The Beauty of Confession
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16
Do you have any deep dark sin that you hope nobody finds out about? Be honest! Do you have any sin that you hope that nobody finds out about? It doesn’t have a be a deep dark sin. It can be a sin that we see as small but would still be embarrassed if people knew out about it. God’s antidote to hidden sin is confession to another person.
We as Protestants tend to cringe at the idea of confession because we associate it with the Catholic church. I think we have let the pendulum swing too far the other way. We place such a high emphasis on private confession that we neglect the grace of confession to another person. Private confession is great and should be done but we miss out on blessings because we don’t reveal our sin to a brother or sister in Christ.
James 5:16 is a beautiful verse because it shows us what it looks like to be in gospel community. It looks like confession and prayer. It looks like vulnerability and forgiveness. It looks like mercy and grace. It looks like a bunch of broken people helping other broken people.
The context of James 5:16
Prior to James telling people to confess their sins to each other, he is talking about the power of prayer. Those who are suffering should pray. Those who are cheerful should praise. The sick should call for the elders to pray for them because the prayer of faith will bring healing. Prayer does something! God hears our prayers and answers them! It may not always be in the way we want but He answers them.
As James is talking about praying for the sick, he says “and if this person has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” This helps us understand the context for verse 16. We are told to confess to one another and pray for one another because confession leads to forgiveness, and prayer has great power in helping us put sin to death.
Confession isn’t what saves us! Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection is what saves us. Our profession of faith in Christ is how we have redemption and forgiveness of our sin. Confession of sin to another person doesn’t save us, but it reveals a heart that has already been changed by Christ. Confession without Christ being our Lord and Savior leads to works-based salvation and removes Christ from the equation. Many people think they can confess to a priest, and all is forgiven. Then they go back to living like king of their own life. This is not what James has in mind.
The Power of Confession
In the summer of 2010, I started dating Kayleen and Satan was reminding me of all my past relationship failures. I had confessed my past sin to God, but I still didn’t want anybody else to know. One night it was so overwhelming that I paused a movie that a few friends and I were watching and said, “I need to confess something.” I thought they were going to disown me. I thought they were going to confirm all the things I was believing about myself. Instead, they reminded me of the gospel, and prayed for me. Suddenly it felt like a burden was gone.
Confession to one another will free you from the burden that you must do this Christian life on your own. At that moment, I recruited 3 other guys to hold me accountable and help me kill the sin in my life. Joe Rigney illustrates this by imagining sin as a monster in the middle of the room that you are trying to kill by throwing rocks at it. The monster will eventually die but how much faster will it die if you recruit other people to stand around the monster and throw rocks with you?
The Power of Prayer
Confession and prayer are closely linked. Some of the rocks that are thrown at the monster will be prayers to a God who can take out the monster in one blow. It often doesn’t happen like that, but those prayers may give you strength to throw one more rock. Those prayers may weaken the monster so you can start winning the fight. Those prayers may be someone else throwing a rock when you don’t have the energy to throw another one.
A Song of praise.
The defeat of sin leads us back to James 5:13. Is anyone suffering? Pray! Is anyone cheerful? Praise! The suffering of sin will come to an end which leads to a song of praise. There will still be other sin monsters to kill , but the death of one can lead us to celebrate the victory that the Lord brought about. These victories are not easy, but they are glorious. Invite others to help you fight, and sing songs of praise with you.
If you are stuck in sin, I challenge you take that first step of reaching out to others to help, get you unstuck. Not everybody needs to know your deepest darkest sin but someone else should know. Don’t let it grow in the darkness but bring it to light so you and some friends can kill it.
You have the freedom to ask me what my current sins are and what I am struggling with. I would love to have you help me in the fight. I desire your prayers for me. We can always rejoice together and sing “for our sins they are many but His mercy is more.”