Life in godly unity requires that the real you shows up. However, no one has it all together. We can either pretend we do and remain disconnected, or we can adopt the practice of confession and learn to love one another through the reality of weakness and even failure. Dan Kent shows us what biblical confession is, what it is not, and then points us toward practical steps to move into honest confession.
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The End of the Charade
• Dan Kent
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Dan Kent introduces us to the practice of confession to help us connect with each other in healthy ways. He sets up his teaching by demonstrating the way we develop life practice through forming tendencies before we even understand what we are doing. We act and those actions become habits that shape us without our conscious knowledge. Heraclitus said, “We start out making choices, but eventually our choices make us.” And the more that we act upon distorted choices, the more our character becomes distorted. We end up deceiving ourselves, thinking that truths are lies and lies are truths.
What do we do when we find ourselves caught in this cycle of distortion? Dan says that one path forward is confession. Truthful confession brings healing and sets us on a path that is shaped by rightly seeing God, ourselves, others and the world. As James wrote, confession of sin—which means “missing the mark”—opens the door to healing (James 5:16). The focus scripture from 1 John drives this point home. Confession is needed to walk in the light. No one is exempt from the need for the light because no one is beyond the need to confess. And our level of confession will determine our level of walking in the light. Confession leads to freedom from the habits that shape us and, over time, this practice reorients our lives to the light of God. Thereby, truth becomes truth and lies become lies.
However, confession is not something that is commonly practiced in our culture. We often assume that saying “I’m sorry” is a confession. But this is only an emotion of regret. Or we might assume that self-condemnation is a confession. However, saying “I’m terrible!” is only a declaration of judgement. Some people equate saying “I am a sinner” with confession, but this is a generable observation about the nature of being human.
Dan outlines three things that make for good confession. First, we remove abstraction. We are getting real about our real lives and what we face as unique individuals. Second, we get detailed. Confession is specific about what was done, said or thought. Third, with good confession, we seek out the underlying “whys,” the hidden drivers that motivate the wrongdoing.
Relationships can only feed us to the extent that we live and walk as we really are. If we pretend with each other we are not actually allowing ourselves to connect because the façade is in the way. A confession lifestyle gives others the opportunity to love the real you and it gives others permission to be real.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Community, Relationships, Repentance
Sermon Series: Wholehearted, Better Together
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Focus Scripture:
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1 John 1:5-10
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
