Alex (00:05.029)

We are back in season eight and we're titling this season, The Sacred Struggle, which I was thinking about this morning, how sin is...

a sacred struggle because it is part of our sacred walk with the Lord and it's just something that we can't ever stop struggling with. And today we're going to talk about the good news for sinners, which is repentance. And we're going to unpack the gospel waltz, which we've talked about in other podcasts, I think in season one, and we're going to go into a lot more depth over the next three episodes as we talk about the steps of the gospel waltz. And today we're going to

attempt to go into confess and I say attempt because Brenda and I both just got back from the ABC conference. So we feel a little conference worn and weary. I know I told Brenda before we started that when I got back yesterday, I tried to wash my hair with conditioner and I tried to take a baking sheet out of the oven without an oven mitt. So my brain is very slow to come back online. And so we're going to see if we can make confession make sense today.

Brenda (01:01.486)

Hehehehehe

Brenda (01:07.118)

Hmm.

Brenda (01:11.311)

Well, I'm counting on the Holy Spirit as we always do, Alex, to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves because that's kind of the track we have to run on anyhow. So, you know, in the words of Carrie Underwood, Jesus take the wheel, right? Jesus take the podcast. Let's go. Well, you know,

Alex (01:14.694)

you

Alex (01:29.156)

Jesus take the podcast.

Brenda (01:37.294)

I think the beautiful thing that we really want to point out as we go through this series is that repentance is good news for the sinner. And, you know, it's not.

Alex (01:44.964)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Brenda (01:49.871)

only, repentance is turning away from sin, but it's even more than that. It's turning back to God and this beautiful, safe, and loving rule and relationship that we have with Him. And it is very much, we've talked about in, we did a whole podcast in season one about the shuns, the process, if you will, of our salvation, that we are justified, that legal declaration where the penalty of sin has been broken and the sanctification of the power and injustice

justification, I'm sorry, the penalty and then sanctification, the power and then the presence of sin removed. So we're really landing right here in this idea of justification, this ongoing sense of our salvation where the power of sin is broken and we are progressively drawn near to Christ and transformed by him. And that's what makes, you know, repentance so exciting. The backhand is like the sin side is the is the bad side, but the other side is that transformation and drawing close to him.

Alex (02:50.5)

Alex (04:20.836)

Okay.

What we need to remember is that sin doesn't change our standing with God, but it does break our fellowship with Him. And so through repentance, what God has done is He has given us a path to restore that fellowship with Him. And I think we need to remember that He's not waiting there with this stern, judgmental face. Like, He's inviting us back into fellowship with Him through the process of repentance because He wants that relationship restored. And one of the ways that we know that is we look at Genesis

Brenda (04:46.541)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (04:53.574)

when sin entered into the world and we have God pursuing Adam and Eve after their sin. He's seeking them out with the first question in the Bible, where are you? And he is making sure that they know that he is going to come after them. And so I think, yeah, go ahead.

Brenda (05:11.631)

I love that. Whoops. Yeah, I was just going to say I love that. I think just this idea of pursuit, pursuit, pursuit. I think we miss that as God's children, that He is absolutely coming after us. Like they're running away from Him. And that's what I want us to understand is that we are going to be tempted to run away, but God is a pursuing God. And I know one of the ways that I've understood that is just having a child. If you have a child or a spiritual child who's wayward and who is running away from you,

that there's this, and it's painful, right? And it creates a separation and we have a longing that that separation creates. And what do we want to do as parents?

We want to pursue that child. We want to go after that child. And I think as God's children, you know, we grieve the heart of God when we turn away to follow our own way, just like our wayward child. And that waywardness could be in the minute or it could be the pattern of our child. But I think this idea that we love our children and we want to pursue them and bring them back to relationship is the same heart that God has for his children.

Alex (06:12.132)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, I think it's important to remember that as God's children, we grieve the heart of God when we turn to follow our own way. And that repentance is connected to that as we understand that we've grieved the heart of God, then we grieve. And we have godly sorrow. There's a distinction that 2 Corinthians makes between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. And godly sorrow is going to be God and others' focus where worldly sorrow is going to be very self -focused. I'm worried about what has happened to me or the consequences.

