Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I am broadcasting from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Actually, in just a tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Colorado to preach at a teen camp there up on the Grand Mesa.

Looking forward to God working in many hearts. If you think of it, I’d appreciate your prayers. I certainly have been encouraged this summer at some of the teen camps I’ve been at that God has worked in hearts.

Just a week ago in new Jersey, on that last night, I had the privilege of sitting down with three young ladies as they wept their way to the Lord Jesus and salvation. And what a blessing it was to be there and direct them to what Christ had done for them.

Week before in Colorado, on that very last night, I remember junior high boy coming up to me with tears in his eyes, saying, I just got saved with a huge, huge look of relief on his face.

So it’s always a blessing to see the Lord work in hearts and, and we do appreciate your prayers for what God’s doing here, uh, through the, Thee Generation and the Minutemen ministries and all the teams, we have out different things that are going on. And, uh, let me just today, I’d like to just encourage you about something that hopefully will be basic, but be a real help.

First John one nine, a very familiar verse, a verse that if you don’t know, I would certainly encourage you to memorize the verse. It’s a verse we need on a regular basis. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I think the verse is so powerful, but often we miss the power. Because if I could say this, I think we’d dumb it down. What does the word confess mean?

The word confess comes actually from two Greek words, and the first Greek word means same. The second Greek word comes from the word logos. I have a Bible program.

It’s called logos, which is the Greek word for the word word. And so literally the etymology of the word confess is same word. Now again, an etymology does not always define a word, but it can be helpful in pointing us to the direction or helping us understand.

Put us in the right direction to understand the definition. And that word confess literally has the idea of agreement. In other words, agreeing with God.

Now, two aspects I want to just challenge you with. Number one is agreeing with God about how your sin looks. Many times we try to make excuses or it’s not that bad, or there’s people worse than me.

But that is not confession. Confession is using the same words God does in Hebrews three. He talks about an evil heart of unbelief.

Whenever we doubt God, I think it’s helpful in our confession to say, God, that was evil. I had an evil heart of unbelief. And from time to time, we each can get into that place where we doubt God’s promise or God’s character.

And so that’s what confession is. It’s agreeing with God. I remember the story that I came across a few years ago about Frederick the Great, the great King of Prussia.

He, um, went into a prison in Berlin, and I’m not sure why, but he got into the courtyard and the prisoners, of course, were taken aback when they noticed that the great Emperor was there, and once they had regained, regained their senses, they began to fall one by one at his feet, declaring their innocence and asking for pardon and release. And this happened, I think, for almost everybody in the courtyard except for one.

And the great monarch turned to that one, looked him in the eye, and said, sir, what are you in here for? The man looked back, looked him in the eye, and said, Your Majesty, I am in here for armed robbery. The king looked back and said, what do you have to say for yourself?

The man again looked the king right in the eye and said, Your Majesty, I’m guilty and I deserve my sentence. Immediately the king turned to the guards and said, guards, open the gates! Let this vile wretch go!

I’ll not have this vile wretch defiling all these innocent prisoners. The very man who was honest was the man who was let go from the prison. Could I put it this way?

When you and I say to God, Your Majesty, I’m guilty. I deserve my guilt. That’s when God says, okay, let him go.

Let him out of the prison house of guilt. And we all know what it is to be in that prison house of guilt. I remember years ago, uh, I was talking to my one of my daughters and I asked her, how does she, how do you feel when you, when you don’t do something right?

And I loved her little girl definition. She said, I feel yucky. Well, we all know what that is.

That’s in the prison house of guilt. We don’t feel right, and God wants us out of the prison house. But we won’t get out until we agree with God about the sin.

But not only that, friend, you’ve got to agree with God about the solution. Now God in His word has several solutions for sin. For instance, if you bring there your gift to the altar, and there, remember that thy brother hath aught against thee.

Leave there thy gift at the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. That simply means, friends, that when we know somebody has something against us because something we did wrong.

In other words, we know we said something we shouldn’t have said. We know we acted in a way that was hurtful. Then what God says, you need to go back and get that right.

Your Christianity won’t work until you do that. How about the verse if he that loveth his sins shall not prosper? But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

When we do something that we know we shouldn’t have done, and it involves an authority in our life, for instance, doing something behind our parents back. If we don’t tell them, then we’re covering it. If we cheat on a test or cheat in home schooling, or cheat on a quiz, or cheat on some paper that we do, and we never tell the teacher, well, we’re covering our sin and we won’t prosper.

If you steal something and you don’t go back and get it right. You’re covering your sin and you won’t prosper. And so God says you need to confess it.

That means you need to go to the person. Go to your mom and dad. Say, you know, mom and dad, I watched something you wouldn’t want me to watch, or I didn’t do what you told me to do.

Or to that teacher, you know I cheated on this assignment. Or to that friend or whoever and say, you know, I stole from you. I’m here to get it right.

You got to confess it and forsake it, which means you do everything possible to make it hard for you to go back. And of course, confession helps that I’ve encouraged young people, some in the olden days, with some things that were sinful, to throw them in our campfire that we would have on our final night. And it was a blessing to see many young people do that because they wanted to forsake those things.

They’d been sneaking that behind their parents back or doing that they knew grieved the Lord or whatever. So a young person, it’s simply this I want you to have a clean heart, and I want you to know the forgiveness of God and the cleansing. Now, it’s not wrong to say, Lord, please forgive me, but really, confession is not saying please forgive me.

It’s saying, Lord, I was wrong, I did this or whatever. Then going to somebody, if there was somebody that’s involved, say, I shouldn’t have said that, would you forgive me? Or to Mom and Dad?

I did something behind your back. Would you forgive me to a teacher, I cheated? I’m willing to take the consequences.

I should not have done that. It’s the idea of agreeing with God about what sin looks like, but also agreeing with God about the solution. And God has a solution.

There is a solution for your sins. Sometimes it’s just getting honest with God, but many times it does involve another human being that we have wronged or perhaps sinned against or done something behind an authority’s back, etc. but God says that’s the way to get forgiveness and to have a cleansing, cleansed heart.

And it’s a powerful verse, friend, and it can be powerful in your life. Now, the way we know we’re cleansed and the way we know we’re forgiven is primarily because the Bible says so. Once we confess, agree with God about what sin looks like, agree with God about sin.

Solution. Well then we can very clearly take the promise that we have been forgiven, that we have been cleansed. Well, I trust you have a great week and be encouraged that you can walk with God.

You can have a clean heart, you can get cleansing and forgiveness, and I trust you will. The moment where you acknowledge that there’s failure in your life, you turn it back to the Lord to get it right. Okay.

Young people and all those listening, remember our battle cry, total surrender to the will of God and a total dependence on his grace to live it.