Tricked-Out Confession - Plain Truth Ministries

by Ron Benson
love an old car done right. But
a radical trick-out on an old
classic turns my stomach. For
seventeen years I lived within
blocks of the most amazing,
hugest, most magnificent volunteer car show in the universe—the
Woodward Dream Cruise.
Woodward Avenue cuts north
and south from the shores of the
Detroit River, through the heart of
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the city and out into the suburbs
to Pontiac. “Cruising Woodward”
became a popular activity in the
‘50s and ‘60s, beloved by teenagers
and disdained by local authorities.
The autos rolled off assembly lines
of the Big Three and eventually
found their way to Woodward, driven by the proud owners of American wheels.
Motor City steel still chugs up
and down the Avenue on the third
Saturday of August—forty thousand
cars strong. Those forty thousand
automobiles draw a million or so
fans who don’t pay a dime to
watch or drive along with the cars
travelling sixteen miles north and
back. For a car lover, it’s a parade
of dreams. From vintage vehicles
to outrageous restorations to
overdone drag-strip streakers, it
THE PLAIN TRUTH
It bugs me when some hot-dog-hotrodder mucks up the works with a
garrulous paint job, a jacked-up engine
and a circus-act suspension. Why ruin a
wonderful thing trying to make it better?
all rolls up and down the threelane street for an entire day.
Sitting on the curb, my eyes
would search the boulevard for the
classics. My taste in cars favors purity. I like a clean, well-done, genuine restoration. It bugs me when
some hot-dog-hot-rodder mucks
up the works with a garrulous
paint job, a jacked-up engine and a
circus-act suspension. Why ruin a
wonderful thing trying to make it
better? A flaming paint job? A cutdown body? Monster wheels?
Please.
Oh, but we love to do that. It
seems there is a driving need for the
human race to take something that
is simple and make it complicated.
Nowhere does this tendency roar
its engine with as much volume as
with religion. And arguably, no
single aspect of religion begs for
such a thorough tricking-out as
does the business of confession
and repentance. We treat confession and repentance like a 1965
Mustang Fastback GT350 that’s
just crying for “phat rims” and surround-sound and an underbody
neon light package.
********
Confession and repentance describe the process of acknowledging our sin, aligning ourselves with
God’s will and accepting God’s
grace and forgiveness. Confession
owns the wrong;
repentance turns
toward the right.
While there are some differences in
the two concepts, I use the terms
together here because we often
consider that they are one inside
the other—a part of the same step,
an action taken. One without the
other doesn’t work.
The terms can also describe two
separate events. Our initial decision to put faith in Jesus is a
moment of confession and repentance. So too is our reckoning with
sin in our lives subsequent to
salvation, even on a daily basis.
Confession and repentance come
to us from the wellspring of God’s
grace. The ability to name our sin
and turn from it is not normal (see
Genesis 3). The Holy Spirit enables
our repentance as we yield ourselves to God.
Whenever we are forced to confront our sinfulness in the light of
God’s holiness, it’s uncomfortable.
Isaiah for example, in that moment of exposure, felt he was coming apart at the seams (Isaiah 6:5).
But, repentance God’s way is not
complicated—not a puzzle that
needs to be solved, not a series of
hoops to jump through, not a
Nowhere does this tendency roar its engine with as
much volume as with religion. And arguably, no
single aspect of religion
begs for such a thorough
tricking-out as does the
business of confession
and repentance.
Oh, but we love to do
that. It seems there is a
driving need for the
human race to take
something that is simple
and make it complicated.
competition to win. It is simply
knowing and naming our offense
to the One whom we’ve offended.
Ever since the world’s first couple
threw some fig leaves together to
attempt a trick-out of their own,
humanity has endeavored to make
confession complicated. It’s because
we believe that in the rigamarole of
confession and the hoops of repentance, penance is paid. We are not
satisfied with the refreshing simplicity of Godly repentance, so we
retrofit the concept with pious ritual, obligation and public displays of
contrition.
