Confess to One Another

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:00
Let me say this, so, Brother Mike and I have been alternating, and we have four of the one another's left, and so what we decided was, since two of them are actually in the one verse in James chapter 5, I'm going to take this week and next week, and Brother Mike's going to come back and do the last two from 1 Peter, and then we're going to do a review of the book of Judges, and where we had been up to Samson's life, and then Brother Mike will come in and do chapter 13 of Judges, and then we'll alternate chapters, and that's when we'll start with Samson.
00:44
So, we're going to look at it both this morning and next week, so let's read a little bit.
00:50
I'm going to read from the beginning of the book of Judges, James chapter 5.
00:58
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you.
01:04
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
01:07
Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh like fire.
01:14
You have heaped up treasures in the last days.
01:17
Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mow your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, and the cries of the reapers have reached in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
01:26
You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury.
01:29
You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
01:32
You have condemned, you have murdered the just, and he does not resist you.
01:37
Therefore, be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
01:40
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until he receives the early and latter rain.
01:49
You also be patient.
01:51
Establish your hearts until the coming of the Lord is at hand.
01:54
Do not grumble against one another, which is what we looked at last time.
01:59
Brethren, lest you be condemned, behold, the judge is standing at the door.
02:04
My brethren, take the prophets who have spoken the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience.
02:09
Indeed, we count them blessed who endure.
02:12
You have heard of the perseverance of Job.
02:14
And see the end intended by the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
02:20
But above all, my brethren, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yea be yea, and your no, no, lest you fall into judgment.
02:31
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.
02:35
Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing songs.
02:39
Is any among you sick? Let him call to the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
02:46
And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
02:53
Confess your trespasses to one another.
02:56
Pray for one another that you may be healed.
02:58
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
03:04
Elisha was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.
03:15
And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.
03:19
Brethren, if any among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns his back, let him know that he that turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
03:36
Alright, so as I said, the focus this morning is in verse 16, and we'll divide it in two, but for now it's confess your trespasses to one another.
03:48
And I think this is an important section to look at, an important verse to look at, not only because of what it teaches us, but because of the many errors that have come out of this verse.
04:03
Does anyone know what are the great errors that would come out of this verse about confessing to one another? Sister? Having to confess in the Catholic Church to a priest? Yeah.
04:20
Yep.
04:21
And that's certainly one of the great errors that comes out of it.
04:25
It's so interesting, because you see, you take the Bible, and you can twist it, right? Even as it says that you can twist it to your own destruction.
04:38
So, it is a verse that has been used to kind of substantiate this whole doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church of confessing sin, and of the act of confession.
04:52
So, let me just ask you, is that just a mistake, or is that just straight out error and heresy? I mean, how do we think of that? I mean, do we just say, oh well, they just don't have that right? Sister? This might be wrong, but if you kind of spill your guts to someone, they have some power over you.
05:19
They certainly do have power over you, and they have authority over you.
05:27
Error or heresy? Contrary to Scripture.
05:30
Sorry? Contrary to Scripture.
05:32
Okay.
05:33
We don't need a mediator between us and Christ.
05:36
We don't have to go through another person.
05:38
We can go straight to them, straight down.
05:41
Okay.
05:43
So, that's one of the great errors in it, right? Is that you now have to have a mediator in between you and God, right? What does it say in Timothy? There's only one mediator.
05:56
God and man are the same.
05:57
Jesus.
05:59
Is it heresy? Is it full-blown? Yes.
06:05
It depends on how you understand the confession.
06:11
Because we're...
06:11
In and of itself, there's nothing wrong with confessing your sins to a brother.
06:16
It's when that brother thinks that he or she, for instance, would, on a private matter, would think that they have the ability to absolve your sin.
06:27
It's not the confession part.
06:29
It's the absolution of sin is the problem.
06:33
Because look at verse 16.
06:35
What does it say, right? To Brother Mike's point.