Brenda (06:27.31)

Hmm.

Alex (06:43.622)

I have to endure because of my sin. But when we recognize that we've grieved the heart of God, we grieve that we would do that for the one who loves us unconditionally. And so repentance as a result of godly sorrow progressively leads us to a change of heart motivated by God's love. And I think what we're going to see as we unpack repentance is the evidence of that becomes very visible, very tangible, and very practical. Yes, there is a part of this that's in the abstract.

Brenda (06:47.278)

Mm.

Alex (07:13.542)

but that the evidence is eventually going to show up as visible and tangible and practical.

Brenda (07:20.206)

Hmm. Yep, that's going to be important to get to that point, but we both know that oftentimes that is a slow and stubborn process. We're going to talk about that too. Alex, have you seen the Harriet Tubman movie? So.

Alex (07:28.324)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (07:33.508)

I have not.

Brenda (07:36.174)

I think, I mean, the movie just has so many spiritual implications and I would highly, highly recommend. It's just a beautiful, beautiful movie on so many levels, but Harriet was born a slave in the early 1800s and under literally divine inspiration, she miraculously freed herself from her cruel slave owners and then...

gets out, but then immerses herself in the work and goes back in to free her family members and other people, brothers and sisters, from the bondage of slavery. And she earned the nickname Moses.

Alex (08:12.388)

Hmm

Brenda (08:12.462)

for liberating so many enslaved people at such a great risk to her own life. And one quote that really caught my attention as I, after I watched the movie, of course, I always like to go back and do my little own history lesson and, you know, kind of remember things that I think, I think we did Alabama history in Alabama in the fifth grade. So I'm sure I had a lot of teaching on Harriet Tubman, but I'd forgotten so much, but I love what she said. She said, I could have saved thousands if only I'd been able to convince them they were slaves.

Alex (08:24.932)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (08:40.708)

Oh.

Brenda (08:42.158)

And I think this really relates so much to this topic of repentance. Because as believers, we have to be aware of the horrors of the slavery to sin before we're willing to act. And repentance is actually what puts us on the path toward freedom. You know, I think about under slavery, how Harriet and others like her. I mean, it was horrific.

Alex (09:05.092)

Hmm.

Brenda (09:05.166)

beaten, sold, violated, humiliated, constantly living under terrible conditions where they were always sick and never receiving proper medical care. And so, you know, as I was watching the movie, I thought like this, this is the nature and destructiveness of sin. This is it right here. Like slavery paints that picture of absolute horror and terror of sin.

Alex (09:25.604)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (09:31.79)

and how sin entices us to think we can be God and rule over God's creation in destructive ways. You know, we talked about that when we talked about worship and idolatrous desires. You know, and as I'm watching it, I'm thinking, Lord, I want to hate sin in my heart as much as I'm hating watching it on the screen, played out in the gross injustice against other people, because every heinous sin imaginable,

Alex (09:36.356)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (09:42.564)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (09:54.82)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (09:59.822)

lives in my heart in seed form. And I don't want those seeds to grow. And this is why repentance is so important. It brings awareness to my sin and God's holiness and drives me back to His grace.

Alex (10:13.604)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (10:16.238)

So watch the movie. I was thinking it'd be fun to watch it with a group of people and just really have a lot more dialoguing about just again, so many spiritual messages from that one movie and this one woman's life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we want to kind of, I'd like to end every little section maybe today thinking about a question like is repentance the rhythm of our lives? And do we know what it looks like to bring about repentance?

Alex (10:18.02)

Yeah.

Alex (10:28.836)

Yeah, yeah, I'm intrigued now. I will.

Alex (10:44.228)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (10:44.687)

Because I know in our work a lot of times we're gonna see that people want to, people don't always have an understanding of what a full repentance plan would look like. And that's what we're hoping the series is going to give them.

