So onto my second talk. There's a few spots in the middle of this talk that I really hope some of you will take some time to think about and comment on. I'm not sure if I've got it all right when it comes to how this life of faith is hard, how our struggle against our sinful flesh and our desire for God is played out. If you only read part please read that part and let me know what you think.
I know I'm dumping a lot of content on here in rapid succession, but I'm speaking this next week, so I'm trying to get it on here as I finish it.
Here we go:
Tonight we’re going to hit a few topics. I really am enjoying these talks because in preparing them, they’ve allowed me to take everything I’ve learned from the past four years and process it and think it through.
First we’re going to talk about forgiveness from sin. In preparing this talk I realized I had a lot unconfused sin in my own life. That’s sort of disconcerting when you’re preparing to speak for God to you guys. But realizing it was good because two things happened. One I had to deal with some sin in my life. The other I realized that this week there is no one better then a recent college graduate and confessed sinner to speak to you today.
In a bit we’re going to have some time at the end to confess our sins before God. But I want to talk about why confession is so important. I’ve grown up Protestant, so I believe confession is direct with God. I would encourage anyone who feels confession must be through a priest to join with us tonight and then later tonight take the time to confess with your priest.
I’m not going to talk a lot about sin itself tonight because I don’t have much to say about sin, except it necessitates a lot of things in our relationship with God. Don’t get me wrong sin is devastating. It will always have consequences whether internal or external. So that to me begs the question of how do we deal with sin in our lives?
Well if Jesus came to die so that we could be forgiven, then if we have accepted Him as our Savior from sin then we never sin anymore correct? If anyone tells you that I would tell him he is a liar. 1 John 1:10 says “If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in our lives.” If we say that we don’t sin, or hypothetically if we stopped sinning on our own, we stop needing God. It just doesn’t work that way.
God has a process called sanctification which over our lifetime growth in faith, He through the Holy Spirit, and our dependence on Him, He will make us holy in our actions. But this is not of our own power. This is through our faith in Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I’m saving the Holy Spirit for tomorrow, so you guys will have to come back.
So let’s go back to forgiveness. So we sin. Even though we have surrendered control of our lives to Christ, there is still sin in our life. This is probably one of the most frustrating parts of living the life of following Christ. Even the great Paul admits his frustrations here. In Romans 7:14-25 we have almost verbatim what every believer goes through in his or her mind at some point in their life.
“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Ok that’s really long, but my junior year in the fall I remember thinking along these lines. Asking God why in the world did I want to follow Him but not seem to actually be doing it? I remember distinctly thinking, isn’t this supposed to be easy? I don’t know where I got that. I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not easy. Jesus tells us it won’t be. We’ve picked the narrow gate, the narrow path that many people fall off of. It’s not advertised as easy. Jesus does say my yoke is easy and my burden is light, but we are also told me must die to ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him. He also promises that the world will hate us.
Let me clarify a second. Living out God’s Plan for our lives will be rewarding, it will flow and we will be carried by the Holy Spirit, and it will never be harder than we can handle. What will be hard is the internal battle we will have with our selfish desires of the flesh and our desire to seek after God. I may have bitten off more then I can chew in here theologically. I don’t know how this part all works, remaining in God’s will, being free from sin and yet battling sin daily. All I can tell you is from my experience it will be hard. You’re going to need help, both from God and from others.
So let’s go back to forgiveness. Good news, if you’ve accepted Christ as your savior you are already forgiven. So why do we do confession? We’re already forgiven right? Yes, but similar to the gift of salvation, we must claim that forgiveness. Confession is essential to our relationship with God, because it is a humbling process that brings us to our knees before God. It acknowledges our dependence on Him. Bill Bright the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ describes confession as, “an expression of faith and an act of obedience, which results in God making real in your experience what He has already done for you through the death of His Son.”
A brief side note. The reason I refer to Bill Bright so much is that as part of my training for
When we don’t confess our sin, we are in effect hiding from God. Think back to when we were kids. We all did something bad, and inevitably our parents found out. Remember the times before you got punished, before your parents came and talked to you, but you knew they knew? It was terrible. When I grew up my parents will tell you our household had a devious character named “Bad Matthew” running around. I’ll tell you he was a scoundrel. If something got spilled or broken, it was a lot easier to tell my parents when Bad Matthew did it and not me. I didn’t know it, but my parents did, these were my first feeble attempts at confession.
Like any relationship unconfessed sin halts our relationship with God. Not because God stops loving us. No we are righteous in His sight. But from our end, how can we seek after God and abide in His love, when we are slinking around trying to avoid being caught, or walking on our tip toes afraid of doing something wrong.
Confession is a process of restoration. It involves (power point slide here!!!) agreeing that your sins are wrong and grieving to God. Sin is real and very serious. God is Holy and sin is repulsive to Him. You must view your sin as God does, repulsive and divisive. Then you can accept the forgiveness God has already given you through the death of His Son on the cross. This is part of our continuing faith in God’s promises. We must claim His promise of forgiveness so that we can be freed in our relationship with Him. The last part is perhaps the hardest part. Repent. Change your attitude which results in a change of thoughts and action. Here is where in the Holy Spirit, and really only in the power of the Holy Spirit we can change. If we truly repent and turn away from sin, God will help us and transform our lives.
