Living in The Light - 6/14/26

Living in the Light: Confession, Repentance, and Freedom
Guest Speaker: Ian Wray

What if one of the greatest barriers to freedom is simply our instinct to hide?

In this message, we explore 1 John 1 and James 5, inviting us into a lifestyle of honesty, repentance, and confession. Drawing from Scripture, church history, and personal experience, Ian reminds us that God does not meet us where we pretend to be; he meets us where we truly are.

Through the gospel, Jesus becomes our covering, freeing us from shame and inviting us out of hiding and into the light. As we bring our struggles, sins, and weaknesses before God and trusted believers, we discover the healing, freedom, and transformation that come through Christ.

Scripture References:
1 John 1:5–10
1 John 2:1–2
James 5:16
Psalm 32
Proverbs 28:13

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thank you, worship team. All right, yes. Good morning. My name is Adam Case. I'm the lead pastor here. I will not be speaking this morning. I get to I get to introduce our guest speaker in just a moment. But before we get there, um want to let you know, remind you that our mission is to encounter the love and power of God and give it away to the world. If you are new or looking to get more connected, the best thing that you could do is to uh fill out a connect card, either a physical one in front of you, drop it in the offering or take it out to the welcome desk, or there will be a QR code up on the screen. You can scan that and enter your information digitally. We will add you to our weekly email, which is a great way to find out various things that are happening in the church, uh, not only in the upcoming week, but uh weeks ahead. You also should have received a bulletin as you came in, has all that information as well. Um, one side is the ministries that are meeting this week, the other side is different events that are that are coming up. So uh there's also a QR code on that that you can scan and get that information digitally as well. Uh so also we want to welcome any first-time guests. If you are a first-time guest, we have a gift for you. Don't worry, we're not gonna ask anything of you. We just have a small gift to give to you as a way to say welcome, we're glad that you're here. So if you would bravely, boldly raise your hand, one of our greeters will come around and and drop off a gift to you. All right. Well, uh, let's all stand then and uh greet one another, find somebody maybe you've never met before, look them in the eye, smile, and say, I'm glad you're here. This morning, it is my privilege and honor to introduce our guest speaker, who's not really a guest, he's a family member, uh, who's just happens to be back in town to share with us uh the infamous and famous, depending on how you think of them. Ian Ray is back. Come on up. I guess he's infamous in the Dominion of Darkness. He's famous in the Kingdom of Light. So for those of you who don't know Ian, uh he was our youth and small groups pastor from uh August 2018 through August 2022. Uh he met his amazing wife, Rachel, while here. Very amazing.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Uh you can woo her. Uh you can.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

They are both currently on staff uh with the belonging co. in Nashville, Tennessee. Ian is the group's pastor, and Rachel is the New Believers uh pastor on staff. Um and one thing it seemed very appropriate to have Ian come and speak because actually, when he was the youth pastor, he started doing a mental health series uh with our youth, and really is a lot of inspiration for us doing one um this year with with all of you. Uh so we're so glad uh to have him here with us this morning to hear uh what the Lord has laid on his heart. I just want to say I know the Lord is on him for this morning, just even as we were uh just having a conversation, um I felt it. And so I would love to just pray for you and then release you and whatever the Lord has. The Hound of Heaven. Jesus, thank you so much for Ian. Thank you for this word that you've given him and thank you for your power and your presence that are uh in him and on him, and we just say, Would you release that? Release that here that what you've given to him is also uh for us. And so we just we bless him. We say, Anoint his lips in the name of Jesus. That the words he speak, he speaks would be as speaking the very words of God. In Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Brother Adam. Awesome. It's up there. I know I'm tall, but I don't know if I'm this tall. We'll put it down just a little bit. There we go. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Amazing. Well, it's good to good to see you. It feels like being home. Good to see family, a bunch of smiling faces, and come on. It's just incredible hearing what God has been doing uh even the last couple of weeks. And I know there are some new faces, so we if we haven't met, um, my name's Ian. It's so nice to meet you. Again, it feels like home here. I mean, I met my wife literally in that lobby, and we had our first conversation, which is amazing. And so the spouse is in the house. If you're believing, the spouse is in the house in Jesus' name. She prayed, hey, she prayed me in. She she was like, Lord, I just I need a man who's passionate about Jesus, and and and she like but was looking around the vineyard, like, Lord, I don't I don't know, I don't know yet. And then all of a sudden I walk in and she did not like me at first. She's like, Who is this punk of a of a young man wearing a backward-facing hat? And then, you know, just a little bit of prayer, a little bit of sanctification along the way, we ended up getting married. So it's amazing. It's amazing. Oh man. Well, it's so fun to be here. I I know that you guys have been in a series uh and it's been about mental health and it's been about kind of abundant life and and the reality of what does it look like to walk this out. And I know, I mean, I I heard this morning, I heard Leanne's testimony. Was anyone here last week and heard that powerful testimony? I mean, come on. Jesus is so kind. I was I was just weeping before God. Just Lord, thank you. And just getting the sense of He wants to continue setting people free. Uh freedom is actually like a call of this house that you would walk in, and maybe you walk in bound up. Maybe you walk in in chains in some way, and the Lord wants to break those chains. He wants to set us free. And so I'm I'm I'm excited to be able to chat. Oh, excuse me, to be able to chat