A Small Shift in How We Relate | Small Shifts, Big Faith Wk 4 | Lenten Study 2026

1:26 and to send us to be an answer to other people's prayers. This week, we turn to a shift in how we relate. Maybe that's in how we relate to others, a shift in how we relate to each other, and especially a shift in how we relate to God. Yeah, and we're going to be talking about something that might seem a little bit uncomfortable at first, but I think it's essential to the Christian life. Today, we're going to be talking about confession and reconciliation. And speaking of confession, I thought it'd be good for Joshua to go and confess all of his sins to all of us right now. Me? You thought that was going to be a good idea? Yeah. I don't know, man. Yeah. Let's we'll come back. Put a pin in it. We'll come back to that. Sounds good. Well, I know we're joking about that, but let's be honest. Nobody really likes to admit when they're wrong.

2:20 We live in a culture that celebrates being right and winning arguments and never backing down. And then you throw social media into the mix where it rewards this perfect image. And we curate our lives to show only the highlight reel. Even in church, we can be tempted to pretend that we have it all together. And here's the thing. What that does is it creates a gap. It creates a gap between who we really are and then who we pretend to be. And that gap just continues to grow wider and wider. And as that gap grows wider, anxiety begins to grow. There's shame. There's isolation. And then it's exhausting too, right? And it's exhausting trying to maintain an image that isn't real. We lose touch with ourselves. We lose authentic connection with God and with others. And it's a dangerous game.

3:14 So these spiritual practices, these small steps that we can take in confession and reconciliation are about closing that gap. It's about coming clean with God, being real about ourselves and with each other. And when we do that, something powerful happens. We experience freedom and healing and restoration. And I don't know about you, but man, it feels like our world just desperately needs that right now. Yeah, we talk about confession a lot at resurrection. And a part of what confession means is really to acknowledge that we have missed the mark. You think about the term for sin, harmartia. And so to sin means that we miss the mark. And every one of us in our lives has missed the mark in some way. And confession is acknowledging that, seeking God, repenting, and acknowledging that we have missed the mark or we have fallen from the path.

4:10 And maybe it's that we've hurt others or maybe we've hurt ourselves. And in the Christian tradition, this is an important part of how we practice our faith. And so that's why we talk about this practice, the practice of confession, as a shift in how we relate. Because as we practice confession, we shift our relationship with God, acknowledging our need for God and our need for forgiveness. but also a shift in like how we relate to ourselves, releasing guilt and shame and the remorse that we might feel. The Bible talks about confession as an important part of our faith. And so in the Old Testament, the people of Israel had this regular practice of confession. We read from Psalm 51, this is a Psalm of David crying out to God, You can hear David's heart cry, his confession. In the New Testament, James, James writes, And John writes this,

5:30 from all unrighteousness. Confession isn't just about feeling bad or wallowing in guilt or shame. It's about honesty. It's about honesty that leads to healing. It's about confessing that perhaps not everything has gone the way that we would like it to go. And maybe we have a part to play in that and releasing that to God so that God can work in our lives. Yeah, for sure. And different Christian traditions actually practice this in different ways. In some traditions, and you may think about when you think of confession, you may think about like Catholicism, where a congregant will go and confess to a priest in a time of confession, or maybe there's a dedicated time where that happens. In other traditions, it's more informal, right? We confess to God in private prayer, or maybe you share honestly and openly in a small group. I know we talk about him often here, as we should, but John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, he encouraged early Methodists to meet in small groups where they would ask each other these kinds of questions, like, how is it with your soul?

6:39 Or what sins have you committed? Where have you fallen short? And so they would honestly create space where they would have those conversations. And, you know, I joked earlier, what sins have you committed, Joshua? But I mean, really, truly, it's important to be able, if you're in a safe place, to be able to share openly and honestly about your life. And so do you have any specific experience with confession? Yeah, well, I want to say, like, if you are in a small group, we promise you that, like, that's not the first question we ask in our small group. What I love about the tradition that we draw from in John Wesley is he just always found a way to get to the heart of the matter. And in some way, we try to do that in our small groups or in close friends, with close friends. You can talk to people in a way that gets to the heart of the matter.