Now confession isn’t a once a month thing, or a this regularly scheduled event. We need to confess each time we become aware of our sin. This involves asking God to make us aware of our sin so that we can confess it to Him.
The verses I want to leave you with for forgiveness and confession is in 1 John1:5- 2:2. I would encourage you all the read this tonight, but certainly during lunch tomorrow at your works sites. The other thing I want to say is that when you pray be honest. If this has completely confused you, sorry it confuses me at times. But if we approach God honestly seeking His guidance He will be faithful to us. He is good and loves us.
Let me say just a few things about prayer while we’re on the subject. I hope it’s been abundantly established how much God loves you. I encourage you to think of the impact you’re having on the people you’re serving by repairing or building their house. You are a part of God showing His love to that person. That blows my mind. You’re part of His living active plan for someone else’s relationship with God. I hope it impacts you heavily. Now try to realize that the same way God is using you to love these people, God has used countless other people in your life to communicate His love to you.
The God of the Universe loves you. Everything we’ve talked about so far has been so that He can have relationship with you. He wants you to love Him. Our love for Him manifests itself in many ways. Obedience, loving each other, serving others, all are ways we love Him. But in any relationship you must communicate. God speaks to us through His Word, the people He puts in our lives, and sometimes directly to us in a variety of ways.
Prayer is the direct means we have to communicate with the Father. It’s easy to take this for granted and not realize how mind blowing this is. It’s not just words but expressing your heart, your emotions, your thoughts to God.
I saw X-men 3 with one of my friends the other day, and we were talking about all the X-men’s. I don’t know how familiar you are with the movies, but Professor Xavier has the power to read minds. But he doesn’t without permission. God doesn’t need our permission to know what’s on our hearts, what is burdening us, but He waits for us to come to Him. Why? Because He loves and respects us. God is the perfect Father. He disciplines when necessary and helps when necessary. If God were to prevent us from messing up, making mistakes, it’s like an overprotective parent who never allows their child to grow up. That’s why prayer is so vital to our relationship with God, He wants us to come to Him.
So am I going to give you a how to on prayer? Not quite. I don’t think prayer should be formulaic or programmed. However, there are some things that help us understand the nature of prayer, and like any communication there are ways we can communicate more effectively and meaningfully.
In tomorrow’s conversation starters I’ll have several verses on prayer. For time I’m not going dive deeply into them tonight, but here are several keys to prayer:
Pray continually -1 Thess. 5:17
Watch and pray - Luke 21:36
Pray with thanksgiving –Philippians 4:6 and Colossians 4:2
Pray in the Spirit – 1 Corinthians 14:15
Always pray and not give up – Luke 18:1
Pray for those in authority – 1 Timothy 2:2
Pray for Boldness – Acts 4:29
If you don’t know how to pray, ask God. Approach Him humbly and honestly. There’s an acronym to help in praying, but don’t think you’re limited to praying like this.
A-adoration- Praise God for who He is and what He has done.
C-confession- bring your sins to God, accept His forgiveness and repent
T-thanksgiving- we have so much to be thankful for. Thank God for the ways He has blessed you.
S-supplication- is the time to ask God to meet your needs and the needs of other. He want us to ask for His help.
All that said, there is nothing wrong with a prayer that says “God help me!” or “God I need you now.” He will meet you where you are. But it is vital to our relationship to daily approach God in significant conversation.
Before we close let me say one last thing about prayer. Like everything we’ve talked about pray in faith. Believe and know that God hears you and is responding to you. It may not be how you want. You may get a no, He may answer on His own time. But you must pray expectantly. Don’t hold back. Remember Jesus said to Mary, “Did I not tell you? If you believe you will see the glory of God.”
Alright, this is the closing. I want to end on Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We must approach the Father in confession to grow in our relationship with God. There is an exercise I want to do with y’all. Like most things I got this from Bill Bright, but on the piece of paper each of you already have, we’re going to take some time, Jarrod’s going to play softly in the background, and confess.
Take some time to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you how you have sinned. As they come to mind list your sins. All of them. Don’t look at any one else’s and no one will look at yours. You can cover your paper if you want to. This is between you and God, and complete openness is very important. Maybe your sin doesn’t seem large, it just seems like you have small stuff. Ask the Spirit to reveal it all to you. Carrying 50 smaller rocks is just as paralyzing as one large boulder. If you feel like you have a sin that’s too big, put your fait in Christ’s death and resurrection. He has paid your penalty and defeated sin and death. You can and must trust that God will forgive you no matter what you’ve done. God promises us this. As each sin comes to mind lift it up in prayer and confess it, accept God’s forgiveness, and repent.
(1-2 minutes)
Now what we’ll do is write across the list God’s promise. It’s up here on the screen, from 1 John 1:9. Write it boldly across the entire page. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Now destroy it. Those sins are dead. You are forgiven. I have a shredder up here. If you want you can just rip it up at your seat. Throw them away on your way out.
The last thing is to make restitution. If God reveals to you that you need to ask forgiveness from someone do it tonight. If they’re here pull them aside later when you get back to your churches and do it then. If they’re not here, call them or ask them to swing by the church. We cannot maintain a clear conscience before God if we have a guilty conscience before people.
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