To break it down, here’s what
confession is and isn’t:
It is acknowledging you have violated God’s holiness.
It is not brokering a payment for
your sin.
It is agreeing that future sinful
activity is not an option for righteousness.
It is not promising or dealmaking for future blessings.
It is surrendering to God all the
consequences that may result from
transgression.
It is not arranging the consequences ourselves as penance.
Sin damages our ability to
operate — we hit a deep pothole
and throw our suspensions out of
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But, repentance God’s way
is not complicated—not a
puzzle that needs to be
solved, not a series of
hoops to jump through...
whack. When we confess and
repent of sin, God forgives and
readjusts our hearts toward him.
He puts our hearts on the rack and
gives us an alignment so we can
point true in the direction of his
holiness. When we attempt this realignment ourselves, we muck it
up.
********
How does it happen? What does
tricked-out confession look like?
Here’s a souped-up glossary of a
few confessionistic terms with
which a variety of evangelical adherents will identify:
Testimony: As relates to confession, a ripping good story full of
sordid details of your sin is always
a good thing. The grimier the account, the more wondrous God’s
forgiveness seems. Some churches
want you to go public—put your
contrition out on the Avenue,
which, they will tell you, puts you
on God’s “faves” list.
Raising your Hand: Often at the
end of a stirring sermon, the pastor
will ask that people bow their
heads and close their eyes. He will
ask that there be “no-one looking
around.” And then he will prompt
those who are sensing the conviction of the Spirit to raise their
hands. If someone does, the pastor
will say, “I see that hand,” to reveal
that he’s looking around even
It’s because we believe
that in the rigamarole
of confession and the
hoops of repentance,
penance is paid.
though no-one else should be. A
raised hand means you are taking
the first step. Be forewarned, however, that raising your hand is
never enough. Do you think you’re
going to be forgiven for just raising
your hand? Think again. The pastor will probably say, “Those of
you who are raising your hands,
please stand.” But don’t think for a
minute that standing up does anything to help your spiritual condition; you have to move your feet,
which brings us to…
Going/Coming Forward: This is
the next step after raising your
hand and standing up. Now that
the preacher or evangelist knows
who you are, he will beg, coerce
and guilt you into taking this next
step. Going forward is an action
urged usually at the end of a fiery
message about hell and often accompanied by an old hymn (95%
of the time “Just As I Am”). Repentant sinners are urged to “walk the
aisle.” Billy Graham popularized
this ritual, with thousands moving
down the stairs of stadiums and
arenas to “make a decision.” Coming forward proves how sincere you
are about your sinfulness. Not
going forward may indicate stubborn hard-heartedness, which only
compounds your
dreadful situation
before God. If you
raise your hand and
then refuse to
stand, or if you
stand but refuse to come forward, or if you look around
when you aren’t supposed to,
you are certainly destined for
hell!
Altar Call: Close to the
above, only The Call refers to
the whole set of actions initiated by the Preacher, as in “giving
an altar call.” The altar here is
not the kind most often referred
to in the Bible, where blood sacrifices were made. (That would
be messy). Instead, it refers to a
kneeling bench at the front of
the church where people come
forward and “do business with
God.” In past practice, this general location was also called the
Mourners’ Bench or the Anxious Seats. This is also where
some people attempt to “pray
through”—a churchified version
of Jacob’s wrestling with God,
wherein the penitent cries and
wails and carries on until heavenly peace comes to him or her,
or until the bus is ready to leave.
Roman Road, Four Spiritual
Laws, The Bridge: All are handydandy tricks that help explain how
a person gets into God’s family.
These tools, along with many others, boil down God’s whole plan so
that Person A can easily roll
through the steps so that Person B
eventually says the Sinner’s Prayer
(see below). If you’re a Roman
Road Christian, you will “win people to the Lord” with that tool,
and anybody who uses another
tool to “find Jesus” is off to a shaky
start. Ditto the other tools.