7:35 I know in my own life, like, really, confession isn't something I normally think about or I naturally think about until someone invites me to think about it. I'm perhaps, maybe this is just me, but I'm not naturally prone to think, like, man, I really do need to confess today, even though I can count many ways in which I've missed the mark throughout a day, some maybe just little things, and maybe other times like bigger things I really should seek forgiveness for. But what I love about how we practice confession at resurrection is that at every one of our worship services, there's a time of prayer in which we pause and we confess. And it's this moment where, you know, in a busy world, a fast-paced environment with tasks and responsibilities, family duties, job responsibilities, even like the retired people I know who would say like I do way more than I ever thought I would do in retirement like you forget to pause just long enough to confess to connect with God to share honestly with God and so in every worship service we we pause and you know I have a particular prayer that I pray in every one of those confession prayers and it's a part of the worship service in which I truly offer my confession to God. And we're all invited to offer our confession to God in that moment. Yeah. You might notice there's a big weight here this week. And when I think about confession in my own life, there was a season when I was pastoring a church in Iowa and I had struggled with something for a very long time and the guilt and shame had built up because I wasn't practicing regular confession. So it felt like I was walking around with a weight, you know, this giant weight on my shoulders. And then one late night, I decided that I was going to send an email to our leadership team and essentially confess to some things that I was struggling with. And in that moment, it felt like I had set that weight down. It felt like that weight had been released for me, but I shouldn't have waited that long. I should have made confession

9:43 a regular part of my life. So that shame and that guilt didn't build up over time. And that's what the challenge is for us is to be real, be authentic. We confess our sins to God and He is faithful and just to forgive us. But confession is just the first step. What does the next step look like? Yeah, I think the image, I mean, that you just shared with us is so powerful. I mean, I can barely lift this. And when you let it go through confession, you know, maybe forgiveness is a part of that too. And when you forgive, like you release confession, like releases this weight that you carry, but there there's a, a, a partner side of this. There's a counterpart to this. And with confession also goes reconciliation and we might confess. And sometimes we're invited into a process of reconciliation that, um, you know, as confession is inward and maybe personal reconciliation is outward, something we live out and helps us to repair those broken places of our lives, our relationships, maybe in groups or settings where reconciliation is really the only way toward healing, the pathway for healing. And so Jesus, he talked about reconciliation.

11:04 We've referenced the Sermon on the Mount a couple of times. Jesus speaks about reconciliation in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, so when you are offering your gift at the altar, talking about worship, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. I mean, think about that. Jesus says about reconciliation that it's so important, it's so critical that even before you worship, even before you offer your, give your offering on the altar, like you're to go and make repair, make amends, to reconcile with people you might have wronged or maybe with people who've wronged you. And of course, that's difficult, it's challenging. Paul also offered a similar encouragement. Paul writes later to the Corinthians about reconciliation, saying that all this is from God, who reconciled us to him through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. So because God reconciles with us through Jesus's act on the cross, giving his life willingly, that we might find new life, that because of that reconciliation, we're invited to reconcile with others.

12:24 right um it's not easy yeah yeah it requires courage totally um humility what i mean what else yeah and i was gonna say i mean and that's the part that we can control because we can take that first step and sometimes people aren't ready for it but we we are the ones that can reach out you know we can apologize without adding but afterward and we can be the ones that offer forgiveness. We can make amends when it's possible. And even when full reconciliation isn't possible, we can do our part to at least release the burden. You know, we can at least set that weight down and leave it up to God. You know, when I think about reconciliation in my life, a very, very powerful thing comes to mind. I was a pretty rough teenager. Yeah, I was a pretty strong-willed. And so me and my mom, we would go round and round. You know, we would, you know, the unhealthy fight at times. But one thing I'll never forget is that even in some of those, the craziest fights we ever had, my mom made an intentional effort at night before I would go to sleep. She'd come into my room and we would reconcile. And that is just, it was just a beautiful picture of reconciliation that no matter how mad we were at each other, she didn't want us to go to sleep angry. And so she modeled that really well. And now that's something that I model with my kids, you know, that taking that step of reconciliation, even though I probably didn't deserve it at times. What about you? Do you have any stories of reconciliation?

13:54 You share a personal anecdote. And I'm kind of thinking like globally, like how this plays out. And a really powerful example of reconciliation comes from post-apartheid South Africa. And in post-apartheid South Africa, there was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was, you know, trying to figure out how do we build and rebuild our community post-apartheid, this segregated society and culture. And, you know, this Truth and Reconciliation Commission started in, it was initiated around maybe 1994 and really began in earnest in 1996. And what they tried to do was provide a pathway for people to reconcile. There are a couple images we'll show you here of what that looks like. And this commission was chaired by Desmond Tutu. He and this commission addressed human rights violations through public testimony and conditional amnesty, conditional meaning that those who had committed wrongdoings in apartheid South Africa, they confessed and went through a process of reconciliation and that was conditional.

