All right. Okay. Chuck got here so we can start. So let's begin. We could go ahead and get started. Okay. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we give you thanks and praise for this Sabbath morning. We thank you that we can come together once again to study your word. to learn more of what you have taught people in the past and how you're leading us now. We pray that you would open our minds and our hearts in this hour, help us to understand more of how we should repent from our sins and the grace that we find in Christ. We pray this in His name, amen. All right, so this week we're looking, we're finishing chapter 15 of the Confession of Repentance Unto Life is the title of the chapter. And paragraph one, we saw that repentance is an essential element of the preaching of the gospel. That's just part of preaching the gospel, faithful preaching. Second paragraph, we saw what repentance was. It's a recognition, for one thing, of the filthiness and odiousness of sin in God's sight. and then that we hate our sins and we turn from them to God with, the confession says, with full purpose to turn from those sins. Then paragraph three, we saw that repentance is not the ground of our being forgiven, and we'll be talking about that some more today. even though it's an essential part of truth-saving faith. And then paragraph four, we saw that the least sin deserves condemnation from God, but there's no sin that's so awful that God will not forgive it for those who truly repent. So today we're gonna finish up chapter 15 and look at another clarification of repentance, and we're going to look at the issue of confession of sins. Here is paragraph five. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly. So this paragraph is based on the idea that there are two aspects to consider about our sinfulness. There's two concepts involved here. For one thing, men have a general sin nature, okay? Our nature, our very being is bent towards sin. We see this throughout scripture, but one verse we go to a lot is Psalm 51, 5. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. David realized that he was sinful even from his conception, from birth. Before he had committed any actual sins, he says, I'm a sinner from birth. And our hearts are sinful then. And this is what we talk about as the doctrine of total depravity. And we've discussed this a good bit before. And we should confess and repent of that general depravity and that general sinfulness that we have. I should say that sin before birth And so our true repentance, the point that the confession is making here, is that true repentance isn't only involving our confessing that general sinfulness, that general inclination towards sin. We haven't truly and completely repented if we just say, okay, well, no one's perfect. Yeah, I'm a sinner. And so, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm a sinner. And that's just kind of how it is. That's not the extent of true repentance. What the confession is saying here is we need to show repentance for particular sins. And that's what the confession means when it says that we need to repent of particular sins particularly. We think about the particular sins that we commit, we acknowledge those specific ways that we have sinned. And the confession gives us one of the scripture proofs, Matthew 26, 75. Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. And so the point here is that Peter repented of his particular sin of denying Christ three times. That was what he wept about. He wasn't just, oh Lord, I see that I'm a great sinner. It was, denied my Lord three times. And we know from further on that when it says he went out and wept bitterly, that that was part of true repentance on his part, but that he was doing something specific. We read in Luke 19, eight, Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. So, Zacchaeus, the wee little man, didn't only say, Lord, I acknowledge I'm a sinner, but he specifically repented of his sins involving tax collections. He demonstrated that repentance then by following the Old Testament law of restitution. So, the idea here is we need to repent and to address particular sins we commit. Now, what we find, though, in the Christian life, as we start thinking about repenting of particular sins, as we mature in the faith, we're going to see that on the one hand, the Lord gives us victory over particular sins. We confess and forsake them. God is making us more and more like Christ through our lives. And we see that His Holy Spirit enables us to conquer particular sins in our lives. And I've seen this in my life, I know you've seen it in yours, that you've seen victory over particular sins in your life. But what happens is then God reveals to us more instances of sin that remains in us. He will reveal to us more particular sins. And so we're not going to have complete victory over all sins in this life. We know that it's not until we reach heaven that we are perfected. So there's always going to be sins to confess and repent of. Now, when we first come to faith, there are probably some obvious sins that we confessed and repented of. Foul language. This was something that I was particularly guilty of in my pre-Christian days. I was known around the school as the one who could cuss a blue streak. And when I became a Christian, the Lord took that from me. He cured me of that. You know, we may have, when we become a Christian, there may be particular sexual sins, or drunkenness, or uncontrolled anger, other