Sinner’s Prayer: This is a short,
simple, generic prayer formatted to
We are not satisfied with the refreshing
simplicity of Godly repentance, so we
retrofit the concept with pious ritual,
obligation and public displays of contrition.
re
pen
tance
Repentance
●
lead a person to Jesus Christ. The following is the Official Sinners’ Prayer (I got it from Wikipedia because
it’s not in the Bible):
Heavenly Father, I know that I have sinned against you
and that my sins separate me from you. I am truly sorry.
I now want to turn away from my past sinful life and
turn to you for forgiveness. Please forgive me, and help
me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus
Christ, died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is
alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the
Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this
day forward. Please send your
Holy Spirit to help me obey
You, and to do Your will for
the rest of my life. In Jesus’
name I pray, Amen.
Typically this prayer is
recited by the leadee word
for word, phrase by phrase
after the leader, like this:
Leader: “Heavenly Father,”
Leadee: “Heavenly Father,”
Leader: “I know that I
have sinned…”
Leadee: “I know that I
have sinned…”
Well, you get the idea.
The Sinners’ Prayer fits the
whole confession and repentance concept into a
tidy little box for those
who have never prayed before and who are becoming
Christians for the first
time. If you’re already a
Christian and you sin,
you’re expected to be able to come up with a genuine prayer of confession all by yourself—nobody’s
going to write one for you.
********
Please understand: I assume that many of you
reading this article came to faith in Jesus Christ
using one or two or all of these methods. Some of
you are believers who have confessed sin in these
ways. And you meant it and it was genuine.
I don’t diminish in any way the sincerity of your
prayers and the reality of your repentance. I also
don’t want to demean pastors and evangelists who
have used these methods; like Paul, I say “what does
it matter? The important thing is that in every way,
whether from false motives or true, Christ is
preached. And because of this I rejoice.”
But I’ve got a problem with “tricking-out” the
process. In our desire to prompt confession and make
repentance real, we’ve added our own legalisms and
religious rituals until the “plan of salvation” looks
like a slick hot-rod, packaged and programmed to be
convenient, clever and desirable. Subsequently, we
muck up our definition of confession and repentance
and confuse the means with the end.
Be forewarned...
raising your
hand is never
enough. Do
you think
you’re going
to be forgiven
for just raising
your hand?
Think
again.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2009
●
n the New Testament, “repentance” is translated from the
Greek word metanoia from meta, “after,” and noeo, “to
understand”—to re-think, to change one’s mind. Christians
traditionally understand this to mean regret for and turning
from sin. But in the context of faith in Jesus, it means much
more than that. In its fullest sense, repentance is an
abandonment of our own efforts toward spiritual fulfillment
—whether they be sin or the pursuit of pleasure and
materialism or the achievement of our own righteousness—
racking up “points” toward heaven. When Jesus calls us to
repent, he calls us to give our whole lives to him so he can
heal us. Repentance is
our response to God’s
drawing us to his Son—
something which we
can’t do on our own. Our
ability to do so is a gift.
Legalists often
confuse repentance with
changes in behavior.
While “fruits” will
naturally follow a
genuine change of
mind and heart
(Matthew 3:7-8),
behavior modification is
not the same as
repentance. Since God is
performing the
transformation, the
external evidence will
certainly follow, but on
his timetable, not ours.
I
con fes sion
●
●
Confession
n the New Testament,“confess” is translated from the Greek word
homologeo, meaning “to speak the same thing,” or “to agree
with.” It connotes either an admission of guilt or a declaration
of conviction or belief. In the ancient world, confession was
akin to an oath—a legally or religiously binding statement. In
Christendom, it implies an acknowledgement that one has
sinned (1 John 1:9) or an affirmation of faith (Romans 10:9).
The Catholic church requires a formal confession of one’s sins
to a priest, who is believed to administer God’s grace,
contingent on prescribed acts of contrition and penance.