06:37
It says, So, we can't just say that confessing that is wrong in and of itself.
06:48
We're in James 5, if you wanted to know back there.
06:51
I see you.
06:52
So, the real error in it is that someone is acting in between God and man.
07:04
As many of you know, I was brought up in a Catholic environment.
07:09
And I remember going into that little booth, this little dark booth.
07:15
It was like a telephone booth with a little curtain or a little sliding door.
07:20
And every time that little sliding door slid open, I was like, what do I do? Here's one of the things, and it's spooky.
07:28
I mean, has anyone ever done that? No one's had the pleasure of doing that? I played in one.
07:35
You what? I paid a lot for the Catholic church.
07:38
I'd go in there and play with it and turn the light off and on.
07:41
Because it's got a light on the outside.
07:44
Yeah, and it's got this little black screen.
07:46
And all you see is this, or you hear this man on the other side of his docks.
07:53
It's really weird.
07:55
So, I don't really want to spend any more time on it than that.
07:58
Other than to say, if you think about it, if that were the case, and it says confess our faults to one another, confess our trespasses to one another, then if you're going to follow through with it, then as I confess my sins to a priest, I should switch places with him.
08:19
And then he comes in on the other side, and I slide the little thing open.
08:23
Right? That's not going to happen.
08:25
So, I believe it's important for us to understand that it's not just a mistake.
08:31
It's not just a wrong interpretation.
08:34
It's error.
08:35
It's against the Word of God.
08:37
And again, mainly because we have no need to come to a mediator.
08:44
Because in truth, all sin is against God, right? That doesn't mean we don't sin against one another.
08:50
But all sin ultimately is against God.
08:52
And who can forget sins but, as Jesus said, who can forget sins but God alone.
08:57
So, I wanted to at least touch on that.
09:00
Again, if you've not had that experience, other than painting those places, I would suggest you stay away from it, because it is a little bit on the scary side.
09:15
Andrew, I had a question about that.
09:16
So, I think when I look at this passage, I think about the difference between confession and repentant.
09:25
So, in the Catholic Church, when you confess, is the priest seeking to help you truly repent and turn from your sin and overcome sin and temptation? Or is it just, okay, you confess.
09:40
Check that box.
09:41
Moving on.
09:41
Because that just leads to this, well, I sinned, but I can just go confess that and then I'm all good.
09:47
It's even worse than that.
09:49
Because the priest, in their thinking, has the power to absolve you from those sins.
09:57
And that's the real error in it.
10:00
It's not just, it carries the thought of him having authority to actually grant you repentance and then usually, you know, and I can remember it was, you know, do six Hail Marys, three Our Fathers, and one act of contrition.
10:20
And then you had to go outside and sit there and go through all that stuff.
10:25
So, I would say it's even worse.
10:27
Because he really believes he has that authority to forgive.
10:31
And that's why I say, who can forgive sin and who can't? So, is it very ritualistic? Absolutely.
10:37
Do they consider it as necessary? Absolutely.
10:43
But it's just one of the many errors that they have taken.
10:47
And again, my point is, you can look at the scriptures and you can make them, if you work hard enough at it, you can make them say what you want them to say.
10:56
Right? The problem is you've got to make sure that the rest of the scriptures will go along with it.
11:01
And certainly, it doesn't.
11:03
So, what I want to do is I want to take a few minutes and I want to try to distinguish.
11:10
So, before we talk about confessing to one another, I want to ask you to think about trespasses.
11:20
Now, again, I read the New King James, and I'm sure it probably has some difference.
11:24
So, it says in the New King James, confess your trespasses to one another.
11:30
Different King James? False.
11:32
Confess your false.
11:34
Anybody else? Does anybody say sin? Mike? Mike, what are you reading? New American Chronicles.
11:41
Oh, okay.
11:44
And it's interesting because there's a number of different words that are used, and I want to spend just a little bit of time, because the word here is not the normal word in the New Testament for sin.
