Confess Your Sins

Proverbs 28:13 tells us,

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

Notice that the two lines in Proverbs 28:13 parallel one another:

The action of concealing transgression is opposite to the action of confessing and forsaking transgression.

The outcome of not prospering is opposite to the outcome of obtaining mercy. 

Conceal transgression = you will not prosper.

Confess transgression = you will obtain mercy.

Those two outcomes describe the same reality. To not not prosper — or we could say to prosper — is parallel to receiving mercy.

So: to prosper is to receive mercy, to receive mercy is to prosper.

We come to this moment of our service each week where we confess and forsake our sin so that we will experience the mercy of God, which means, according to Proverbs 28:13, we come to this moment of our service so that we will prosper.

This is about prosperity! But it’s prosperity defined by God’s economy, not by the world’s. It’s the prosperity of a congruent life … of walking in the light, of having a clean conscience, of being the same person when others see as when only God sees — the WYSIWYG life (“what you see is what you get”).

Proverbs 28:6 tells us,

“Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.”

This moment is an invitation for you to have what is better. It’s an invitation to prosper, and so, that’s the exhortation: confess your sins in order to prosper in God’s economy. Let’s pray:

Father, thank you for your word, for these ancient words ever true, and for your power at work through them by your Spirit. We ask now, 

Search us, O God, and know our hearts!

Try us and know our thoughts! 

See if there be any grievous way within us, 

And lead us in the way everlasting!

Do that even now, as we confess our sins to you in a time of silent confession …

Father, thank you for Jesus Christ, that in him we have both the forgiveness of sin and also the power to forsake sin. Thank you that he came here to save us, to live in our place as one perfectly righteous, to die in our place as our atoning sacrifice, to be raised from the dead victorious over our worst enemy. Thank you that in him we have life, and life to the full — in Christ, we remember that we are forgiven and free, and we will be with you forever. Overcome us now with that hope, in his name, amen.