gross sins that we might be involved in, and when we come to Christ, the Spirit gives us victory over those sins, and sometimes it's rather dramatic. But then as we mature in the Christian life, the Holy Spirit reveals through His Word more subtle sins that we're involved in. Discontent, impatience with our spouse, greed, some of these other heart attitudes. When we first became a Christian, a lot of times we weren't aware of those. We didn't see ourselves as being, you know, as greed as being a problem or discontent as being a problem. There were other things that the Lord convicted us of. As we grow in the Christian life, the Holy Spirit reveals these other more subtle things to us. So we confess and repent of those sins. And sometimes we might think that as we mature in the Christian life and as we live the Christian life, I'm more sinful now than I was when I first became a Christian. But that's where the Holy Spirit is revealing more of the depths of the sin that's in me. And the pervasiveness of sin, that I become more aware of those things. Now we need to remember when we start thinking that way, what Robert Murray McShane, 19th century Scottish theologian said, for every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. So yes, we see our sin, and we see, and the Holy Spirit reveals more and more the depths of our sin. We see that. Take 10 looks at Christ for every time you think of that, for His mercy. We need to repent of those sins, but Christ is gracious to us, and as we sing the song, His grace is greater than all our sins. So, but I think it's the grace of God that He doesn't reveal all of our sins to us all at once. When you become a Christian, God doesn't just say, okay, let me show you how bad you are, and I'm gonna go into detail of everything, all the ways that you're a sinner. I think that would crush us. if he did that. He reveals to us particular sins. He reveals to us some of the core sin, the idea that yes, we've sinned against a holy God, but some of the depths of our sin, I think God waits and says, okay, I'll hold off on that. And I think because he's a heavenly father, he shows us what we need to know at the time. And I think this is related, an analogy is how we teach children, just in general. When you've got a five-year-old and you're teaching him to read, you don't throw Hemingway or Faulkner in front of him to start reading. He's not ready for that. Maybe you're never ready to read Faulkner, but he learns the basics and then he progresses to more difficult things. And I think that God works with us through our Christian lives the same way, that he starts revealing to us more and more what what we are able through the Holy Spirit to handle without completely overwhelming us. And he progressively deals with those to bring us more and more to the image of Christ. Now, okay, all right, there's Denise, okay. This is related to what she was asking last week. The thing is, we cannot know all of our sins. When we talk about repenting of particular sins particularly, we cannot know all of our sins. We're not omniscient like God. So I don't know all the ways that I am sinning. I can't know that. Think about Job 13, 23. Job says, how many, and he's basically complaining, but he's addressing this to God. How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin. Job at this point is like, okay, tell me how I've sinned. I don't know. What have I done wrong? Now, as you read through the book of Job, God reveals to him, okay, the basic sin, not trusting God when God's ways are above ours. But at this point, Job wasn't aware of it, and God was to make him, and he wanted God to make him aware of it. And The problem too is, Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? I can't understand my own heart. It's deceitful. I deceive myself. And so I can't understand all the depths of sin in my heart. I don't know them. I know that I'm a sinner and God through the Holy Spirit reveals those to me, but I don't know what all's in there because I deceive myself. Nobody except God knows what's all the way down in there. We see some of them. But there are going to be sins, especially sins of the heart that we may never be aware of. So does that mean we're without hope? Psalm 130, three and four says, if you, O Lord, should mark That word mark in the NIV, it says, keep a record of, which is an acceptable translation of the Hebrew. If you, O Lord, should keep a record of iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. Now the point here is that God isn't sitting up in heaven with a long spreadsheet for each of us, okay? And each line, there's a sinful action or a sinful word or a sinful thought, okay, detailing all those. And then, okay, here's the next column, and the heading is confessed. These are the ones that you've confessed. And so when we confess a sin, God goes through and marks that off, marks that off, but yeah, you haven't confessed this one, so I skip that and mark this one off, didn't confess this one. And so there's a spreadsheet of all of our sins and there's a column for the ones that we've actually confessed. And at the end of our lives, does God take that spreadsheet and look it over and say, okay, well, Here's all the sins you did, but you know, there's all these here that I didn't check off because you never confessed them. You didn't confess and repent explicitly of this sin right here. Sorry about that. No, it says with God is forgiveness. It's grace or unmerited favor. God brings