and just kind of share little things that I feel like God has has placed in my heart. But I just want to start uh with prayer. Lord, we thank you. We thank you that you're moving here at Indy Vineyard, and God, we ask for more. We ask for more, more of your spirit. Lord, we ask for more freedom, more breakthrough. Lord, we thank you that uh that you're you're waking your church up across the globe. And God, we thank you that you're you're desiring to use Indy Vineyard as a beacon here in Indianapolis. And so, God, we just pray use us, uh, use us. Lord, Lord, I ask that you would even expand our capacity to actually experience you. Would you expand our hearts to know you? And Lord, we thank you that it's not just an uh intellectual knowing, it's an experiential knowing that we could actually encounter and experience you and walk out in our day-to-day lives. So, Holy Spirit, come. Just be with us. We honor you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, I'm gonna get vulnerable today. I know this is family, and so this is a chance for for me to get vulnerable. It was um almost 10 years ago now. I was uh sharing at an event, and I remember God moving in power at this event. I remember people being healed and prophetic words, and and people were encountering God in his power. And then I I remember just so blessed seeing what God was doing, and I remember going home, and I was just thankful. God, I thank you so much for what you've done, what you did uh at at this event. And then I remember it gets to Sunday night, and I ended up falling into sin. I sinned. And I was so confused because God had just used me in power, and then right after that I had fallen into sin. And I remember praying and asking God, God, why? Like, why is this happening? Why did this occur? And I remember the kindness of the Lord, he said, Ian, because it's not about you. And I was like, Well, what do you mean? And he said, Ian, it's not about you. I'll use broken vessels for my glory. And that's the reality, is that you might be coming in this place, and and we're gonna be talking about some heavy topics. We're gonna be talking about sin, but there's freedom that we experience in the cross from that sin. And I've seen that, I've experienced that in my own life, and yet there's a sanctification process that's continuing to happen along the way. Uh, I was discipled actually in middle school in eighth grade, and um I I remember my mentor asking us to pray about finding a life verse. It was like back in the day where everyone was getting a life verse. Does anyone have a life verse here? Okay. I mean, it was like those were the days, right? Come on. And I remember uh the Lord leading me to a passage in 2 Corinthians, uh, 2 Corinthians 12, and I just felt like, okay, this is my life verse. In 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9 through 10, it says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made uh perfect in my weakness. So what do we do? We glorify in our weaknesses to bring glory to the power of Christ. I result in, or I rejoice in hardship and pain and difficulty. Like we actually can boast in our weakness. Now here's the thing God led me to that in middle school. That's a pretty hard life first to live out. And I was like, oh, this is amazing, this is awesome. And then there were seasons in my life where I realized, oh no, for it to be my life first, I actually need to live it. I actually have to boast in my weakness. And that was a scary thing. And so I just want to even start with a little church history. I'm a little bit of a nerd. And so October uh 31st, uh, 1517, a man named Martin Luther uh posted his 95 theses on a door. He was Catholic, and he posted these theses where he wanted to see a correction to the Catholic Church. And so we are Protestants, and the Protestant Reformation was kicked off by this man named Martin Luther. And don't worry, we don't have time to go through all 95, but I just want to share the first one. Number one. No, we're not we're not going all 95, don't worry. But I just want to start with the first one. And this is something that he had seen modeled in the Catholic Church, and he said, okay, to walk out and walk in this relationship with Jesus that's rooted in Scripture, we need to get this. This is the first thesis. He said, When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent, he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. That's what he said is we don't outgrow repentance. We don't outgrow confession. We actually get sanctified to look more and more like Jesus. And I want you to hear this confession, which is what we're going to be talking about. Confession is not a new thing, it's an ancient thing. We see it in Scripture. And and my my longing in prayer for us is that we would press into the more of God, but also that maybe some that are bound up would experience freedom, would experience healing, and you would walk out going, Oh, there's actually another way. I've been doing this Christian walk. I look around and I know many of you have been walking with Jesus for a really long time. But there's actually a, there's so much more that God would have for us, and I really believe that it can be unlocked in repentance and confession. I mean, every move of God throughout church history that we've seen, it begins with a place of confession. It begins with repentance, on saying, Lord, I need you. And we actually begin boasting in our neediness for God. And so what we're gonna be doing, if you have your Bibles, we're gonna be jumping into a passage in 1 John. So I would love for you to turn there together. So 1 John will be in chapter 1, and we're we're actually gonna be jumping kind of all over scripture, but I want us to start in 1 John. And just a little bit of context. Uh, 1 John is is written, um, I mean, scholars kind of go back and forth, but but I would kind of submit to that that it was written by the beloved disciple, it's the elder John, and he was writing to a church, and this church specifically, there were some false beliefs going around, uh, some confusing teachings. And these teachings specifically was had having to do with this Gnostic belief. It was this idea of the physical body and the spiritual actually being separate. And so what they believed was that the material, the physical was actually evil. We wanted nothing to do with the physical, and the spiritual was what mattered. And so they started believing that Jesus came not as fully God, fully man in the flesh, but that he just appeared to come. There was just the appearance of a