Talk is Cheap – Confession – Part 2 — Answering The Call

Talk is Cheap

Confession – Part 2

By Grant Gaines

Last week we set out on a three-week journey to learn about the discipline of confession (if you missed last week’s blog, here’s a link). We learned why confession is so important – God can’t heal what you conceal (meaning He can’t heal the sins you leave in the darkness), but He will always heal what you reveal (1 John 1:9). This week we will learn what “confession” actually is.

I am totally unashamed to say it – I’m a homer when it comes to Dallas sports teams. In saying that, I realize that the story I’m about to tell may lose some credibility given I watch every Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Mavericks, and Texas Rangers game with an unhealthy amount of hope and an admitted biased towards my teams. But this is a true story (which I really don’t mind telling :).

In 2006, the Dallas Maverick were playing in the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. The Mavericks came out of the gates on fire, winning the first two games in the best-of-seven NBA Finals against the Heat by a hefty margin. Game three appeared to be more of the same as the Mavs were cruising to yet another victory in the fourth quarter as they were up by 13 points with only six minutes left.

But what happened next is inarguably the saddest moments in all of sports history (at least in my humble opinion). The Mavericks blew that massive lead…not only in game three, but also in the entire series by losing four straight games and consequentially losing a chance to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy.

The following year, however, in 2007 former NBA official Tim Donaghy got arrested after being investigated by the FBI for throwing games that he was refereeing to benefit the mafia who was placing bets on the games he refereed. But wait, the plot gets better. Donaghy was later interviewed by ESPN while he was in prison and admitted to helping throw the 2006 NBA finals.

Now obviously a ref can’t win or lose you a game, so believe me when I’m saying that I’m not blaming the refs for the Mavs crumbling in those last four games. However, what I am pointing out is that Tim Donaghy admitted that he and the other refs took a particular pride in refereeing harder against the Dallas Mavericks because of their owner Mark Cuban who is known for being fairly honest and extremely public about his feelings towards the refs.

When the NBA discovered this truth, do you know what they did? They offered the Dallas Mavericks and the rest of the NBA an apology for Tim’s actions. That’s right, my team loses a championship game, in part because of the refs, largely because of their play, and all they get is a simple apology admitting that there was a wrong done.

That right there is exactly what confession is. Confession is simply acknowledging our wrong before a holy God. Now, as we discussed last week, confession is extremely important to our relationship with God. Without confession, we can’t grow because the sin that is within us is.

However, confession is not the end goal. The end goal as believers is not simply to “confess” our sins, but to “repent” from them. Those two terms may sound similar, but believe me, they are very different.

As the story of how the NBA responded to Donaghy helping throw the ’06 Mavs’ chances for a title shows, confession is great (admitting your wrong), but that’s not really enough, is it? Repentance on the other hand, is not only admitting you are wrong but making moves to right that wrong.

For example, if the NBA wanted to “repent” from the whole Donaghy scandal, they would have not only admitted the wrong that happened, but made moves to right that wrong by giving the Mavs the 2006 championship trophy. (Obviously that would never happen nor should it happen, but it’s fun to think about.)

The same is true for our lives – we don’t simply want to point out our mistakes to God, we want to turn away from them and never repeat them again. That’s true repentance.

So while I certainly want to embolden you to continue to bring your sins into the light, I want to encourage you even more not to just leave your sins there in the light but to make moves to not repeat those sins again. Are you struggling looking at porn on your phone? Throw away your smart phone so that you can’t even have the option to get on the internet. Are you struggling with an unhealthy body image? Delete your social media accounts and put down those mainstream magazines that are telling you that you need to lose 25 pounds in 3 days otherwise you’re ugly – those certainly aren’t helping you repent or turn away from your sins.

It all may sound radical, but that’s often what it takes to slay the sin which, “…wages war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11, NIV). It’s one thing to admit your wrong, and it’s a whole other thing to make the moves not to repeat that wrong.

What steps do you need to take today to truly repent from your sins?