to our mind various sins. We confess and forsake those. But God's a gracious God. He doesn't hold those other unknown sins. He doesn't hold those against us because of His grace. So God isn't just waiting on us to confess each and every sin on the lines and say, okay, yep, all right, now you're forgiven. I can't forgive that one. You never confessed that one. And the reason for this is our confession and repentance is not the ground of our forgiveness. That is, God doesn't forgive us because we confess. He forgives us because of the grace of Christ. It's the work of Christ that gives us forgiveness. It's not my confession. I'm supposed to confess. The Westminster Standards clearly say that I'm supposed to confess. I'm supposed to obey the law. But I don't. I sin, I fall. There are sins I don't confess. God is still gracious to me in spite of that fact. And see, there's no way we're ever going to confess each and every sin particularly. You know, you start thinking about it, you can't. I mean, just think about the greatest commandment, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Now, think on your life. Is there any moment of any day when you're not loving God with the totality of your being? Okay? There's a lot of times I'm not loving God totally. So all those times, that's sin, because I have not done what God has commanded. Or you start thinking about things like, okay, you're running late getting to church on Sunday morning, you're coming up East Cherokee Drive, and here's some guy on a tractor on the road in front of you. Okay, or your child spills red Kool-Aid on your nice white sofa. or you're spending time in your morning devotions, Sunday morning devotions, and spending good time with the Lord, and all of a sudden you get distracted, thinking about how the UGA quarterback needs to learn which team to throw the ball to. Okay. At those points, I'm not loving God with the totality of my being. I especially wasn't loving God with the totality of my being yesterday afternoon. But at those points, I've sinned. And I cannot confess those explicitly each and every time. Now, when I see them, yes, I should. But God's forgiveness doesn't depend on my confessing each and every sin. So I want you to think back about that analogy of the spreadsheet. Here's one column. Every single sin we've ever committed, all listed. Here's a column, confessed, okay? Some of those sins are checked off, a lot of them aren't. But now there's a third column, and this is the most important one. The heading here is forgiven through the blood of Christ. Every single sin is checked off there. That's the important part. Every one of my sins is forgiven through Christ. So, when we think about, okay, there are sins that I have not confessed, there are sins I might be doing in the future, as Jim was mentioning. Okay, what about all those sins? You know what? God's gracious. He forgives them because Christ died for those sins, whether I am aware of them and confess them or not. Okay. There could be another column, if there was such a spreadsheet, right, that would include all of those sins that I have returned to after confessing them and thinking that I was repented of. Yeah. Well, see, that's where it's like, okay, row one, it's copy and paste down here to row five, same thing, and then copy and paste again down here, so. Seven times seven. Yeah. So, now, one application of this that comes to mind and I hope this isn't a particularly sensitive subject, but is the issue of suicide. Because we tend to think, okay, somebody who says they're a Christian and they commit suicide, were they really a Christian? Because we think, well, murder, including self-murder, is a grievous sin, and the person who commits suicide They can't confess and repent of that sin. So could they really have been a Christian at all? Now, actually, this is starting, we're starting to think like Roman Catholics think here. Because the Catholic view, and Ray mentioned this some last week, there are the serious sins, mortal sins, the Catholics have. And they say that you must explicitly confess a mortal sin to a priest. verbally. If you've committed a mortal sin, you must confess that sin to a priest, or you are not forgiven and you're cut off from the grace of God. You're cut off from fellowship with God if you have not explicitly confessed that mortal sin to a priest. And so on this thinking, obviously if you commit suicide, you can't confess that to a priest, so you have to be cut off. Then they have the lesser sins, the venial sins, their sins done accidentally or without particular forethought. Okay, well, you can be forgiven of those without going to confession to the priest, just if you repent, if you have personal contrition. Thing is, the gospel teaches nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, not even those mortal sins. They cannot separate us from the love of God. See, I'm not forgiven because of my confession. I'm forgiven because of Christ. And so the Christian who commits suicide can be accepted into paradise because Christ has died even for that sin. And yes, it's a sin, but Christ has died for that sin. And like the confession says, I need to work to confess my sins particularly, but that's not the basis of my forgiveness. So, to whom do we confess our sins? That's gonna be the next paragraph. Paragraph six deals with this. Begins, as every man is bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for the pardon thereof, upon which, in