man, not an actual man, not the actual physicality of Jesus. And so what John does is he hears about this false teaching, and then the people they start walking out this theology, this belief, this doctrine. Because I want you to hear this the beliefs and the doctrines, the theology that we actually believe about God, it actually manifests manifests in our life. Like how we live our life as a result of the thoughts that we think about God. And sometimes we don't even know what we think about God. And here's what happened in the early church, in this early church community. The result was they said, Whatever I do with my body, it doesn't count because the body doesn't matter. So I can do whatever I want with my body, I can sin, I can do that, and I don't have sin because the body doesn't matter. My spirit's not sinning, the body is what's sinning, but that doesn't matter. And all of a sudden their theology, they could start saying, Well, I'm without sin. I don't have sin. I'm not sinning in any way. And John comes in and he corrects it in kindness. He says, No, this is what it looks like to walk with Jesus. So I want us to just start in verse five, and we'll go to verse ten. This is what the word says. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you, God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar, and his word is not in us. Here's the thing. First John, it's confronting. Sometimes it's a it's a gentle little like blow in the face. You're like, whoa, but but actually, if we get this, if we understand what it looks like to live this out, there's so much hope, there's so much redemption, there's so much grace in the person of Jesus. And again, remember, he's correcting a specific kind of heresy that was going around. And as I've sat in this passage and prayed with it, there's so much here that we could unpack. But I think at its core, at its core, this passage is really about honesty. It's about being honest. I mean, what were the people doing? They're saying, like, no, no, no, I'm without sin. Like, I don't, I don't have it. But what what John is saying, no, no, no, just just be honest. Be honest with what is actually going on, because the reality is, church, God will not meet you where you pretend to be. He will meet you only where you are. Where you actually are. So many of us hide from ourselves and hide from God. And the reality is, is we're just we're we're just not being honest. We're like, hey, here's the actual state of my soul. Here's the actual state of where I'm at with God. Here's where my relationships are at. We spend so much of our life pretending, so much of our life hiding, and we don't even know we're doing it. And so this passage, what does it teach us? It says, hey, let's just be honest. What do we do? We walk in the light. We walk in the light. I mean, John uses this kind of uh this understanding we see in his gospel of darkness and light. We see it all throughout scripture. What's darkness? It's it's where you hide. Darkness is where you don't have an understanding of who Jesus is. And he says, okay, here's what we do. Here's how we actually leave the darkness is we just step into the light. We just we just step into the light. And we actually get a choice. The enemy will do everything he can to keep you in the dark. That's why you hear that little lie, man, if only they knew. Man, if only they knew that thought that I had, or the thing that I did when I was young, or the thing that happened to me. But but all we get to do is just in obedience say, I'm just gonna be honest. I'm gonna be real and I'm gonna just I'm gonna bring this into the light. Because darkness is the domain of the enemy. He owns it. He owns that which is in the dark. That's why he will fight tooth and nail to keep you in the dark. That's why he'll fight tooth and nail to keep me in the dark. And then we actually get to kick the enemy's teeth in and say, hey, no, no, no, I'm not doing this anymore, and I'm just going to come into the light because what is the light? The light is the domain of Jesus. He's the Prince of Light. And so all of a sudden Jesus says, okay, when this sin, when when this insecurity, when this uh revelation or understanding about who I'm I'm not and my identity, when I when I bring this into the light, it enters into the domain of Jesus, and Jesus can finally work with it. And all we have to do is say, okay, the enemy's trying to keep me in the dark, and I'm just going to bring this into the light. And it can be easy to compare, especially in an environment like this, at the Indy Vineyard. I mean, I look around and I see, I see generals, people who have been in the faith and walking with Jesus for a long time. You might, you know, say, okay, well, I'm not like Steve Sargent. Or you might say, I don't know Latin and read all my books in Latin like Pastor Randy, or, you know, I don't bench 400 pounds like Adam. Like, you know, we can compare. I'm sure. Sorry, 350, 350, yeah, yeah. But the temptation is to compare. And in the kingdom of God, we're all the same under Jesus, and we can look at each other in humility and say, okay, I've actually been formed into the image of Jesus. I I have sin, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to be a person who lives in the light. I'm going to bring this up. I mean, Galossians 1, uh, verse 13, it says that the Father has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So all we get to do is we bring it into light. And confession and walking in the light is honestly how we resist pretending. It's how we resist comparison. We just bring it into the light. In confession, it's two parts. It's it's searching. You know, Psalm 139, like, Lord, search my heart, and then it's naming. We just name it. All right, Lord, what are you bringing up? What's actually going on? What's the reality of my heart? I love this quote by Henry Nowen. He says, the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That's it. Like I don't have anything to give. It's it's me nearly ten years ago going like, no, like here I am, just a soul before God, longing and desiring to be like Jesus. But what we have to do is we have to acknowledge what's actually going on. Because the comparison, the pretending, the hiding, that that's not the problem. We have to get to the root of the problem. So what's what's the root? What's the actual problem? Uh G.K. Chesterton, he was an English writer, he was a philosopher, really well known for a lot of eloquence. And uh G.K. Chesterton, he was written a letter by a reporter. The year's about 1910, Western progress is