12:03
Okay? It's paratoroma, and it really means basically, I think, what you said, Stephen.
12:10
It means false, or it means when we deviate from the truth.
12:17
And I want to look at some verses, because I think it's an interesting study, just for a moment, versus that word paratoroma, and what's the other word for sin, and what's the word that's most used for sin? Hamatea.
12:31
Hamatea, right.
12:32
And here's the thought.
12:34
I'm going to look at these verses, because some of them will use this word, which really means more in the sense of a fault or a deviation, and then hamatea really is coming short, missing the mark.
12:46
So I want to kind of look at it, because if I remember correctly, where this word is supplied, trespasses or faults, it's like 23 times in the New Testament, versus if you look at the word hamatea, which is the more used word, it appears over 100, I think it was 110 times.
13:10
So there's a reason why, and we need to think about that if we can understand, what is the difference? What's the variance in this? So I'm going to just run through these verses real quick.
13:22
That's why I decided to write them on the board.
13:24
I'm going to read them, and if you want, you can follow up.
13:27
But here's where the word more is in the thought of faults or moving away from the truth.
13:36
In Colossians chapter 2, it says, And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses.
13:50
And there, that word is that word paratoma.
13:54
In Ephesians 1, it says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
14:00
And it uses, and this is the new conjunction, it says sins there, but it really is the same word that's translated in James and in a lot of these other sections that we'll read for the word trespasses.
14:15
And here's one, and maybe we'll just look at this one real quick.
14:18
Go to Ephesians chapter 2.
14:20
I just want to show you something.
14:23
Again, you might not think this is that important, but nevertheless, God's word is not inserted by mistake.
14:31
God uses the exact words to convey exact meanings.
14:35
And here's one that's interesting.
14:37
In Ephesians 2, 1, And you have he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.
14:49
And here's where two different words are used.
14:52
The first word trespasses, paratoma, and the second word, where it says and sins, is hamati.
14:58
So again, there's a reason why these words are translated the way they are, and they're different words in the Greek.
15:08
And so, and I won't, I don't want to make that strong of an argument about making big distinction between trespasses, faults, and sins.
15:23
It's an offense to God, right? So I wanted us to think about that.
15:28
Mike, can you add anything to that? Do you want to add anything to that? No.
15:32
The trespasses and sins, in my understanding, is trying to convey all of our shortcomings and all of our mediations of what God has required.
15:44
So it leaves no room for you to go, well, I didn't know this way, but I knew this.
15:48
The sins always has to do with you knew what was right to do and did not trespass, which means you may have just gone, kind of leave the idea, well, I just got off the track.
15:56
Right, right.
15:57
Just saying, they're all the same in God's eyes.
16:00
They're all the same because they're all offense, right? In that sense, all sin is what? Missing the mark, right? And the mark being absolute holiness, right? Pure.
16:14
But it is interesting that they use the word, and I think it will bear witness as we go back to James 5 and we talk about confessing our faults to one another, and I think that's where, again, I would be able to support what I said about the doctrine of the Roman church, that we've got to be careful how we confess to one another.
16:39
I think you need to be careful what it is that we're confessing to one another, and the basis for that confession.
16:46
That it's not just, again, I don't need anybody to, in that sense, forgive me for my sins, because Christ has already what? Forgiven my sins.
16:56
And yet, even as John says in his epistles, if we say we have no sin, what? We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
17:05
But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
17:13
So, I thought this was an interesting verse to see the contrast between the two of those words.
17:19
And while we're in Ephesians, if you're reading verse 5 there, and it says, even when we were dead in trespasses, and there is that word, again, paratoma, it's not the normal word, hamatia.
17:33
So, all I'm trying to do is demonstrate how these things are laid out in the scriptures.
17:38
Okay, one more on that.
17:40
I want you to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 for a minute.
17:45
2 Corinthians chapter 5, and I'm going to read one more verse.
17:50
It is verse 19.
