A Serious
Confession
“We have come into the presence of God, who
created us to love and serve him as his dear children. But we have disobeyed him and deserve only
his wrath and punishment. Therefore, let
us confess our sins to him and plead for his mercy.” Those were some of the very first words I repeated
this morning at the beginning of our worship service. And they were a little heavy, weren’t
they? They certainly weren’t light,
happy, carefree words with which we began our worship in this house of
God! Those words were a little more
serious than that.
But then
after I said those words, we all responded together with something that was
just as serious: “Merciful Father in
heaven, I am altogether sinful from birth.
In countless ways I have sinned against you and do not deserve to be
called your child. But trusting in
Jesus, my Savior, I pray: Have mercy on me according to your unfailing
love. Cleanse me from my sin, and take
away my guilt.” Those weren’t light,
happy, carefree words either, were they?
They were serious words in a serious confession. We admitted our guilt before our God, we
verbally acknowledged that we are at the mercy of the one whom we have
wronged. What a way to start a worship
service! What a way to begin a gathering
with brothers and sisters in Christ! We
just jumped right into it, didn’t we?
There wasn’t much lead up to that confession of sins. No small talk. No pointless clichés. The moment we sat down in these chairs we got
right to business. We got serious right
away.
A Serious
Consequence
But how
seriously did you say that confession of sins?
Honestly, how seriously did you take it?
Were you even paying attention to what you were saying or did you just
say those words out loud because they were printed on the page in bold type and
that’s what you’re supposed to do when you come to those words in a
bulletin! Sometimes when I say those
words with you my mind is not where it’s supposed to be either. A lot of times I’m thinking ahead to what I
have to say next: “OK, I’m going to have to turn around at that point and then
say these specific words in this specific way, followed by the next song on the
next page…” And while I’m thinking that
I may be saying those words of confession with you, but my thoughts are far
from it. But this confession of sins
deserves a little more concentration than that, doesn’t it? It’s worth a little more time and a little
more effort. This confession is not just
a quick hello to someone in the parking lot.
This is not just a surface conversation you’re having with someone
simply to pass the time. This is not just
another item to check off of the worship list so that we can move onto the next
part. A confession of sins is a little
more serious than that. Because God
himself takes sin seriously.
James
took sins seriously too. James was
writing to a group of Christians who apparently weren’t taking things very
seriously. They knew they were
Christians, they knew that had been given a lot of freedom from their Lord, and
so they used that to either do nothing at all or to do anything they wanted
without fear of any consequences! And so
the Lord through James had to remind them that sin is dangerous! Sin has consequences! Sin is breaking God’s law and breaking God’s
law is serious! And it should not be
taken lightly. “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you
sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail.
Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves
before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
Ten
commands. James gives us ten commands in
four short verses: Submit yourselves, resist, come near, wash your hands,
purify your hearts, grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble yourselves. Ten direct orders that all have to do with
sin. In other words: Wake up! Start taking sin seriously! Because sin has serious consequences!
James
doesn’t say: “It’s OK if you mess up every now and then.” Or “Don’t worry about your mistakes too much,
everyone does it.” Or “You don’t have to
lose any sleep over what you’ve been doing; it’s not that big of a deal.” Or “Just brush it off; no one is going to
care.” No! James doesn’t say those things at all! He doesn’t even come close to using that tone
of voice! Instead he makes the Lord’s
will very clear: “Submit yourselves, resist, come near, wash your hands, purify
your hearts, grieve, mourn, wail, change, and humble yourselves.” This isn’t funny! This is no laughing matter! Confessing your sins in a worship service is
not the time to be cute or comical or immature.
This is a time to be serious.
This is a time to consider what the consequences of sin really are.
And we
considered those consequences in our worship service already, haven’t we? Remember what was said before: “We have come into the presence of God, who
created us to love and serve him as his dear children. But we have disobeyed him and deserve only
his wrath and punishment. Therefore, let
us confess our sins to him and plead for his mercy.” We deserve only his wrath and
punishment. And when you repeated the
words with everyone else right after that you admitted to your God, “I do not deserve to be called your child.” Sin excludes the sinner from God’s
family. Sin brings upon the sinner God’s
wrath. Sin earns for the sinner eternal
punishment. There is no getting around
it: this is serious. Sin is serious.
A Serious
Sacrifice
One of
my favorite hymns during the season of Lent is hymn 127 in our red hymnals:
Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted. Not
only do I like the melody because it fits the season and not only do I like the
clear references to the prophecy about Christ in Isaiah 53, I especially
appreciate the third verse. “If you think of sin but lightly Nor suppose
the evil great, Here you see its nature rightly, Here its guilt may
estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed;
See who bears the awful load - ‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man
and Son of God.” If you didn’t
consider your sins all that serious before, all you have to do is look at the
cross. Your sin was so serious that the
Son of God himself had to bleed to death in order to get rid of it. Consider that for a second: The Giver of life
had to give up his life; the Creator had to become a corpse; God had to
die. Why? Because sin was serious. The consequences were serious. And Jesus took these things so seriously that
he made a serious sacrifice.