15:11 Then on the other end of that, they experienced conditional amnesty. And, you know, you think of crimes that were committed from 1960 to 1994, and it included all kinds of racism and torture and killings and bombings and violence of all kinds, and specifically toward black people in South Africa that maintained the system of racism and inequality in South Africa. Like, how do you heal? How do you repair something that is so broken? And so there were these powerful testimonies, victims coming forward to share their experience. And then the commission balancing justice and stability, trying to find a pathway forward through reconciliation. And it was not a perfect process, but it became a really important model for what reconciliation can look like. And maybe, you know, in our own lives, like in our own lives, maybe it's not as dramatic or not as big, but there are probably places in our lives where, you know, if we were to seek out reconciliation, to offer confession, to seek forgiveness, and then to find a pathway where both parties or multiple people are built up and reconciled. There's a helpful pathway that kind of shifts our faith and can transform our life. Absolutely. And the beautiful thing is like once these things are brought to light in confession and then once reconciliation is sought, they lose power over us.

16:42 And there really is some health that happens there. There's a quote that I love from Brene Brown. And she's a researcher who studies shame and vulnerability. And she writes, shame derives its power from being unspeakable. And when we think about keeping our struggles secret, they grow in the darkness, right? But when we speak them out loud, when we confess, they begin to lose their grip on us. And so you might be thinking, okay, Bo, this sounds great, but what does this actually look like in my life? How do we actually begin to model these things of confession and reconciliation? And I'm glad you asked. We want for you to be able to put these into action. So here's some things of what it might look like for you practically with confession and reconciliation. Again, there's two postures, right? We receive one and then one is to respond.

17:48 So when you practice confession, you're receiving God's grace, right? You're acknowledging your need for forgiveness. You're being honest about the ways that you've fallen short. And maybe that's in your private prayer, maybe in your prayer time. We've talked about prayer earlier, but if in your prayer time, you can spend some time in confession, maybe it's in your marriage or other friendships or relationships, or maybe went to the mentor or one of our small groups where you feel safe enough to do so. But the focus here is that it's regular honesty, not just when something goes wrong, but you're practicing it all the time to avoid having to carry a big weight around. And then there's the next one is reconciliation. So what are some practical things for reconciliation? I think practicing reconciliation looks a little bit like, you know, being willing to have a difficult conversation. It looks like being willing to go to someone and saying, I'm sorry, I really missed the mark and finding pathways to repair. Maybe it's writing a letter or making a phone call, offering forgiveness to someone. Maybe it's asking for forgiveness. And, you know, there are some things that happen where it's important to not forget the circumstance or the instance, or there are circumstances where, you know, we would say violence is never okay. And if you're in a relationship that is violent, like it's important to leave. But there are other things for which, there are other things for which, like we can find pathways to reconciliation. And really the shift here is in taking the first step. Like the practice is in taking the first step, even when it's hard and trusting that God walks with you through that. And when we make that shift, we start to experience freedom, the weight of shame lifts, and we walk in a new light with relationships that are authentic and life-giving, and we grow in our faith, transformed in our faith along the way. Yeah, that's good. Well, I thought it would be good. You know, we talked about it earlier in all of our worship services here at Resurrection.

19:58 We practice this intentionally, but I thought it would be good to lead us just through that right now. You know, if you're driving, be careful. But if you're watching this in a spot where you can, I just want to invite us to pause for just a moment and take a moment of silence. Just a few seconds here and maybe ask God for an area of your life that you might need to confess some things or you need to be honest about that. or also maybe bring to mind someone in your life that you might could seek reconciliation. So don't rush this. Just take a moment and we'll listen. As we've paused and just, you know, reflected as Beau invited us to do, I want to begin to wrap our time up in prayer as we've done over the last few weeks. But first, let me offer an invitation to you to consider a next step. A next step might be simply going to our discipleship webpage.

20:57 You can do that at resurrection.church slash discipleship and find a way to connect in small groups or studies, connect at your location and or online and find pathways to practice these Christian practices with other people. It's so much better when you can do it with a friend or a community of people who strengthen your faith, who help you learn and grow in your faith and practice these practices with you. So as we think about small shifts, the small shift of communion and fasting and reading and living out the Bible, praying, both talking to God and listening to God, and then releasing the weight of shame through confession and seeking reconciliation with people. As we make these shifts, we'll find our life is transformed in a powerful way. I'm going to close us in prayer and just say thank you for joining us for these four weeks. Let's pray.

21:54 Gracious God, you meet me in my mistakes and sin with grace and forgiveness. It reminds me today to follow your example by assuming the best in those around me, speaking honestly to those who disappoint me, offering forgiveness to those who hurt me, reconciling relationships if and where possible. Lord, just as you have forgiven me, embolden me to forgive those around me. Compassionate God, thank you for the ways you offer me grace, forgive my sin, and give me new chances to serve you. And I'm aware of your forgiveness today through people who love me even when I disappoint and the second chances I receive and opportunities to help others even though I am imperfect. And with clean slates to write new stories, God, thank you for forgiving my trespasses today and helping me to forgive those who trespass.