17:54
But I'll start at verse 18.
17:57
Now, all things are a God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
18:04
That is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them.
18:12
And has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
18:16
And that word, that trespass, is that word paratoma.
18:20
And so you see that that's why I don't want to make that great a distinction between the word hamatia, which is the predominant word for sin, and paratoma, because there's been reconciliation in that sense, and I think what Brother Mike said ties them together.
18:38
It's any deviation, or every deviation, right? So, we need to be reconciled to God because of every sin, right? Not just any sin or one particular sin.
18:51
And that's another thing, and I don't want to...
18:54
I mean, I like to at least try to mention some of the things that people teach, but how the Roman Catholic Church makes a division of sin, right? What do they have, anybody know their major categories? Mortal and venial.
19:12
And you can be forgiven for a...
19:15
Man, that's a wild joke.
19:18
You can be forgiven for a venial sin, but there's no repentance from a mortal sin.
19:23
And they have a whole list of mortal sins.
19:25
And if you commit those mortal sins, you're gone.
19:30
Venial sins, even if you have to spend a couple of million years in purgatory, you'll be able to work them off because you get some extra credit from the saints.
19:40
I mean, it gets worse and worse and worse as you go through the adopted system.
19:44
If you're over a certain age, you don't have to get a confession unless you've sinned some big sins.
19:53
That's what somebody told me.
19:55
It goes.
19:56
You mean senior citizens don't have to confess their sins? Get a senior citizen discount.
20:02
You can go early.
20:03
You can go early, too.
20:04
Sister, I've never heard that.
20:07
That might very well be true.
20:08
Well, they might have modernized, because the Roman Church is good for bringing things up to speed.
20:13
But, hey, listen, once you hit 65, you're home free, right? Some states are 62.
20:23
Yeah, I've not had that told me, or I've never heard that.
20:30
But that might very well be true.
20:31
Okay, real quick then, before we go back to this confessing, what it really means, I want to look at how the word comitia is used.
20:41
And, again, it's the predominant word.
20:44
It's like four times more.
20:47
No, it's used four times more than the other word.
20:51
In Matthew 121, you don't have to turn there.
20:54
And she shall bring forth a son, he shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
20:59
And there's that word comitia.
21:01
It's not the word peritoneum.
21:04
As I read to you in Ephesians where it said that, in 1 John it says, If we say we have no sin, and that's the word comitia, we deceive ourselves that the truth is not in us.
21:19
Okay, now, I want you to go back to the book of James for a minute.
21:23
And we'll try to stay there for a minute.
21:26
So I want to show you, and I thought it was interesting as I was working through this, even before I got to the idea of confessing to one another, that James uses the word comitia much more than he uses this word.
21:43
Matter of fact, he very seldom uses this word, and I'll just show you real quick.
21:48
In James 1, verse 15, it says, and he's talking about temptation and trials, and then he says, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin.
22:02
And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.
22:06
That's the word comitia, not the word peritoneum.
22:10
And I thought that was interesting.
22:12
In James 2, verse 9, if you show partiality, you commit sin.
22:20
And there is that word again, comitia, missing the mark, coming short.
22:25
It's not the word that I think has more of the idea, I think Brother Mike mentioned, of falling out of the way you should be.
22:37
It's not just a deviation, it's totally missing the mark.
22:41
And James uses it more often than not.
22:45
In James chapter 4, again he uses the word.
22:50
In verse 17, he says, therefore, to him who knows to do good, and does it not to him, it's sin, comitia.
23:03
And so, when you come to James chapter 5, and what's interesting, even in the fifth chapter, if you read verse 15, it says, the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he's committed sins, and the word is comitia.
23:23
And then, he switches the word in verse 16.
23:30
So, if he's committed sins, comitia, then verse 16, confess your trespasses to one another, and the word is peritoneum.
23:39
So, James is very careful, by the inspiration of God, to use words, and although there is, don't want to make a clear dichotomy, of those two words, yet they carry shades of thought and truth, that you and I need to be aware of.
