In college I was a member of the Reserve Officer Training
Corps (ROTC). They taught us a lot about the theory of war. That teaching mostly revolved around
scintillating topics like the 5 paragraph operations order, and military
decision making process (MDMP). But the
days I had the most fun were when we pulled the weapons from the armory, and
went to the range. The day we threw the
grenade was truly exciting. You stand
with this heavy round ball (a little smaller than a bocce ball) and you know it
can cause irreparable damage to you and others.
We stood in cement bays, with Drill Instructors standing next to
us. Their job was to throw us to the
other side of the cement barrier if we dropped the grenade, or forgot to throw
it in the excitement.
I stood in my bay ready to pull the pin, looking at the
crater left by someone who dropped their grenade earlier that day. There is a healthy terror to pulling that
pin. And yet, when you do, you release a
powerful weapon. In a flash of light and
sound, I could hear and feel the powerful force of the grenade going off on the
other side of the bunker wall. In live
combat the grenade is an even more terrifying weapon.
For us as Christians we are in a never ending battle for
Joy. We fight to keep our delight and
treasure secure in Jesus Christ. And in
this battle God gives us many weapons and tools for us to use for His
glory. Every day I become more and more
convinced that, in the never ending battle for joy, confession may be our most
powerful weapon. Confession, like a
grenade, can do great damage to the forces of darkness by exploding with the
light of Grace.
Here is the problem, like me, as an ROTC cadet, we are
unpracticed and untrained with this weapon.
Too often confession is treated as something I do privately, in the
darkness of my closet. And yes, we can
and should go directly to God with our sins to find forgiveness (1 Tim.
2:5). But the bible seems to say more on
the confidence, freedom, joy and grace we have when we confess our sins to each
other in community. If confession
remains a private and an individual task, our hearts will continue to convince
us that we are still condemned. Or
worse, our hearts may convince us that our sin is really no big deal.
To take sin and grace seriously we must confess our sins to
each other. Take the quint essential
passage on confession, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But the question we must ask is to whom do we
confess our sin? Yes we confess our sin
to God, but this passage is cemented like a bunker in the foundation of
fellowship among believers.
Verse seven sheds light on the context of our confession,
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the
blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, Emphasis
Added). Our position in the light and
cleaning from sin takes place in the fellowship of faith. As with the many, many “one another” passages
in the scriptures, this passage speaks of the precious and intimate fellowship
we have together. And the parallels
between verse 7 and verse 9 tells us that we simply should not confess our sins
in the closet. But we must confess our
sins within the context of one another. We need the Community of Light, the
Church.
Continuing with the soldier analogy, a soldier by himself is
in a dangerous place when confronting the enemy. No matter how many grenades he has he will be
quickly surrounded and overwhelmed, if he is by himself. But if that soldier is part of a well trained
squad, one grenade can set the stage for victory, with a combined attack.
Confession is a grenade that shines the light of grace into
our soul and community. When the pin of
confession is pulled, in the company of other well equipped believers, the
explosion of light and forgiveness is tremendously effective in destroying
sin’s hold in your life.
This is a regular practice in my life. When I find myself struggling to make
progress in my spiritual growth the root is always sin. So I find close brothers or mentors to help find and confess the sin sieging my soul. Only then do I find victory. At times I find sin that requires me to
confess my harm to other people. I make
a regular practice of confessing my sins to my wife (especially the small
ones). Nothing has strengthened my
marriage more than when I finally broke down and confessed my sins of lust and
a wondering eye to her. Nothing gave me
victory over those persistent sins like frequent and honest confession to my
wife. In these moments Satan’s attack is
destroyed and my worship of Jesus increases.
We must do away with the notion that confession is an
individual event. God’s glory is most
wonderfully revealed when have opportunity to live out the grace, demonstrated
on the cross, together. I don’t wonder
if the reason so many pastors fall from grace and ministry is that they fail to
confess their sins early and often to trusted advisors, elders, and friends. Sin wants us to remain isolated, confession in
community destroys that isolation.
The more I study the scriptures the more the beauty of
confession, one to another, is revealed.
Take for instance David’s psalm of confession in Psalm 51. It begins with these words, “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David,
when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” This isn’t simply David’s private
journal. This is a song to be sung in
the congregation of Israel, specifically in response to David’s sin. In James 5:15-17, answered prayer and healing
are directly related to confessing sins to the elders. Acts 19:18, the believers in Ephesus came
together Jew and Greek confessing their sinful practices.
No comments:
Post a Comment