the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy. So that first part, One party to whom we must confess is God himself. All sins, we confess them to God. And notice the Westminster says this is a private confession of his sins to God, not to anyone else, not to priests in the Roman Catholic tradition. Think about Psalm 32, five. David says, I acknowledged my sin to you, that's God, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. David doesn't say, I acknowledged my sin to the priest, or I will confess my transgressions to the priest. And the thing was, in David's day, there was a valid priest. There really was a priest he could have gone to. But David says, I confess my sins to the Lord. He's the one who forgives me. Because David, he's the only one who can forgive me. So, we confess to the Lord. We ask him to pardon our sins. We forsake our sins. Now, we're not going to forsake our sins perfectly in this life. We're not going to reach sinless perfection. But still, we confess and ask pardon, sincerely desire to turn from them. We fall into those sins again. We confess them again, ask them to pardon. That's what our Christian life is like. But God forgives us not seven times, but 70 times seven. We make a sincere endeavor to turn from our sins, okay? When we confess sins, it's not just, oh, well, okay, yeah, blew it again. Well, that's just kind of how life happens. Everyone's human, right? What's the big deal? We don't have that attitude. So we have to sincerely, we sorrow for them. I mean, we saw with Peter, after he denied Christ three times, he went out and wept bitterly. so that our sins, we should start feeling this remorse over our sin. Remember that God's mercy isn't dependent on our forsaking these sins perfectly, but on his love and grace. Our repentance and confession are not gonna be perfect, but it should be a characteristic of our life, just like we think about, okay, as a Christian, we're called to obey God, We're not going to obey him perfectly, but it should be a characteristic of our life that we are walking faithfully before the Lord. That should also be the idea of our confession and repentance, that, okay, we're not going to do it perfectly, but our life should be characterized by, yes, we faithfully repent, we faithfully confess our sins, we do these things. That's part of what our life is like. If we don't, if that's just not part of our life, if it's not that, well, okay, yeah, I don't need to confess and repent sins. That's evidence that we're probably not a Christian. So we confess all of our sins to God, but then there's a second group to whom we confess. That is the next section of this paragraph, he that scandalizes his brother or the church of Christ ought to be willing by private or public confession and sorrow for his sin to declare his repentance to those that are offended. So the second group here, we're talking about sins against others, either an individual or the church. So I can sin against individuals, If I lose my temper with Eric because he's a Georgia Tech fan, or I insult his intelligence for supporting such an inferior team, I've sinned against Eric. Or I can sin against groups like businesses, like I vandalize a business because I get upset at their service or something. Okay, that's a sin against that business. They talk about sinning against the church. For example, here I'm teaching Sunday school. If I teach something that's contrary to scripture and contrary to our confessional standards, I've sinned against the church. I've taught something false. Now, remember that these situations come under the previous heading of confession to God. All sins are ultimately sins against God. David says in Psalm 51, 4, against you, that is God, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. David sinned against Bathsheba. He sinned against Uriah that he had murdered. He sinned against Joab because he required Joab to assist in the murder of Uriah. But David knew that his ultimate sin was against God, so he confessed to God. But when we sin against others, we should also make confession to those against whom we've sinned. And kind of a parenthesis here, that last word here where it says repentance to those that are offended, This is not meaning what people today mean when they say we're offended by something. Today, in our culture, if I say I'm offended, it basically means I have some emotional reaction against something. It might be something you've said, it might be against a sin, it might be something that you've done that just makes me feel bad, and that offends me. That's not what the confession is talking about here. It's talking about people that you've offended. What the confession means are those against whom we have sinned. And the Bible defines sin as lawlessness. The catechism says that sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Sin, or in this case offending, is defined by the word of God. It's not defined by my feelings. So if somebody says something that upsets me, well, I might say that I'm offended, but that's not what we're talking about here. You may not have sinned against me. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but that's not the point here. The point here is against whom you're offended means you've sinned against somebody defined by the word of God. So these sins lead to either a private or public confession. So the sin is private. I'm talking with Eric by himself, and I insult his intelligence privately. So I go to him in private and confess and ask him to forgive me. If I said that around others, I can hear, I confess before the group. I've sinned against him, but everybody has heard that, and so I should confess before those who've heard. You know, I think back to when I was teaching upper elementary children back in Houston. And I made some lighthearted comment in class about people from Chicago just being a bunch of jerks. And one of the students, and Jim, you would know her, Mary Grace McCallum, she raised her hand and said, Mr. Kirby, I was born in Chicago. Okay, but I felt awful, and I confessed to her in front of the class. I said, Mary Grace, I apologize. I should not have said that. I'm sorry. Would you forgive me? In front of the class, because I said it in front of the class. So that's how you think about that, the public confessions. Okay, John? Well, yeah. I think we could assume that Peter probably confessed to his brother disciples his sin of denying Christ and hurting the effort and degrading Christ in their eyes. Yeah, I agree. So, Proverbs 28, 13, whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find mercy. So, I insulted Eric in private, and he doesn't say anything about it. I might be tempted just to forget about it. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that to Eric, but he seems to be fine, and nobody else knows about it, so I can just forget about it. No, God says, okay, you don't confess that, you hide your sins, God won't have compassion on you, you won't prosper. So I go to Eric and ask forgiveness. I'm pretty sure Eric's gonna forgive me, but I'm absolutely certain the Lord will forgive me. Even if Eric doesn't forgive me, God will, and he knows that I've confessed to Eric and I've done what God commands. So here's the conclusion of that paragraph, who are thereupon to be reconciled to him and in love to receive him. So the person's confessed their sins, those to whom he's confessed are to be reconciled to him and to receive him in love. Paul taught this as he wrote to the church in Corinth. Now, the church in Corinth was a total disaster. It was a dumpster fire. Paul told them in 1 Corinthians they needed to excommunicate someone who was engaged in gross and open immorality. And apparently they did so. And that person repented and turned from his sins. So in 2 Corinthians 2, 7 and 8, Paul says, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. So someone comes to you and they confess their sin to you, and I'm not talking about just a flippant sin, yeah, I blew it. Yeah, I'm sorry, go on. They really are truly confessing their sins and repenting and sorrowful for their sins. You're under obligation to forgive them and receive them as a brother. So we start thinking, okay, what does this forgiveness mean? One thing it does not mean, necessarily, is forgetting the sin. We talk about forgive and forget. Now, you might actually forget it. I mean, if I said something to Eric, and the next day, he might literally have forgotten about it. So he might forget it. But there are gonna be some sins you commit that are so awful, so egregious, and so hurtful, that we never truly forget them. You still remember what somebody said to you or what somebody did to you years later, even after you've forgiven them. And so I think we need to think about this in terms, we think about how God deals with things. Now scripture says, Hebrews 8, 12, as he's quoting from the Old Testament, I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. But you have to think about this. Does God forget anything? Really? Does God say, hmm, did Rod really have a foul mouth before he was a Christian? I don't remember whether he did or not. I don't remember what he said. I don't remember what he said to Eric. God doesn't forget things in that sense. I think instead the force of statements like this is God doesn't remember our sins against us anymore. He doesn't hold them over our heads. He doesn't use them as grounds for condemnation. So yes, Rod, you insulted Eric. You confessed and he forgave you. But no, that's still something that I'm angry with you about. No, God doesn't hold them against us. And so I think this is how we deal with others. We might or might not forget sins that people commit against us, but forgiveness involves not holding the sins over their heads. somebody's confessed to you, you've offered them forgiveness, you don't then later say, remember that time five years ago when you embarrassed me in front of my friends? No, you don't bring it up again. You don't hold it over their heads. You don't use it as a reason to break fellowship with them or to continue to break fellowship with them. Don't remind them of that sin. You've assured them of forgiveness. So don't even bring it up. Even if it's still in your mind, and maybe it's still hurtful. Maybe you still, you know, I see somebody and they've done something and oh man, but no, I've forgiven them. And so I don't bring it up. Now, when we forgive somebody, though, We have to remember that there may still be consequences of that sin. Think about King David with Bathsheba. I mean, he confessed his sin in Psalm 51, but then Prophet Nathan came to him and said, the Lord has also put away your sin. You shall not die. So God's forgiven you. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who was born to you shall die." There were consequences to David's sin. God forgave him, and in that sense he was clear, but there's still consequences. The child died, his son Absalom rebelled against him, there was unrest in his kingdom. There were ongoing consequences of this sin. And so, depending on the sin, there may be ongoing consequences of our sins. I think, you know, we had several years ago the mass shooting at the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Shooter went into a Bible study, shot, killed a bunch of people. A number of those victims' relatives said that they forgave the shooter in Christ, which was good. But they didn't say, therefore, don't prosecute him. No, he went to trial, he was convicted, he's punished. I don't believe at this point he's been executed, but he's under the threat of execution anyway. But they weren't going to dwell on that sin and hold it against him personally. It was like, okay, I've set that aside. The state is taking care of that. I don't need to continue to have myself eaten up with this. Somebody who embezzles money from the company. They can confess that. They can receive forgiveness. The CEO of the company can forgive them. They may still need to serve prison time. They need to pay restitution. There are consequences to that sin and the church should not make them the church treasurer after that point. Even after they have confessed and it seems that they've sincerely forsaken it because you look at them and think, here's somebody who has a particular temptation in the area of finances. They've shown this before. This is a particular area of temptation. We don't want to put them in a situation where they may be tempted again. is for their protection as well as the protection of the church. More recently, we've heard about a famous Reformed preacher, a teacher many of us know and have profited from, who confessed to being unfaithful to his wife. He can be forgiven. He can be restored fully to the fellowship of the church. He probably should not be in a pastoral relationship again. Think about it. Pastors, Pastor Cliff, other pastors, they're often in counseling situations with women, and they can have safeguards, like, okay, the secretary's always here, the door's open, that type of thing. But they get into counseling situations with women who are, by coming to him for counseling, they're vulnerable, they're opening up their lives to him. They're, in a sense, bearing their souls to him. And if he has shown that that's an area of temptation for him, where he starts developing this relationship with someone, an inappropriate relationship, he shouldn't be put in those situations again. He can still have a profitable ministry, he can still do a lot of other things in the church, probably not as a pastor, just for that reason. Again, recognizing his weaknesses. So forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean going back to the status quo ante, the way things were before. It's like, okay, well, he's confessed, he's forgiven, he's paid restitution, so we can just kind of act like nothing ever happened. There are consequences, and we continue with that. He tells us to forgive, he doesn't say, and then don't discern. Right, exactly. So, the main point, just to wind up this section of the confession, there's three passages here. Isaiah 55, 7, First John 1.9, we hear this a lot in our worship service. If we confess our sins, He, that is God, is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then James 5.16, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Now this speaks about confessing our sins to one another, and I think this is in addition to confessing to the person that you've sinned against. There may be times when I go to somebody, there's somebody I'm particularly close, somebody that I'm maybe in a discipleship relationship with, that I go to them and say, brother, pray for me, I've done X, Y, Z. Can you pray for me? Can you help me? Can you give me counsel on how to overcome this sin or what I need to do next? You might go to your pastor. This will particularly be the case you go to your pastor. You haven't sinned against the pastor. You haven't done something in public, but you go to him to say, help me. Give me counsel. Help me through this. Help me see what I need to do. It's not going to a priest. That person can't offer forgiveness and say, okay, you've come to me, therefore I authoritatively pronounce that you're forgiven. They can bring Scripture to you, 1 John 1, 9, and say, Scripture says this about your sin. But they might also say, let me help you. You should go to Eric and confess to him. And here's the types of things you might say to him. they can give us counsel. So I think that's what James is talking about here, confessing your sins to one another, praying for one another, and we realize that when we do that, when my brother prays for me, we pray for one another, there's great power in that prayer. So... An important distinction too is that the prayer of a righteous person Yep, exactly. Good point. Anything else real quick? Well, let me pray. Father, we thank you for the grace that you show us in Christ. We thank you that in spite of our sin, in spite of the fact that we turn from you, we do it regularly, in spite of that fact that you still forgive us. Lord, we ask that you would show us our sins, Even as Job prayed, show us our sin that we might turn from our sin. We might confess those sins and forsake them and know that we find mercy in Christ. We pray that You would work this even in the next hour as we come into Your presence. We're unworthy to come to You, but You call us to Yourself through Christ. We pray this in His name, amen.