is happening, there's there's you know, seeing a lot of progress in the world. And you know, none of the world wars had happened yet. And a reporter asked him, Hey, what's wrong with the world? And and GK just very very simply, you know, you're expecting this like big apologetic response. And he just writes back, I am wrong. I'm what's wrong with the world. Hold on, here's this like massive Christian leader, and he's saying, It's me, I'm the issue. But at its core, it's not you, it's not me, it's not GK, it's sin. It's sin. Sin is the issue. Sin at its core, like I I even remember hearing messages about sin in my younger years, and I really wanted to hear a ton about the love of God. Now I still want to hear about the love of God, but I was like, hey, maybe we don't we don't talk about the sin thing, we just talk about how how God loves us so much and then sin gets taken care of, which is true. But the reason I didn't want to hear sermons as much about sin is because I was unwilling to confront the sin that was in my own heart. And so I began saying, Well, I just Don't want us to talk about it. And I'm not here to condemn you. I'm not here to say, hey, this is in you. This isn't like a turn and burn message. But we have to acknowledge that the problem, the problem of the world, like GK said, it's it's us, that we actually have sin. In first John, it's it's not just about living in the light, it's about bringing that sin that we actually are committing and bringing it into the light. And what is sin? Uh, kind of biblically, there's tons of words uh in the in the Old Testament and the New Testament from s uh that that are translated as sin, but uh the primary word in the Greek it's it's Hamartia. It's it's this idea of missing the mark. It's actually a bow and arrow analogy. And it's this idea that here's the uh here's the target, and don't worry, guys, I'm not I'm not too too bad with my aim. Um but the target's over here, and we got the the bow and arrow, and and and we're we're coming back, and every time we're we're going for the target, we're going for God's design, we're going for what we've been created for, we pull it back, and every single time that the arrow ends over in the drum cage. That doesn't even make sense. Like the target was right here and it just ends up over there. And I think sometimes we think the problem is in the archer, sometimes we think we have terrible aim, sometimes we think it's maybe the arrow, but but it's it's the bow. It's sin. Like we're gonna miss the mark. And here's the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel and the good news of Jesus is that we get a new bow. That we actually get a new bow. That that actually, where we keep missing the mark, he says, Hey, in me, because of my sacrifice on the cross, in me and because of me, you can now walk out sanctified and holy. You can walk out as someone who lives in the light, and you just say, Hey, hey, God, I want to be refined, Jesus. I want to, I want to look more like you. It's Galatians 4, which says, in the pains of childbirth, I'm being conformed into the image of Jesus. It's it can be painful, but in the gospel, in the good news of Jesus, we actually get a new bow. And so I want us to hear the good news that we can walk out, you know, today with. That yes, we have the problem of sin, but we have the good news of Jesus. We have the good news of Jesus that we can we can actually come under and say, Lord, I thank you for setting me free. Lord, I thank you that that no more am I a sinner. Now I'm actually seated in heavenly places. Now I'm actually uh sanctified. And it's a process. It's that big word, sanctification, it's walking it out. And in the sanctification journey, I've there's a helpful framework that's been helpful for me, just as we overcome sin, empowered by the Spirit with Jesus, is first in the process, often it's blatant sins. That we're we're dealing with blatant sins. This would be, you know, drunkenness or pornography and lust and murder, and just these like really big, obviously, like the world would even look at in a lot of ways and say, okay, this actually isn't that helpful. And Jesus, he begins sanctifying us. The Spirit allows us and invites us to bring it into the light. And then we have conscience sins. These conscious sins are ones that are socially acceptable, but they're not the way of Jesus. This is gossip. And gossip's a sin. It actually says in scripture, but society would say, Oh, you you should be in the know. I mean, the entire like society around news is actually built around the culture of gossip. Well, did you hear about what happened over there? And it's followers of Jesus where actually say, Hey, I'm about my king's business. I'm about the kingdom, and I don't need to actually worry myself with that. It's greed, it's it's uh you know, dirty movies, it's it's all of these socially acceptable sins, but not the way of Jesus. And then we go deeper, and then it's unconscious sins. It becomes about motivation. It's doing the right thing for the wrong reason. It's leading because of a childhood wound. It's it's saying, okay, I'm I'm doing this. I remember one time I was uh out kind of evangelizing and sharing the gospel, and I remember the Lord just corrected me and said, Ian, your motives are wrong. I'm like, I'm sharing the gospel. Like, what are you talking about? And the Lord, again, in his kindness, said, Ian, you are sharing and hoping they come to Christ so you can tell the story of them coming to Christ, not so that they would actually be saved. I was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. And that's the sanctification journey that we continue going deeper. And then finally, it's trust structures. It's it's this deepest level of sin. It's what John Calvin calls idols, it's emotional programming for happiness, it's the things that we think we need that we don't. And that's the sanctification journey that we go on as we're walking with Jesus. And sometimes we jump up, you know, to other seasons, but the beauty is that we get to look more like Jesus, more and more. In Proverbs 28, verse 13, it says, Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. So what do we do? We we bring it to the light. We we actually confess it. We don't conceal it, we get to be honest about it. Uh my wife and I, we live in Nashville, and we were uh at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, which is pretty close to where we live. And we'd lived there for a while, and we just recently went. And I ended up finding that, you know, yeah, a little tainted legacy