Alex (10:58.244)

And we say rhythm on purpose because we're going to talk about repentance as a waltz which is a three -step dance and And again, we want to see this as a joyous Now it's not always joyous to recognize our sin but a joyous privilege to be able to repent and I love the idea that we're dancing with the spirit I love the idea that this is a waltz and we're dancing with the spirit and he's inviting us back to the

Brenda (11:17.934)

Hmm.

Alex (11:28.198)

said he's inviting us back to the party when we repent and I like that idea because because it is heavy and there is grief involved but there can also be the joy of restoration involved and so we're we're we remember just this morning some some information that Bob Playhart taught about different ways that we try to do repentance that is not in the three -step waltz pattern he says that we try to do a bunny hop

Brenda (11:30.606)

Hmm.

Alex (11:58.118)

which is a one -step dance and in the bunny hop we just hop hop hop and then our hop hop hop is just fight fight fights in and we don't think about these other steps. He says sometimes you try to do a Texas two -step and which I just learned recently and in the Texas two -step you just repent fight repent fight. It's kind of that feeling that all we do is just confess and then try harder and I have to admit that that's been the pattern of most of my life confess try harder.

Brenda (12:00.302)

Heheheheh

Brenda (12:05.902)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (12:14.318)

Oh!

Alex (12:28.038)

Confess, try harder. And I remember years ago when I was studying Ephesians 4 that I realized that repentance was a three -step process. I had always heard put off put on, which again just takes us back to two steps, but I didn't realize that sandwiched in between the put off put on commands. It says, by the renewing of your mind.

And the first time I taught that, I really realized it and taught it, I said, we don't make a sandwich with nothing in the middle. And yet, as Christians, we keep eating this sandwich with no meat in it because we keep forgetting the renewing of our mind. And so we say that the steps of the Gospel Waltz, the three steps are confess, believe, love.

Brenda (12:59.215)

Yeah.

Alex (13:10.98)

When we confess we agree with God. When we believe we choose to trust His character and His promises and that's the renewing of our mind part. And then we love which is faith at work towards God and others. And so we do fight for obedience and we do move and make changes but we do that from a place of love. And so today what we're going to do is go deep in the idea of confession.

Brenda (13:40.046)

Yeah, because it has to start with confession, because confession is the first act of awareness and humility, really. And so transformation begins when I agree with God with what He says about myself. And I tell the true story. You know, we've talked a lot about telling your true story and suffering and how important it is to tell our suffering story the way God would tell it.

Alex (14:02.436)

Hmm.

Brenda (14:06.639)

Truly, not minimizing, you know, not doing all the things and running from it. And I think we have to have this same mentality with our sin story that we need to tell our story truly the way God would tell it in terms of our sins. I love Proverbs 28 13 as one of my favorite verses in dealing with confession. Whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Alex (14:34.66)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (14:35.214)

And I just think that is a verse to memorize. Like if you really struggle with this idea of confession and what happens and what God thinks about you and not wanting to tell your true story, it's a beautiful reminder. Also, we want to remember that God defines sin. It's all about loving God and others well. Like when we look at sin, we need to remember, are we loving God and loving others well? And I think this again speaks to the heart, Alex, because we can become real legalists. Well, I didn't do that and I did do that.

But there's a heart behind the did and didn't do, and that's just as important as the actual actions. And then also, confession is not breaking our own standard for you perfectionists out there or the standards of others for you people pleasers out there. Right? But it's really like, what does God say? What are the parameters that God has set?

Alex (15:19.524)

Mmm.

Brenda (15:27.278)

that he says is what love looks like, because that's what sin either doing, what he forbids, or not doing what he commands is really the essence of what it looks like to love or not to love.

Alex (15:39.94)

And I think we can't over emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit here. This is done through the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And I like to remind people when they get really distraught about their sin, and a lot of times people will say, is there more? Like, I didn't see this and now I see it, so what else am I not seeing? Or what if God's still displeased with me?

remind people and I like to remind myself I've said this before on this podcast like it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict us of sin and so we can trust him that he's going to do that and part of agreeing with God is agreeing with what the Holy Spirit shows us but I think also part of agreeing with God is not trying to

over anticipate or over navel gaze or over scrupulize sin. And so we have to agree with what the Holy Spirit shows us and trust him to continue to do that and not feel like we have to do this intense.

examination all the time. He's going to do it. He's going to show us. And I think we need to remember that when he shows it to us, there's a way to respond. We don't want to respond the way that Adam and Eve responded. We see them doing two main things. Ed Welch says they hide and they point. And both of those things of blame shifting and hiding are going to be ways that we're going to be able to

Brenda (17:01.006)

Hmm.

