[AI translation] This Word warns us of a great gift from God. A gift that we do not appreciate enough, and that we do not use enough: church fellowship. One of the greatest privileges of a believer is that he is not alone. He does not sing the psalm alone, he does not say the prayer alone, he does not listen to the Word alone, he does not struggle for the kingdom of God alone, he does not carry the burdens of life alone, he does not fight Satan's temptations alone, he does not follow Jesus alone, but in a team, in a small or large army, with others, young and old, in a brotherly fellowship. Believers are not together in the church as a bag of pebbles, but as members of a large family living their lives in the miracles of a common spiritual household. The New Testament in particular speaks of many of the small practical details of this spiritual togetherness. James mentions only two of them here, two practices by which brothers and sisters can mutually help each other in following Christ: confession of sins and praying for one another. He says: You are brothers and sisters, do not forget to make use of these great gifts and opportunities of fraternal communion.One, then, is confession of sin. Thus the advice is: "Confess your sins to one another." (v 5,16a) James did not invent this, it is already spoken of in the Old Testament as a great help in cleansing a person from sin. The Law of Moses directly commands solitary and corporate confession of sin: "If any man or woman or whatever commits human sin, whereby he becomes unfaithful to the Lord, the soul shall be guilty. Let him therefore confess his sin which he has committed..." (Numbers 5:6-7) Elsewhere it says: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess unto him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all his transgressions, and all his sins: and he shall lay them upon the head of the goat, and send him away with the man that is by him into the wilderness."(Leviticus 16:21) John the Baptist baptized those who had first confessed their sins publicly. In his letter, the apostle John almost makes confession of sin a condition for receiving forgiveness of sins. (1 John 1:9) Why? Because God in Jesus Christ wants to give us a very real healing. The doctor does not heal the patient in a general way, but begins treatment and healing where the problem is found. The power of salvation also becomes real for us when it can be applied to the concrete facts and troubles of our lives. Sin is not only our general misery, but also something so concrete in its practical manifestations that it can be named, the place and time of its occurrence can be defined, for example: the night before yesterday I hurt my mother. It is the sin that is named that becomes for us the truly recognized sin. In theory, we all agree that we have made a mistake, that we are imperfect, but in practice we are happy to continue to play the perfect, the pure, the blameless in front of ourselves and others.
It is very, very difficult for us to be broken by our own truth. It is no difficulty for us to confess at the Lord's table that I am a poor, miserable sinner, inclined to evil and incapable of any good, - for I have not thereby exposed myself even to myself, I have no shame in saying so, I have spoken a general statement which everyone else shares with me. But how one blushes, how one's heart beats, how one's tongue falters, until one comes to the point where one can say and confess: 'I lied to you yesterday at lunch, because it wasn't what I said, but... Well, then, the significance of confessing is precisely to find out at last who I am. So that I can stand before God with my concrete misery, honestly and unmasked, so that God in Jesus Christ can place His healing hand where the trouble is: so that grace and forgiveness of sins at the price of Christ's blood can be for me concrete, real grace and forgiveness of sins! Therefore, there is no real forgiveness of sins without a concrete confession! King David also speaks of this: 'While I kept silent, my bones were hardened by wailing until the end of the day. While day and night Thy hand was upon me, my strength failed me, as in the heat of summer. I have confessed my sin to thee, I have not covered my iniquity. I said, I will confess my iniquity unto the Lord, and thou hast taken away the burden of my sins. " (Psalm 32:3-5)
What happens in confessing sin is that my sin is no longer my secret, I have exposed something that had been hiding in me, something that abhors nothing more than exposure. I am ready for the healing blood of Christ to fall on my mortal wound, so that God may deliver me from it! Confession of sin clears the way for God's redeeming and cleansing help, down into the very depths of my life where the trouble is. It is not as if God does not want to forgive, or as if He has not forgiven long ago, but this forgiving grace enters into us and works in us by opening ourselves to it through confession of sin.