and all that. But fun fact, he was the only president to pay off debt, uh, the country's debt, which I thought was pretty wild. And I also found out that he uh had two bullets that were just that stayed in his body for years and years and years. And it was pretty uncomfortable. It was like a duel over like a silly like racing thing. I mean, it just was people were like, okay, that was that was just silly. Uh but he actually had two bullets that uh stayed within his body, and it was really uncomfortable, naturally. And but he just left them in until eventually he became president and they removed one of them, but they believed the bullets that remained in his body for years and years and years ended up leading to his death. And if I'm honest, that's sin. Like sin, we we we we almost say, well, it's just kind of normal that it should be there. And so we just we're okay with it. And it's continually uncomfortable. And rather than saying, hey, I'm gonna go in and excavate it with confession, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring it into the light because what does sin do? The result of sin is death. That's what Romans says. Uh and and and it leads to death, and that's what unconfessed sin is like. It's like a bullet in our body. But I want us to hear what you, I know you've experienced, I've experienced it's the effects of sin. It's like what sin leads to in its hiddenness. We see it, you know, in the garden. Adam and Eve, what did they do in the garden? In Genesis 3, they hid. You know, in the beginning of creation, they're naked, they're unashamed, they're they're walking with God in the cool of the day, and then eventually sin enters. They they mess up, and what do they do? Their response is to hide. Now, here's the beautiful invitation of the Father, where they're hiding after their sin, after they'd mess up, after they'd betrayed God. And God says, Hey, where are you? Which He's a terrible person to play hide and seek with. Like he very much knew where they were. But but what was that? That was the Father's kindness, and it was an invitation to confession. Hey, where are you? And you know what Adam and Eve could have done? They could have come out and they could have said, Hey, here I am. But Adam, he he said, Well, I was afraid. So I hid. So he told them the why of why he did it, but he didn't just say, Hey, here's where I actually am, God. And then the Father looks at Adam and Eve and he follows it up with another question. He he he looks at them. Who told you? Who told you that you were naked? And I think that's the father, and he's saying, Hey, who who stole your innocence? Who took your innocence? My children, they were they were innocent. They were without blemish, they were they were naked and unashamed, and now they're all of a sudden burdened by the weight of shame. And Jesus, what he's doing, even to us, I believe us in the room, is an invitation. Hey, where are you hiding? You're hiding in your relationships, are you hiding in your marriage? Are you are you hiding in in in whatever way it is, in work, and you're overachieving because you're just longing for the approval of your boss? Where are you hiding? And the Father's invitation is to come out of hiding, to actually just say, Hey, here I am. And God, in his kindness, what does he do? Where humanity's temptation is to cover themselves, what does he do? He says, No, I will not cover you. He actually becomes their covering. Psalm 32, it talks about that. You're my hiding place, you're my covering. And and where our temptation as humans is to hide and cover ourselves, what does the Father do? He says, Hey, I'm gonna actually take these animal skins and I will now cover you, so you don't have to. We spend all our energy covering ourselves from from one another and covering ourselves from God, and He's saying, You don't have to do that. Look at Jesus. And I, you know, here's the thing Jesus on a cross, I'm just gonna say it, he was naked. He was. He was naked. In that position, it's pretty awkward to see just a naked man on a cross. But what do we do when we cover? When you're naked, you're covered, you're hey, don't look. Shame. And Jesus said, I will overcome that shame by here I am on the cross. Here I am. And now you don't have to hide yourself. I will become your covering. I will become your hiding. That's Jesus. That's what he did for us on the cross. That's the freedom that we can find in confession as we bring uh that which is in the darkness of the light. Uh this past week I was with a guy who was just sharing a bit of his story, and it was beautiful to see, and he he shared about a decision that he had made that would really it should have led to his family being absolutely destroyed. Uh he made a decision and he sinned. And he knew it was sin. He eventually confessed it, he brought it into the light to some pastors and and to some friends, and eventually he had to go to his wife, and he had to tell her uh what he had done. And naturally she was upset, she was angry, it was hurt, there was betrayal. And he said, he looked me in the eyes. We're at a coffee shop, he said, Ian. Then five days later she came to me, she got on her knees, she washed my feet, and said, I forgive you. And we wept. We wept. Just in the coffee shop, just weeping. That's the gospel, it's the good news of Jesus. And our temptation is to hide, to say, Well, if only you knew. And often what we're doing is when we're hiding, we're actually keeping ourselves from experiencing the love of God and the love of others. It's to say, no, no, no, I'm gonna give you what I think you want of me. I'm gonna give you what I think you you need of me, versus here I am. You know, it's it's sharing the the two percent. And it's really freedom is found in the two percent. Often we share 98% with the world. Like, hey, here's what I'm gonna tell you. Maybe we share 10%. But as we start walking with Jesus and walking more free and and walking wholeness, there there's often this 2%. There's this thing that we actually don't want anyone to know about. And I've found as I've had a group of guys that I come together with every week and we confess our sins and we pray for each other, and we we read the scriptures, and we we we fight for living in the lights. I found so much freedom in the 2%, in the sharing the little, the things that we don't want to. And so maybe that's just even a framing for you. What's the 2%? What's the what's the little thing that I don't want anyone to know? And I found as I've shared that, all of a sudden you start sharing not just about sin, but