23:58
And I think it will help us, as we try to understand what this word, what the point is.
24:07
Okay, so, having said that, I want to consider next, confess your trespasses to one another.
24:17
What does that really mean? Or, let me ask you first, what does it mean to confess? To open your mouth and say something.
24:33
It means to recognize that we have sinned, and to admit that.
24:40
Yeah, and I think those, what Mike said, and what you said, if you put them together, that's the definition of it.
24:47
It's not only to open our mouths, but it's to acknowledge the sin, and to do, it actually has the idea of doing it publicly.
24:59
And I think that's important for us.
25:01
That when we start to think about, because, which one of us want to go around this morning and confess all our faults to one another? If there's any takers, please, you're on tape, come up here.
25:14
None of us really want to do that.
25:15
Does anyone here really want to confess our faults from yesterday, in front of this whole class? Well then, what does it mean when it says confess to one another? Let's think about that, but first, let me ask you to think about this whole idea of confessing.
25:35
It really means to open your mouth and make a public confession.
25:39
I think that will help us understand it, especially in the context as we will look at this.
25:46
So, a couple of verses where it talks about confessing, and when they were baptized by John, it says, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
26:01
What did they do? They made it a public confession that they needed what? Forgiveness.
26:10
This idea of confession is not this secret thing, but it rather is the thought that we ought to, in that sense, under certain circumstances and in certain ways, we ought to publicly make it known of our sins, our faults, our, you know the words that people use for sin, mistakes, my bads, bruh bros, you know, all the words that people want to, and we try to dilute it, right? If you think about that, much of the language that's used today seeks to do that, right, to dilute sin so it's not as offensive, so it's not my bad, I confess my bad.
26:59
I know I confess my bad, but we kind of take in the sting out of it.
27:06
The sting should be in there, even as it says, they came and they publicly professed that they had need of forgiveness.
27:15
In Romans 14, it says, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess, right? So, in that day, when it says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, guess what? It's going to be publicly known.
27:35
It's not something where people are going to have this private session.
27:40
That's another thing that always scared me about going into that little dark booth, because I, even before I knew Christ, I knew that that priest on the other side, that dude was as bad as I was, if not worse.
27:53
I can't imagine what's in his head, how can he hear everything else that everybody else has to say? But, the whole idea is that in that day, it's not something, remember what Jesus said? He said, every thought will be revealed.
28:08
Everything will be made manifest.
28:10
There will be a proclamation of people's hearts, people's minds, and people's actions.
28:21
We'll just stop for a minute, and this is a little side note.
28:24
Think of that.
28:26
Think of that day when everyone's thoughts are manifest.
28:33
Think of that thought in that day when everyone's thoughts are manifest, and they have no one to be their advocate.
28:44
No one to represent, no one to defend, no one to stand in the gap.
28:50
Can you imagine what that will be in that day? Anyway, that's one word confessors use.
29:02
Okay, so, what does this mean then? I've been kind of working around it, but let's just talk for a couple minutes.
29:08
What does it mean then to confess your trespasses to one another? Is it simply where, you know, my wife asked me to do something, and I didn't do it, and so I confessed to her? Sorry, baby.
29:28
It's all right, I've got a list.
29:31
I've got a list, too.
29:35
What does that mean? Come on, confess to one another.
29:38
What are we supposed to do? In these one another's, and I wanted to, and I'm going to go back to it and read this quote, but I wanted us to think, because there's a point to having studied for the last five months these one another's.
29:52
It wasn't just to fill up time.
29:55
If you think of all the one another's that we have done, it's to help us to understand our union with Christ and our union with one another, and that we would learn as we work through these one another's and as we progress in these one another's to be more, not only like Christ, but to have more unity of mind and spirit with one another.
30:19
Remember this quote I read to you at the very beginning.
30:22
It's by A.W.
