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Muskegon SDA Church

Steps to Christ

Kameron DeVasher

Repentance

Confession

Consecration

Faith and Acceptance

Royce Snyman

The Test of Discipleship

Daniel Jean-Francois

Growing Up Into Christ

The Work and the Life

A Knowledge of God

The Privilege of Prayer

What to Do With Doubt

As you are likely aware by now, our current quarter study, we're going through the process of Steps to Christ, as outlined in that great little book, which if you don't have a copy, is available on the back at the resource desk whenever you're at the conclusion of our service today.

And A couple of ideas is why I plan to have this particular series.

First of all, it's very easy to get caught up into grand, lofty, large theological themes and doctrinal concepts when sometimes we need a refresher course over the most basic elements of Christianity 101.

What does it mean to have a walk with Christ and how can I make it better or how can I start 1 if I don't have 1 at all?

And secondly, tied to that, corollary to that, is the need for practical messages.

I'm more and more convinced that our preaching needs to be more teaching than preaching.

And though we need to have big ideas, we need to be able to put feet on our faith or legs on our lessons, if you will, and make it practical.

So how do I actually go about doing these grand lofty things that we talked about?

So in this process, we've seen first of all that God loves us We don't come to him because we love him, but we love him because he first loved us and he draws us to him Then we recognize our need for him as the Holy Spirit works on our heart and it develops through the power of the Holy Spirit a sense of Genuine repentance not just sorry that we got caught or fear of punishment or helpful for a reward but genuine I don't want to be causing pain to the Lord.

And last week we looked at the experience of Balaam and how it demonstrated not genuine repentance.

And then the obvious next step, or hopefully it should be obvious, or what we're going to be talking about today, is now that you feel this sense of genuine contrition, genuine sorrow for sin, genuine repentance, what do you do with it?

Which leads us to the very next step to Christ, which is confession.

But before we do any study of God's Word, of course, let's begin with prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for a day of life at all, and particularly a day of Sabbath rest, fellowship, worship, and service.

And Lord, as we turn our attention to a study of your Word today, we ask that you send the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts, to sharpen our minds, and to give us what we need today, not only to be blessed, but also be a blessing to others.

Help us to understand genuine confession, teach us how to do it.

James chapter 5 is often read, in fact, almost exclusively read in the context of people being ill and needing prayer and anointing But I want you to notice I want you to notice something here that James picks up on which is honestly a template of Jesus ministry He just writes it down here for us James chapter 5 starting with verse 13 Again this is a very practical book James is all about practicality.

He says in verse 13, Is anyone among you suffering?

Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

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 You notice the connection between physical healing and spiritual restoration This is always noticed in Christ ministry as well Every time he Would give someone a physical healing would also tie that to the forgiveness of sins that is available Just in the same way this physical healing was made available It was an object lesson while of course God wants us to be physically healed and I believe that the Lord has the power to do That it's up to his discretion whether he will or not and even if he were to heal every disease at some point we have the big end of death coming until Jesus comes again But what he assures us here is that if we've committed sins it will be forgiven and then it gives us this counsel in verse 16 confess your trans trespasses to 1 another and pray for 1 another that you may be healed.

So again, the spiritual is tied to the physical and it involves confession of sin.

We think of it, any time we've done something wrong, very simply as fessing up, right?

And as simple as it is to say, just say what you've done wrong, admit your sin, and ask for forgiveness.

It's an old-fashioned, nuts and bolts, simple apology.

And it's extraordinarily easy to say, But it's very, very difficult sometimes to do.

In fact, I partially blame it on the society and technology available these days, but in our 24-7 news cycle, in our interconnected world of technology and social media, everything and anything we do is watched far more than it ever is.

We see people do things, we hear people do things, we know more about people and their everyday moment-to-moment life than we ever knew before.

And the more you see people, you more the recognize that people do bad things.

Now, this is particularly difficult in the world of well-known people or celebrities or famous people.

You think a politician sometimes get caught doing things that are not right.

And the circumstance forces out an apology.

And I don't know if you've noticed lately, but my ears kind of perk up when someone of well-renowned is by circumstance forced to confess their wrongdoing.

I listen carefully for what they actually say.

In fact, there is now a term called the non-apology apology where you try to say that you're sorry but you don't actually confess that you're wrong and try to get out of trouble that the spotlight put you in.

A non-apology apology is a statement that has the form of an apology but does not express the expected contrition.

It is common in both politics and public relations.

It's, yes, I figured there'd be an amen there.

It most commonly entails the speaker saying that he or she is sorry not for a behavior, statement, or misdeed, but rather is sorry only because a person who has been aggrieved is requesting the apology, expressing a grievance, or is threatening some form of retribution or retaliation.

And it might take the form of something like this.

Oh I'm sorry you feel that way If my actions have made anyone uncomfortable, I sincerely apologize.

So today we're going to try to make this practical.

As simple as it sounds, just confess that you're wrong, ask for forgiveness, say that you're sorry, Admit your guilt.

Sometimes it's very difficult for us to do that very simple thing.

So what I want to give you today is a very simple four-step watch list, okay, of ways to know that you might be veering into the non-apology apology and how to write the course, okay?

First of all, be careful that your apology is actually specific.

You'll notice that there are many non-specific confessions of wrongdoing.

1 of the telltale signs in an apology as insincere is that there is no specificity about the transgression itself.

It speaks of the results of the sin, the impression that it gave, but the wrong itself is never specifically or clearly acknowledged.

Yet we read in Steps to Christ, page 37, true confession is always of a specific character and acknowledges particular sins.

And it's so easy not to do that because I don't want to say what I've actually done.

I really don't even feel that it was particularly wrong, but I just want to get out of trouble.

And so, out comes something very vague, very general, very opaque that we hope will cover all the bases, get everybody calmed down and get out.

She continues, they may be of such a nature as to be brought before God only." Now, be clear about this.

There are some things you shouldn't confess to me.

If you haven't done something wrong to me, don't tell me about it.

You should go to the wrong 1 you've actually wronged.

And many times, the 1 we've wronged is the Lord Himself.

In fact, even if you recall David's transgression, he said, Against you and you only have I sinned.

Potiphar was making her immoral advances to Joseph in Potiphar's house.

He said, how can I do such a thing and sin against God?

You would think that his only highest authority would be Potiphar himself, but he said, No, no, this all goes to God himself.

So every sin is a transgression of God's law, so we have a wrong against God.

And many times the wrong is merely or only, it's exclusively to the Lord.

And those things which are between you and the Lord should stay between you and the Lord.

Now you should have a conversation with the Lord, but not with everybody else.

I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but I've been in some occasions where people start confessing things that don't have anything to do with me, and it gets very awkward and very tense.

Like, that's between you and someone else, or maybe just you and the Lord, but it should be specific when you do.

So there's some things that are before God only.

Next, they may be wrongs that should be confessed to individuals who have suffered injury through them.

Series

Steps to Christ

Confession

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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