Protestant Evangelical Christianity takes confession to mean
some form of public or interpersonal acknowledgment, or
“sharing of a testimony.” The emphasis in the New Testament,
however, is confession before God (Romans 14:11).
I
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I don’t diminish in any way the sincerity of your prayers and the reality of your
repentance... But I’ve got a problem with “tricking-out” the process...adding our own
legalisms and religious rituals until the “plan of salvation” looks like a slick hot-rod...
Here’s how to know we’ve
tricked-out confession and repentance:
• You’ve got a trick-out issue
when a specific date or time becomes the zero hour for repentance or confession.
I once had a man say to me in
counseling, “I can’t wait until
camp-meeting so I can get my
heart right.” I thought, Whoa!
Wouldn’t NOW be a good time for
that? Sometimes we so closely attach the ritual to the purpose that
we trade them. This man had
• You’ve got a trick-out issue
when a certain person becomes
the divine representative for
hearing your confession.
James tells us to confess our sins
“to one another.” This builds into
our relationships a mutual accountability and humility that
sponsors health in the body of
Christ. That confession, however,
needs to be done with great care
and in an environment of safety. If
you’ve been taught that confession
can only be accomplished through
a pastor or priest, or in front of an
You’ve got
confession right
when the most
important person
involved in your
repentance is God.
grown up with a certain section of
the calendar year — ten days of
Christian camping in the summer—
as the designated season of repentance. He honestly couldn’t imagine
confessing his sins to God outside
the parameters of this spiritual calendar. That’s a long time to wait to
take care of the dirty laundry!
• You’ve got a trick-out issue
when a specific place becomes
the holy spot for repentance or
confession.
Many people started their faith
experience with Jesus Christ at an
“altar” or in the center of an auditorium. That’s not wrong, nor does
it in any way mean that their relationship with Christ is any less a
reality than if they’d initiated that
relationship on a mountain or in
their bedroom. But if your “altar
theology” implies that genuine repentance is only attainable at a
bench at the front of a church during a song, you’ve got a trick-out
problem.
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ty for your sin. You don’t need to
improve on what he’s done. It’s
classic, it’s finished and it doesn’t
need a souped-up engine.
• You’ve got confession right
when the most important person
involved in your repentance is
God.
God desires confession not because he needs to know, but because he wants us to be on the
same page as him. We’re encouraged to involve other people because it’s good for our spiritual
growth, not because it adds something to grace or enhances
God’s ability to forgive us.
• You’ve got confession
right when you know you
have absolutely nothing to
offer God in payment for
your sin.
********
The old classic hymn,
“Rock of Ages,” written in
1776, offers these potent
lyrics:
audience, or through any other
human agent, you’ve tricked-out
your confession.
Here’s how to know you’ve got
confession right:
• You’ve got confession right
when you’re more concerned
with the gravity of sin than the
mechanics of confession.
Don’t get this wrong: sin offends
God. He hates it and because of his
holiness he must judge it. Confession is serious stuff. That’s why we
should focus on being honest and
forthright about our issues and not
sweat the pinstripes.
• You’ve got confession right
when the timing of your confession is conditioned by the intensity of your hear t, not the
calendar or the clock.
If you’ve got something standing
between you and God, deal with it
now. Don’t wait for the right moment or the right location. God,
through his grace and mercy, has
sent his only Son to pay the penal-
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the Cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace.
********
I am not a participant in the
remedy for sin. My confession and
repentance does not contribute to
the cure—it merely acknowledges
my dire need. We simply don’t
have what it takes to create the
classic redemption God has inaugurated through Jesus. We have
only to hop into the car and ride
along in the wondrous parade. ❑
Ron Benson presently drives a
rusted-out ‘89 Sunbird with a roof
that falls in on his balding head and
a silent radio that says “loc.” He’s an
altar-less pastor who wonders whether
a car show on church property is biblical. If you would like to read more of
Ron’s material, you can find it on the
PTM website (www.ptm.org) or at
Ron’s website (www.ronbenson.net).
THE PLAIN TRUTH