30:22
Tozer.
30:23
I don't read too much Tozer, but he had said this, and I wanted to remind you of this.
30:30
He said, So 100 worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ and in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.
31:10
You understand what he's saying? He's saying that the best way to come closer to one another is to be closer to Christ, right? 100 pianos are tuned to a standard four, and that sound, that note, will help unify all the other pianos much more than if the pianos try to just get in line with one another.
31:46
And I think that's a pretty amazing statement, and I think that's one of the things about these one another's that I've enjoyed that we really begin to understand, and I'll say it this way.
32:00
A lone ranger Christian is a scary thing and a dangerous thing.
32:07
I often think about when Jesus uses the analogy of sheep and shepherds and how if you were a wolf, which ones do you chase first? A brother of mine has probably seen the animal shows.
32:26
I'm going to remind you about his favorite animal show.
32:29
Remember what it was? It's the leopard kicking the feet out from the poor little antelope and ripping them apart while he's reading Septuagint.
32:39
But just think about it.
32:41
A sheep set off by itself is easy prey for the wolves.
32:47
And it's so important for us because it's easy to be that lone sheep.
32:54
Then you really don't have to deal with a lot of these one another issues.
32:59
But the importance of it is brothers and sisters, we need each other much more than we realize.
33:05
And if you think about it, had we not needed one another, God would never have set it up the way he has established it.
33:13
So again, I'm going to go back to what does it mean to confess your trespasses to one another? Well, that's immediate context.
33:21
We can back up and just go through the book.
33:25
One, you can say in chapter four, they were lusting and they were committing murder against one another.
33:31
It doesn't always mean actually stabbing someone to death.
33:34
They were going into their own jealous desires.
33:40
Then you can go to James 5 and it immediately talks about how they, you taught on it just a couple of weeks ago, they were mistreating one another with gold and silver and they weren't paying the laborers.
33:53
So it's a mistreatment that was known among the Christian community that they should confess to one another.
34:00
And then right here, it said, you know, don't complain.
34:02
Well, we can't just don't complain against one another.
34:05
So you need to start confessing those who you've been grumbling against.
34:08
For public sins that he's talking about.
34:10
Yeah, and really, and Brother Mike taught on this in the idea of when he was teaching on forgiveness, that I really think that this section mainly deals with, and you could back up and we'll talk more about it next week, with the idea of prayer, but is anyone, verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? And here's an interesting thought, just follow the text.
34:36
Let him pray, okay? Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing songs.
34:44
Is anyone sick? Let him call for the elders or her.
34:48
Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him, and the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up, and if he has committed sins.
34:59
So I think the understanding could very well be that this idea of confessing our trespasses has much to do with when we've sinned against a brother or a sister.
35:13
And that it's our responsibility, and you remember when Brother Mike was teaching on forgiveness, forgiveness really entails what? Is it just, I'm sorry, what else is involved? It's confessing what you've done as being wrong.
35:30
Right, there has to be, first there has to be reconciliation, right? You have to lay it out there.
35:39
Then there has to be restoration.
35:41
You can't have restoration until you first have that issue brought to the surface.
35:47
Again, it's not just a matter of, I'm sorry, my bad.
35:51
It has to do with, I believe, when we know to confess our sins, confess our trespasses, and it's our faults, it's our deviations of truth that you and I have this responsibility to be those who are willing to confess to one another when we've offended one another.
36:12
So if I've offended Sister Roseanne, I have the responsibility to come to her, and in that sense to confess to her that I've offended her.
36:23
Or if she comes to me and says, you've offended me, and I truly have, then I have to be the one to come to her and say, I have to confess to her.
36:34
I have to make it public.
36:36
That doesn't mean I'm going to stand up on a pulpit and announce it to the whole congregation, but it's certainly something that I would have to deal with with Sister Roseanne.
36:47
Even when you don't have a sin between brothers and you just have a sin within yourself, if you confess it to your brother or your sister, they're having the same struggles as you are.
