CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE
JAMES 5:16-20
James 5 16-20
16] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
[17] Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
[18] And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
[19] Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;
[20] Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
There are perhaps no more humbling words in the life of every child of God than “Confession,” and “Repentance.” Confession very simply means to admit that we have sinned against God or our neighbor. Yet confession is worthless without repentance. There is no value in saying, “I know I have done wrong,” if this isn’t followed by, “But I am sorry and ask for forgiveness.” Confession is not easy! Our in-born pride makes it very difficult for any of us to admit at any time that we are wrong, that we have sinned. That is why we need God’s holy law to crush our self-righteousness and to keep us aware that we sin every day by thought, word, and deed. What makes confession good for the soul is that it removes shame and guilt from our hearts. It gives us a clean conscience because it assures us that God has laid the guilt of our sins on His own dear Son. The Apostle John writes; If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
Confession is a part of our Sunday service. Every Sunday we repeat: “I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord,” followed by a very personal acknowledgement that we are unworthy creatures, by nature sinful and unclean. That is only half of it. Together with our fellow-believers we go on to plead that God, for the sake of His only-begotten Son, would have mercy upon us. Can there be any better news than the words that follow as the pastor assures us that God has forgiven us all our sins? If that were all that we got out of a church service, it is enough to send us on our way with happy hearts: O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8
The Catechism speaks of another kind of confession, too. It speaks of a personal confession whereby we lay before the pastor “those sins only which we know and feel in our hearts.” If there is a sin that you can’t get out of your mind; a sin that seems to haunt you perhaps to the point that you almost question your own forgiveness, don’t go about with a guilty conscience. Instead, open your heart privately to the pastor whom you have called to pronounce the forgiveness that Christ Himself speaks to every repentant sinner: Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. Matthew 9:2
Our text for this morning opens a new dimension for confession when it says, Confess your faults one to another. Not only can the pastor hear confession. Not only can the pastor pronounce absolution. Christ has given the keys that lock or unlock heaven to the church, to you and me and to every child of God as the Savior said. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19. You and I are priests and kings before God. Listen to St. John: Jesus has redeemed us by His own blood and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: Revelation 5:10. We have the right and the privilege not only to let our light shine, to tell others about our Savior, and to show in our words and actions what it means to be a child of God. We also have the privilege to share our faults with each other. Every Christian is a priest to whom even a pastor may confess. Many times, we might feel more at ease confessing our faults with another child of God just because we know that person. We know that he or she has weaknesses and faults just as we have and we trust them to help us search our Bibles for the answer of forgiveness.
Let me ask you, are you really up to hearing one another’s faults? Don’t you and I have enough problems in our own lives? If we feel that way, we need to remember that all comfort is from above. It is in our great High Priest on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens Hebrews 8:1 that we find forgiveness, and it is to Him that we carry one another’s faults; it is on Him that we cast all our cares, because he cares for us-1 Peter 5:7. Though we may possess a faith smaller than a grain of mustard seed, we need never be afraid to carry our petitions to the throne above, for the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We don’t need to be synodical officials; we don’t need to be pastors; we don’t to be members of the church council; we don’t even need a prayer chain. The prayer of one righteous person can do it all. Any man or woman made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ not only has access to the heavenly throne, but has the promise of God Himself that He hears every prayer and will answer each according to His good and gracious will.
Consider Elijah of the Old Testament. He prayed God to bring a famine on the land of Canaan as a punishment to wicked King Ahab. We read; He said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years. 1 Kings 17:1. And it didn’t rain. Only after 3 years and 6 months of drought, again in answer to the prayer of Elijah, did it start to rain again. Moreover, consider Abraham, who prayed that God would spare the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction because his nephew lived there. In his final prayer, he asked: Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there to which God replied: I will not destroy it for ten's sake. Genesis 18:32. In answer to the prayer of a single righteous man, God would spare a whole city or change the course of the weather.
One might argue, these were great men of God, Elijah and Abraham, but what about sinners like you and me? The text carefully reminds us that both Elijah and Abraham were human beings with like passions as we have. They had their moments of doubt and discouragement. In fact, one time Elijah was so depressed because his preaching seemed to be ineffective, that he went out in the wilderness and prayed God to take his life! But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I [am] not better than my fathers. 1 Kings 19:4. God was his Confessor. God heard his prayer and gave him an appropriate answer when He told him, “Quit thinking about you and go back to work preaching the Gospel.”
You and I, too, have problems! How could it be any other way for sinful mortals living in a world surrounded by the lies of the devil, and believe me, he is a liar. When we are sick or in pain, how easy it is to question the goodness of our heavenly Father by asking: “Why does God let this happen to me”? When we have grown cold in our prayer-life or indifferent about attending divine services, how easy it is to insist that our way is right and God is only spoiling our pleasures and happiness. None of us is immune: Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12
That is why all of us need each other. We need to be reminded that more important than what we want for ourselves is what God wants for us. Sometimes a single word will make a difference to one living in sin; sometimes we need to sit down and honestly talk about it. Just as important as what we say is how we say it! It doesn’t work to speak in pride with a better-than-thou attitude, but to speak as fellow-believers who love each other, for love does wonderful things. It leads us to warn against the dangers of unrepentant sin, and it leads us to find our forgiveness in Jesus Christ, who blots out every sin. Listen to the prophet Isaiah: I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25 Moreover, if our heavenly Father does not remember our sins any longer, how much more should not we, His children, completely blot out of our minds the sins and faults of those who seek forgiveness. That is how true love acts, says St. Peter. And above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8.
If, by the grace of God, you lead a brother or sister to confess their error and in repentance to ask our Lord for forgiveness, you have saved a soul from death. The world lauds and praises those who save others from death in this life. We call them heroes and give them medals. Infinitely greater is it when an immortal soul is turned from eternal death to everlasting life. The credit for that belongs to God; the privilege belongs to you and me.
Preached by Pastor Robert Dommer on October 7, 2007