But now, one might say, James does not say confess your sins to God, but to one another! Is that different from the previous one? - No! No, it is the same thing. Confessing sins to one another is a tool to help us to confess sincerely before God! In fact, my confession of sin is for God alone. But for this to really happen, I have to expose my sins, I have to bring them out of hiding into the light of day. And this is something that every part of me instinctively protests against. For sin is, in its essence, nothing more than hiding from God, fleeing from His presence. In confessing my sins I lay them before God. In order to do this, I really have to bring them out of hiding, to make them visible. And this is where I need another person to make my sins visible to me, and to help me to really expose them and bring them to God! The reality of my sin, its exposure and bringing it before God, depends on my confessing it to someone, to a human being! All the arguments that we use against confessing our sins to one another are of the devil, because Satan knows very well that it is precisely by confessing our sins to one another that we drive the first pegs into solid ground, which prevents us from sliding down the slope. Anyone who objects to this only betrays the fact that he does not really want to be saved, but wants to continue to guard his sin, to keep it to himself! As long as we are not ready to confess our sin in humiliation before a fellow human being, it is very likely that our confession of sin before God is not true either. As long as we fear our pride, pity our reputation before men, it is unlikely that we can truly humble ourselves before God!
That is why God has placed us in church fellowship, in the great family of sinful people living by grace. There, in the church, we can find that other person, that brother or sister who can help us open ourselves to God. Just a few days ago, someone said to me: what a pity that we Protestants don't have confession! Of course!
There is an armchair next to the desk in the pastor's office, and many people have sat down there to confess - as James says: "Confess your sins to one another." (James 5:16a) And here in the congregation are children of God who are willing and able to witness to the confession of others, to hear it and to bring it before God. As long as there is a church somewhere, there is always an opportunity for confession, and the exhortation of the Word is always valid: "Confess your sins one to another." So why not take advantage of this gift of fraternal communion? In the famous congregation of Nottlingen, an almost breathtaking great awakening began when the brethren began to take seriously the opportunity God had given them to confess their sins to one another. God's promise in this Word is still valid today, "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) May we take our Lord at His word and live by His gifts! For forgiveness of sins is valid: it is as real as the real death of Jesus Christ on the cross! In view of this, that your sins are forgiven, dare to reveal your sins, to confess them, so that He may take them away from you, so that He may cleanse you from them!
The other great gift of living in church fellowship is what the Word expresses, "Pray for one another that you may be healed." (James 5:16b) In the explanation of James' letter, we have already said that there is no greater danger in our prayers than self-centeredness, that is: that our requests revolve around the self, that we are full of ourselves! James wants to break us out of this cycle again and says: Take care of one another, help one another, even by standing up for one another before God. Stand up with your lonely prayers between God and a sick brother or sister, between God and the youth of the church, between God and a grieving family, between God and the man you have called to worship, between God and our people, between God and the leaders of our people, and be a channel of prayer between God's gracious blessings and the affairs of men.
"Pray for one another that you may be healed." Do we believe the great promise in this Word? Do we believe that in Christ's redemptive death and resurrection there is truly healing power in all the turmoil and trouble of our human lives? Do we believe that if we could pray more truly and fervently for one another, the world would feel the power of this divine healing more fully? Is it not the unfaithfulness of our prayerful lives that makes it so difficult for us to heal? And yet, as with all God's gifts, when we pray for one another, it is we ourselves who are most enriched and enlivened by it.
A very serious Christian man, the missionary Gobat Banule, tells us in one of his books about an experience he had. He describes how he was at one time in a state of spiritual numbness, unable to find joy in the Word of God, unable to pray from the heart. He felt very unhappy, and one morning he went out into the woods to gather his thoughts and immerse himself in prayer. After a few minutes of reflection, he tried to pray for himself, but he felt that he could not stand before God with the confidence of a true child. It pleased him so much to reject God, until at last, after a time, he said to himself. Then he went through his friends whom he had known since his conversion, trying to put himself in their place and pray for each one separately. And as he did so, he felt the love of God and man kindled in his heart, and it was as if he had seen the unseen. It was one of the happiest days of my life!" she writes. Why do we deprive ourselves of this happiness, of this healing among our many spiritual afflictions?
How many gifts God has in the church community, in the army of those who want to follow Christ! He wants to help them, that is, us, to enrich us, to bless us with this warning: 'Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed: for the fervent supplication of the just is very profitable.' (James 5:16)
Let us receive the fellowship of the brethren with thanksgiving and confess that:
Behold, what good and what great joy
What a glorious and beautiful thing it is to have equality among brethren,
If they dwell together in peace.
Like balsamic oil, they are!
God bless such as these,
He gives them long life.
(Psalm 133:1)
Amen
Date: 4 October 1953.
Lesson
Zsolt 32