36:58
They have their own sin, and then you don't become that lone ranger Christian.
37:03
You're not by yourself thinking, oh, I'm the only one in this world that's having this sin problem, which is a tool of Satan.
37:10
I'm glad I picked on you because I'm glad you said that because there is a second way to understand it, and I think it's exactly what Sister Roseanne has said, that you and I ought to be of such a mind that we realize our own frailties, we realize our own...
37:31
I was almost going to say shortcomings.
37:33
I was almost going to do the very thing I should have done.
37:36
But we realize our own sinful tendencies and propensities and that we are of such a mind that at times we are willing to confess because, as we'll see next week, right, if it says confess your trespasses to one another, what does it say? Pray for one another, right? So do we not do that? I mean, we ought to do that.
37:59
Am I so settled in Christ that I have the ability to come and not be forced, not be...
38:11
Because many people will say, I did it when the hand's in the cookie jar, right? They got caught.
38:19
How many people will confess after they what? Got caught, right? Not very will confess before they get caught, right? So I have to be aware of my union with Christ and my union with you, and I have to be of such a mind that I would be willing to confess to you publicly, outwardly, that I'm offended, or even in that sense, that I believe you offended me.
38:52
And I don't want to go back too much into that thought because we'll get back into this whole area of forgiveness, but suffice it to say that I think it comes to a matter of humility.
39:05
How many...
39:05
let me ask you this, how many of us would say it's hard for us to say, I'm sorry? Anybody? I would like to see by a show of hands, how many people struggle with saying, I'm sorry? Okay.
39:25
All right.
39:28
Some of you are so spiritual that you don't...
39:32
But it really is a reality, brothers and sisters, and again, that's why I said this whole thing about...
39:38
I read that quote from Tilda, a hundred pianos tuned to the same fork will get closer to each other than a hundred pianos trying to tune themselves and get in line.
39:49
And that you and I would have this idea in our minds that although ultimately all our confession is before God, right, and although much of the things that we confess are between us and God, when it comes to where we have trespassed against another, that we are of such a mind and such a heart and of such humility that we're able to come to one another and say, and confess it, make it public.
40:22
And again, that is in no way what the Catholic Church is doing with confession, by the way, right? But it's certainly something that we should do because the reality is it's all about union.
40:36
It's all about our union with Christ and our union with each other.
40:40
And I'm closing with...
40:41
Remember when Jesus talked about it in John? Again, you read John 13, 14, 15, 16, and one of the great emphases to those chapters is what? I am the father of one.
40:55
I am the father in union.
40:57
You are in union with me because I'm in union with the father.
41:02
And then he even talks about the spirit coming and the spirit will bring Christ to us.
41:07
Remember he says, I won't leave you often.
41:09
I will come to you, and there's this union after.
41:12
And you and I, if you think about it, ask yourself this question as we go for this morning.
41:20
Are you becoming more in union, first of all, with God, through Christ by spirit, and then with one another, or less? And I would say if you can't match those up, then something's not right.
41:38
Because we should be growing in grace and in the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of God is not just our relationship with God.
41:50
It's our relationship with God's people because remember, Christ died for who? The church.
41:57
And that concept is greatly misunderstood and greatly misaligned and greatly misused.
42:05
And again, that fosters this whole idea of I could just be alone somewhere on a mountain with God.
42:11
And I submit to you that's not really why the church was established.
42:17
All right, let's just close with a word of prayer.
42:22
Well, thank you for this morning.
42:23
Thank you for your truth, Lord.
42:25
Help us to understand more and more of your word, and not only what it says, but the depth of it, the height of it, the breadth of it, the length of it.
42:33
Thank you more than anything else, Lord, for the love of Christ, that even when we were dead in sins and trespasses, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have been reconciled to you, and that you are the one who continually washes us and cleanses us from all our sins.
42:53
Thank you for Christ.
42:54
Amen.