Continuing the series on the ‘Celebration of Discipline’, we looked today at the corporate disciplines of confession and guidance.
Confession means admitting to something and is usually understood to be an acknowledging of wrongdoing or sin. Society today is very averse to admitting to wrongdoing; all the current rows on court injunctions and super-injunctions show how we don’t like to admit to our mistakes! Moreover, many in Protestant churches dislike the idea of confessing sins to other people because they feel somehow this diminishes the role of Jesus in forgiving our sins.
Whilst we acknowledge that only God can forgive sins and that we need to confess primarily to Him (see 1 John 1:9), we also have to deal with James’s command:“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) As the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, confession can be a part of our corporate services. as we acknowledge our sin and need of God:
“Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved thee with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we earnestly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name. Amen.”
Confession in a corporate setting strips pride from us and stops us from pretending. So often we like to pretend that we’re superhuman, hiding our real selves from others for fear that they will reject us if they see us as we really are. Church needs to be a place where there is real authenticity and real acceptance, accepting each other as Christ accepts us, acknowledging our utter dependence on and need of God.
Guidance is also needed in life because so often we don’t know the paths we should take! Just as the Israelites were guided in their wilderness wanderings (Ex 15:13; Neh 9:15-17), so too Jesus showed us how to live a life that was guided by God, doing only what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19-20). The God who is our shepherd and guide (Ps 23) and who has promised to be our guide forever (Ps 48:14) has promised us the help of the Holy Spirit (John 16:33),and, as our studies in Romans have shown, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Rom 8:14).
Believing that God is not only capable of, but also willing to, guide us is one thing. Working out what this looks like in everyday life, where we don’t have the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire to guide us, can be difficult! There is no formulaic ABC of guidance that can ultimately help us; this is because God is interested in developing our relationship with Himself rather than simply giving us rules to follow. When we were children, our parents told us what to do and often did things for us; as we grow up, this changes, and rightly so. God is interested in us becoming “fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ” (Eph 4:13). This means that we have to spend time seeking God, as individuals and as a church, in order to know His will and to know His guidance.
As we grow, therefore, we accept that this narrow way involves our vigorous attention and we determine to be people who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church so that we may live as God wants us to live and grow up into the people He wants us to be.
And we commit ourselves to each other, to the church, that we may journey together as God has intended, for we are a body with Christ our Head. I need you. You need me. We need each other and we all need God. And God isn’t finished with us yet!