the thing that would lead to the sin. There's actually freedom. Where you're not confessing about, okay, I'm I'm you know, lying over here. I'm saying, hey, I felt really insecure in that meeting. I felt pretty insecure. Yeah, grown men were like, yeah, I was insecure as a leader here. But what does that insecurity lead me to? It would lead me to unaddressed, maybe in a couple of weeks or a couple months, I begin lying at work and putting on performance and saying I'm doing better, and I start saying, okay, discipleship is more of discipleship is happening than actually is, and I start doing that. Why? It all began with I was insecure. So what do I get to do? I just get to bring that into lie, I get to confess it. And that's the beauty of confession. I mean, Psalm 32. You know, if you don't have uh I I would just encourage you actually spend some time in Psalm 32. It's a powerful, powerful passage. But I just want to highlight a couple verses in there. It says, When I kept silent, my bones wasted away, through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy on me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Later on it says, You are my hiding place. So now where we used to hide from God now, because of Jesus, we can now hide in God. He becomes our covering. And we actually overcome what happened in the garden, which was okay, I'm going to hide from him. And so how do we do it? Confession. Now it's not it's not like this crazy, crazy thing. It's actually just honestly sharing your sins with safe people. Now, I want to emphasize this. We're not putting it on Facebook. We're not just letting the whole world see. We're we're looking for people who are going after Jesus together alongside of us and saying, hey, I'm coming here to be known and loved. I'm coming here to actually uh to practice what Scripture says of confessing your sins. I love uh Eugene Peterson. He says this when it comes to how Jesus deals with our sin. He says, God does not deal with sin by ridding our lives of it as if it were a germ or mice in the attic. God does not deal with sin by ampute amputation, as if it were a gangrenous leg, leaving us crippled, holiness on a crutch. God deals with sin by forgiving us, and when he forgives us, there is more of us, not less. Because the promise in 1 John 1 is we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness. And some of you maybe you're saying, I don't feel righteous. Now you are righteous in the blood of Jesus, you are righteous because of what he did for you on the cross, but maybe you're not experiencing that and actually walking out knowing, okay, I'm righteous because maybe we're just not confessing our sins to God. Lord, I did this. Now we don't have to go back and look at every little sin and you know get really insecure. Okay, did I do this and did I not do this? No, God in his kindness, the Spirit will illuminate it and bring it to light. But if I could encourage you, bring it to God. Bring it to God. And as you confess your sins to him, he's faithful and just to forgive us. I mean, 1 John 2, 1 through 2, it goes on to say, My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. So you now have an advocate with God through Jesus Christ. He became the sacrifice where the punishment of our sin was meant to be us put on the cross, but he said, I will go to the cross for you. That's what Jesus did. That's who Jesus is. I love how Dane Ortland says it. He says, if you are in Christ, you have a friend who in your sorrow will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours. That's Jesus. He's running after you in your sin. He's running after you in your hiddenness, and he's giving invitation. Come to the light. Come into the light. Come into the light. And then James 5. Here's where things kind of change a little bit. I know Pastor Randy, he shared this last week. James 5, verse 16. It says, Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. So what is it? We confess our sins. What is confessing? It's it's agreeing with God about what is true. He knows the sin. And if we deny it, we're just denying what God already knows, which puts us in hiding. It's the garden all over. But James 5, here's where freedom is found. I think a lot of us, and I found this in my own life, confessed my sin to God, but I didn't confess my sin to others. And the longing in so many people's hearts when it comes to freedom is, Lord, I just want to be healed. Lord, I just want to be cured. Now, I I would recommend counseling. I love counseling and I love spiritual direction and I love pastoral care, all of that. I'm not saying confession is the one-stop shop for just complete freedom in Christ. It needs to be an entire approach. But if I'm honest, I think so many of us do not experience the cure that is promised for us, the true healing that is for us in Jesus Christ because we don't live out James 5. We're like, oh, that's a cool verse, but I'm just going to confess my sin to God. And we never get healed because we don't confess our sins to each other. That's what the verse says. It's actually a promise. Confess your sins and pray for each other, and then you'll be healed. That's the hope. That's the beauty. And sin, it tries to isolate us, but we get to actually overcome that. Dietrich Bonhoeff, he says that sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive the power of sin over him. It's that hiding. But living in the light in confession is saying, no, I'm not going to be isolated, I'm going to be known. It's Leanne's testimony of like, I was known. I was fully known, fully loved as I came into the light. And so I just encourage you, if you hear anything in this, it is confess your sins. I mean, this isn't like revolutionary, but I'm on a secret mission to build these little confessional communities all across the churches. Because I think we'll actually see free churches in the church that Jesus is longing for, which is a pure bride. To say, no, I'm not going to let pride get the best of me, but I'm going to humble myself like Jesus. What did he do? He was humiliated on a cross. He did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but what did he do? He emptied himself. That's our that's Jesus. He was seated on the throne and he said, I'm going to come down and take on flesh and be born in a manger. And the beauty is in confession we actually get to partner with Jesus in his suffering. We get to actually say in in humility, wow, I I'm not all that in a bag of chips. I mean Bonhoeffer, he says one of the greatest temptations is to be confessed too and not confess