge to God's presence
Once there were a couple of farmers who couldn't get along with each other. A wide ravine separated their two farms, but as a sign of their mutual distaste for each other, each constructed a fence on his side of the chasm to keep the other out.
In time, however, the daughter of one met the son of the other, and the couple fell in love. Determined not to be kept apart by the folly of their fathers, they tore down the fence and used the wood to build a bridge across the ravine.
Confession does that. Confessed sin becomes the bridge over which we can walk back into the presence of God.
Remember Adam and Eve. The first man and woman enjoyed constant communion with God. They were without sin and without shame. Then they ate the fruit and sin entered the world. First, they covered their bodies. Their nakedness no longer brought freedom but fear. Next, they hid in the bushes when God came near. Their rebellion left them ashamed and scared to face him. Their relationship was broken.
When God asked, "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9). It was not for his benefit, but theirs. His question was not geographical, but relational. God knew exactly where they were.
Sin erects a fence while confession builds a bridge. Those who keep secrets from God keep their distance from God. Those who are honest with God draw near to God.
When Bailey, my daughter, was three-years-old she could play hide-and-seek for hours. She'd shout from behind the sofa, "Daddy, go count and then come find me!" This childhood game parallels the spiritual lives of many adults. First, we foolishly think that we're hiding well, not realizing that God knows exactly where we are. Second, the best part of the game is not hiding, but being found.
God wanted to find Adam and Eve, and you and me. No one desires to stay hidden. No one person can have contentment when secret sin is hidden in the recesses of his or her heart.
So confess your sins. Build the bridge. Walk into the presence of God.
V. Confession liberates us from the guilt of sin
Confession admits wrong and seeks forgiveness and grants freedom.
In the movie The Mission, Robert de Niro plays the role of Mendoza, a character so thoroughly vile, selfish, and brutal that there seems to be no hope for him. When he decides to repent, he is required, as an act of penance, to carry a heavy burden tied to his body everywhere he goes. Through this ordeal he begins to see life differently and discovers that everything he has built his life upon has really been a burden - both to him and to those he has hurt. He comes to see his own helplessness and dependence.
One day, on a desperate climb up a mountain, Mendoza realizes that he is not going to make it and is imperiling the lives of those climbing with him. Suddenly, one of the tribesmen takes out a knife. Mendoza fears he will be killed, but instead the knife slashes the rope that has bound him to his burden. He is free. He will live. The burden has done its work.
The giving of the burden was an act of grace. It caused pain. There is pain in the midst of purging. But his burden was an act of grace. The release from the burden was an even greater act of grace. It freed him. It liberated him to a new life. So it is with confession.
Do you want to come into the presence of God? Do you want to come out of hiding so you can be found? Do you want to know the joy of fellowshipping with the Savior? Then come clean before God.
In Jewish worship, before a Jew would enter the synagogue the worshiper would go to the Mikveh. The Mikveh was a ritual bath for ceremonial cleansing used before entering the synagogue. It was 29 inches in depth. It replaced the Bronze Sea in the Temple. The water that filled the Mikveh was living water - untouched by human hands. The worshiper would dip the water and touch their:
Head - cleansing their thoughts;Heart - cleansing their will;Hands - cleansing their work;Feet - cleansing their walk.
Their entire life would be cleansed before they would enter the synagogue and into the presence of God. Would you take a moment and symbolically walk down into the ceremonial cleansing pool? Would you confess your impure thoughts? Your disobedient will? Your wrongful work? Your evil walk?