When
Jesus came to this earth as a real human being he didn’t just come to lend us a
hand. He didn’t just come to teach us or
lead us or point us in the right direction.
Jesus wasn’t here as nothing more than an example. Jesus was here to take our place. Jesus was here to receive our penalty. Jesus was here to sacrifice himself so that
the sentence of sin would fall on him and not on you. And so, in the end, Jesus was the one
excluded from God’s family because he was the sinner. Jesus was the one who bore the brunt his
Father’s wrath because he was the sinner.
Jesus was the one who went through an eternal punishment in hell while
he was hanging on the cross because he was the sinner. Jesus was blamed, not you. Jesus was held accountable, not you. Jesus was the sinner, not you. That was a serious sacrifice Christ made for
you. Because he was serious about your
salvation.
And that’s
why we sing such serious hymns sometimes - just like the hymn we sung right
before the sermon: With broken heart and
contrite sigh, A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry.
Your pardoning grace is rich and free - O God, be merciful to me… And
when, redeemed from sin and hell, With all the ransomed souls I dwell, My
joyous song shall ever be: God has been merciful to me! That is a serious song. But it’s still filled with joy, isn’t
it? Especially that last verse.
A Serious
Joy
And
that’s the natural reaction to the seriousness of Jesus’ sacrifice: an attitude
of appreciation and thankfulness; a feeling of relief and overwhelming
joy. We are actually happy that Jesus
died, aren’t we! We are thrilled at what
happened on that cross! Because the
cross means I am able to say to you every single Sunday: “God, our heavenly Father, has forgiven all your sins. By the perfect life and innocent death of our
Lord Jesus Christ, he has removed your guilt forever. You are his own dear child.” I love saying that! And I hope you love hearing that! Because it’s true. It’s 100% true every single time: you are
forgiven; you are his own dear child; and you can be happy about it!
But it’s
a serious happiness, isn’t it? It’s a
serious excitement. You aren’t jumping
up and down with a childlike giddiness; instead you bow at the feet of your
Savior just like the sinful woman did who wet Jesus’ feet with her tears and
wiped them with her hair. You aren’t
shouting at the top of your lungs in an uncontrollable frenzy; instead you
faithfully sing glories to the Lord like the little children of Jerusalem did to
Jesus on Palm Sunday. You aren’t losing
control of your emotions and you aren’t unable to think straight because of
your elation; instead you simply stare in awe at the Lord’s love just like
those disciples’ did in the upper room when they saw Jesus’ alive for the first
time after he rose from the dead and they didn’t know what to say. It’s a serious happiness, a serious joy, a
serious excitement that can get
emotional sometimes, that can produce
some outward reactions, but usually it’s subdued and quiet and respectful
because of the seriousness of the sacrifice that made it all happen.
And as
we move through this season of Lent, that joy is growing, isn’t it? During this time of year that joy is building
more and more every week. Because each
week we get closer and closer to Easter.
That grand event of the Christian Church Year when we let lose a little
bit more, when we sing a little bit louder, when we smile a little bit broader,
when we revel in the glory of our Lord a little bit longer. Because that day of resurrection guarantees
our own. It is the crowning achievement
of our Lord’s love. It is the proof that
we are saved. It is the moment when
“Alleluia” is the word of the day and the darkness and the gloom of this life
is completely gone. It is a day of
absolute celebration. It’s my favorite
day of the year.
But
before we get there, we have to go through this. We have to go through Lent, through sin,
through suffering, through death.
Because without the cross there is no empty tomb. Without pain there is no healing. Without sadness there is no joy. Without the darkness there is no dawn. And so we focus on the words of James during
the season of Lent: “Submit yourselves,
then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and
he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,
you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and
your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” And he will lift you up. In fact, he already has lifted you up by
lifting up his Son to make a serious sacrifice for some serious sins to win a
salvation for you that is more serious than anything else in this life. Nothing else is more important in this world than
what we’re talking about right now.
Nothing else will affect eternity.
Nothing else gets to the root of the problem. Nothing else gives us the peace and joy and
comfort we so desperately need. Nothing
else matters other than the sacrifice Jesus made on that cross for your
sins. Take that seriously. And thank the Lord that he did.
Amen.
“To him who loves
us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood, and has made us to be a
kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and power
forever and ever. Amen.” - Rev. 1:5-6
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