yourself. And if I'm honest early in ministry as a pastor, I th I I messed it up there. I messed it up here. I was getting confessed too, but I wasn't necessarily confessing. And here was the hardest part. I didn't feel like I had a lot to confess. It's like, oh, I'm good. And I'm so gripped as I read the spiritual writers, as I as I read people's in their 80s and and I walk with them, and how close they are to their sinfulness. How they're willing to say, well, no, no, I'm a sinner. And I really need Jesus. I need him so much. Again, it's it's my neediness for God. I actually boast in it. I'm so grateful about how much I need him. And if I've learned anything, it's that. I used to think that spiritual maturity was how little I sinned. Now I know it's how quickly I repent. How quickly I confess. I'm not going for now, it's deeper. Now it's motivational stuff. I'm saying, hey, I'm feeling insecure. What is that? That's me not believing who God has said I am. But but I know I need Jesus. And Indy Vineyard, I want you to hear this. You need Jesus. You need him. I know you've been walking with Jesus a long, long time, and I say this in love, but we need Jesus just because Indy Vineyard is there's so much amazing things that God's doing. And I remember being here and it was like the deep church. You know, it's like I want something more. Which is beautiful, and I love it. And there is more here, the presence of God that we can encounter the presence of God here. But what is the temptation of that? It's pride. And it's saying, no, I don't have that sin stuff anymore. Every move of God has begun with repentance and confession. It's someone being vulnerable. The SEU outpouring here recently, what was it? It was it was I I was talking with someone who was in the room, and it went on, I don't know how long it went on for, but it was maybe nine days of continuous worship and prayer, kind of a bubbling up leftover of what had happened in Asbury, and they began publicly confessing their sins. And one person from the back, they shouted, I said, I had an abortion. Whoa. Well, that's you're not just saying, like, well, I struggle with. No, no, no, that was real. And then what does the group do? I I was at Asbury and I got to see people confessing their sins, repenting, and someone saying, You are forgiven. You're washed clean by the blood of Jesus. And that's what I do when I confess my sin. I I get to look at a brother, look him in the eyes, I confess, hey, here's here's what's going on in my heart. And he says, Hey, Ian, you are forgiven, you are washed clean by the blood of Jesus. And so I encourage you, find a couple people, find two, three people. Uh and safe people and live in the life. That's the encouragement. I want to s to stand and invite the the prayer team and the the ministry team. I have so much that that I could say, but but I I I really believe that that God He He won. Any vineyard to be a be a free place. He wants any vineyard to be a place where we say, I want more of God. I actually want all of who he is. I mean the great uh the Great Awakening with John Wesley, they had these questions where they would ask, and they would they called it the holy club, and they would they would ask these questions. Why? Because they wanted to look like Jesus. Now we don't go in with like a scalpel and we're trying to dig it all out. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying, would we be a church? Would would we be a people that actually say, I want to live in the light, that that I want to live free, that I want to live life to the full, because life to the full is to be had. And so the practicality is find a couple people who you trust and share with them. And all you have to do, you don't need to correct, you don't need to give advice. You say, hey, you are forgiven. Because they are. And then you say, hey, you're washed clean by the blood of Jesus. And I believe what God wants to do through Indy Vineyard in this region will begin transpiring as this church becomes continually more and more free. I remember being on the couch years and years ago when I was in a place of struggle and a place of sin. And I was crying out to God, God, I know the right things. I don't know what's going on. Why is this happening? Like what I know I know what to do and I know what not to do. It's it's Romans 7, but I keep doing what I don't want to do, and I don't do what I want to do, and it's a puzzle, and what do I do? And I'm crying out to God, God, I I need you, I I don't I don't know why. Why is this happening? And I heard the Father's voice. He said, Ian, you've grown cold to needing me. And in that season, he taught me to need him again. That knowing a bunch about the Bible didn't matter. Being really loud in my prayers, it didn't matter. I need him, and so would we be a church? Would we be a people? They say, I need you, God. That I actually need you. And so, Lord, we thank you that our neediness for you is is actually an honor. Well, that we get a boast in our weakness so that you would be glorified. Lord, Lord, we repent of pride. Lord, I repent of the areas in my life that are prideful, that that I actually think that I'm I'm better than someone else, or where I come in. Lord, I I know you've taught me humility, but God, I pray that deep down in my bones, would you make me like you? And so, God, I need you. Lord, I need you. I long for you, I hunger for you. Lord, would we be a people that walk out in freedom, that that we would confess with one another, that we would live out the scriptures, that we could live the abundant life. And so, God, we thank you. And I we just have gotten a couple senses uh for ministry time before before we close. Just gotten this sense of, as I was praying, that there are some here that have experienced the fire of God in a past season. And it it almost remains dormant. You've seen things, you've heard things. There's there's so many stories that I wasn't even able to share of God moving in power of things that I've heard and things that I've seen, and people coming to Christ and being set free. It's it's amazing what God is doing on the earth. And maybe you've seen that, but you've said, okay, I I don't know if I deal with that anymore. And what we get to do is we get to come in a place of humility and say, I want more of God. I want more of God. And so a couple things the team had prayed through, uh, some physical healing that I invite you forward for, is uh like on the top of your right shoulder, maybe there's someone who has like some throbbing, and so there's some pain, and we just get a sense that God wants to heal you, as well as some sharp uh upper back pain. And I I want us, this is a practical message, you go out and you just do it. You just go out and do it. But I want us to hunger for more of God. And so if you want more of God, I I want you to come forward. And and and and I want us to be real, I want us to be honest. Uh, the prayer team, we can just begin laying hands and praying, but I want us as we're hungering for the Lord, as we're going after him, you can just come forward from your seats. And I believe that God is going to give an anointing of fire, uh, a purifying fire. He's kind, he's gentle, but but maybe you need to confess sin. Maybe you need to bring something into the light. But but I just get a sense today there's a deposit of more of God. And so I'm just gonna pray. We're gonna uh continue in this space, but I encourage you, come forward. Come forward to uh to be prayed for. Lord, we we want more of you. And we can open our hands, we can, and I do, I encourage you, come forward. Come forward. There's there's response. Changing our body is important to respond, saying, I want more of who God is, I want to walk in freedom. So, Lord, we want more of you. Jesus, we hunger for you. Lord, we thank you for what you've done for us on the cross. God, we thank you that you long to heal us and set us free, that that those who are bound up, no more do we need to be bound up, but you came to set us free. So, Lord, would you fill us with your fire? Lord, would you fill us with your spirit? Holy Spirit, come. Holy Spirit, come. Yeah, we thank you, God. We thank you, Lord. And we'll just linger in this space, and I encourage you, come forward, get prayed for. That we would be a people who press into the more of God and to the freedom that He has for us. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

unknown 49:46

Thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Make us a hungry people, God. But in the upper room, there's about this many people, and they hungered and they thirsted for righteousness for you and you alone. And so, God, make us a people who long for you, God. But we're not satisfied. We're grateful, we're thankful, but we're not satisfied. We know there's more. We know there's more, and so God, would you give us the strength and the courage to press in? To press in that we would be a church here that says you are what we long for, you are the prize, and so we we hunger for you, God. Will you stir up hunger in this place? Lord, would you would you stir up longing, God? Would you stir up the affections of our hearts? And maybe if if you're saying, well, Ian, I just I don't know if I if I want that. I I I would just encourage you, pray, God, make me want that. Make me want Him. And so, God, I just pray for your presence right now. Holy Spirit, come. We pray for your presence. Thank you, God. Thank you, Lord. If you're an intercessor, you can just even begin praying for anyone. Uh just even extend your hands and just begin praying. Jesus, we want you. Jesus, purify us, God. Lord, help us live in the light. We thank you that you're making us like you, God. Lord, I ask you would light us ablaze, God. Light us ablaze for you. In our workplace, in our neighborhood, in our in our families, God. Lord, we want you and you alone, Lord. You. So, God, stir up the affections in our hearts, stir up the longings, the desires for more. I just want us to do something. If you're you're standing, I just want you to begin just whispering the name of Jesus. This might be weird. I just want you to whisper his name. We're not trying to hype anyone up, but there's power in the name of Jesus. And I just want you to say his name. And Jesus fans the flames. He fans affection in our heart to long for freedom and long for him. So, Jesus, we want you. Jesus, we hunger for you. Jesus, we're not satisfied. We we know that there's more for you in this church. We know there's more of you to be had in this region. Jesus, we want you. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, we want you. Jesus. Jesus, we want you. We want you, Jesus. We want you, Jesus. We long for you. We long for you, Jesus. You're worthy, you're holy, you're sanctified. We we honor you that you're seated on the throne, worthy of all praise, affection, and honor. And so, Jesus, we want you. Make us hunger for you, God. Give us an appetite for you, for holiness, God. Make us holy, Lord, as you are holy. Set us apart as you long us for us to be set apart. Lord, I thank you for freedom. Lord, I thank you that you are breaking chains. Lord, I thank you that addiction is is ceasing in the name of Jesus. Those who are who are bound up and going to alcohol. Lord, I thank you that right now you're giving them freedom. No more do they need to go to substance. No more do they need to live their life numbing. God, I pray for a revival in hearts. Lord, I thank you that hearts are being renewed and made fresh. And and no more numbing. You don't need to numb anymore. A heart alive in God is enough. And so, God, make our hearts alive in you. Make our hearts alive in you, God. Lord, I thank you for joy and even even laughter. We're like, I'm I'm too serious and I can't laugh because it's vulnerable. Joy is a vulnerable emotion, but God, I thank you that joy is coming. But I thank you for for divine joy. Lord, I thank you for breaking off insecurity. I thank you for freedom. Yeah, Jesus, we want you. We long for you. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. We want you, Lord. We want you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I want us just to just continue in this place of ministry, and I'll turn my mic off. I'd love to pray. If you need, if you need freedom. Uh your kids are out and about. You can grab your kids, and we'll just kind of stay in this place. If you need to go, there's freedom. At the vineyard, we everybody gets to play. There's freedom. You can come, you can go. But but I even give the benediction. John Wimber, he used to say, the meat is in the streets. That's saying, like, go out and do it. Do the stuff. Confess your sin. Live in the light. Hunger for more of God. So grateful that you are all here. And so if you need to go, you can go. If you need ministry, continue getting ministered to. God bless you. Be with you. Hope you have a wonderful Sunday. Grab your kids. But keep pressing in if you're pressing in. If you're hungering for Jesus, keep just hungering for Him. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Be with us, God. Be with us as we go out, Lord.