Alex (17:16.998)

we respond in pride or fear and shame. So in pride we blame, shift, we minimize, we deny, and then in fear and shame we run away and we hide from God where we don't want to face Him because of our sin.

Brenda (17:31.182)

I like to say, you know, we know that a pervasive pattern of blame shifting, minimizing and denying is basically gaslighting, but you can't gaslight God. Like he knows the truth, right? He already knows that we can come clean. Well, we've come up with five things to consider on how to make a good confession. I'm sure that somebody could add 20 to our five, but we want to go through these five. We want to talk about, um, confession should be quickly, fully,

Alex (17:38.148)

Yeah, yeah, true, true.

Brenda (18:00.75)

sorrowfully, humbly, and thankfully are joyfully done. And I'm going to just kick us off here, Alex, and talk about quickly, because I think this is really one that we may not think about as much. I think about what happens when we don't confess quickly. We're going to have a guilty conscience.

Alex (18:11.716)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (18:27.502)

as Christians. And you know you talked about conviction. Conviction is such a grace gift.

It is a sign that the Holy Spirit is present and working in our lives. And it's interesting how the enemy comes in and immediately brings condemnation. Right. But with God's conviction, like we need to understand like this is the Lord saying like, hey, you're out of line. Come back to me. I want relationship. Don't continue to move away. And then here comes our own voice or somebody else's voice or the enemy's voice to make that voice of conviction, condemnatory. And I always like to think about I have an inner defense attorney on one

on this shoulder, on my left shoulder, and an inner prosecuting attorney on my right shoulder, and the defense attorney says, you're not that bad.

Alex (19:05.412)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Brenda (19:12.014)

Really, you don't need to go make confession. And then the prosecuting attorney says, you are so bad. You are the worst. God's never going to forgive you for this, you know? And I love this quote by Tim Keller. It's just such a classic and one of my favorite. He says, the gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.

Alex (19:16.868)

Right?

Alex (19:33.636)

you

Brenda (19:40.366)

And that truth right there is what can just silence so much both my inner defense and prosecuting attorney. And so...

Alex (19:46.66)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (19:51.79)

Yeah, I just think that if we don't, we're going to run the risk of having this conscience that continues to condemn us. And God doesn't want us to live under ongoing conviction that the enemy can use, that our own hearts can use against us. In fact, Paul told Timothy that sometimes some have done that and they've really messed with their faith. Like they've shipwrecked their faith because they didn't listen to their conscience. And we know from Psalm 32, David talks about,

Alex (20:13.764)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (20:20.75)

What happened when he didn't confess? There was physical, his bones wasted away, there was groaning. He talked about how the Lord's hand was heavy on him and his strength was sapped. And then he says, but when I acknowledged my sin and I didn't...

When I didn't cover it up and I confessed, the Lord forgave the guilt of my sin. And I think that's interesting, the guilt of my sin, not just my sin, but there's the sense in which like the guilt, the bad conscience, the living with shame and living with condom, like all of that was lifted when I came and I made that confession. If we don't do it quickly, we will find a million reasons to either justify,

Alex (20:47.46)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (20:57.7)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (21:03.822)

through that defense attorney or to be fearful due to that prosecuting attorney in our own hearts.

Alex (21:10.436)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, and then the next one is fully that we want to confess both the root and the fruit. And so we've talked about the three functions of the heart and we're going to kind of think about confessing fully as reflecting the three functions of the heart that the fruit is going to be our behavior.

our volitional is our behavior, our words, our attitudes. It's kind of what is seen and we definitely want to confess that. But oftentimes we've got to get to the root of it and confess what's feeding that behavior. And so we think about our cognition, our affection, our volition. What lies am I believing? What am I forgetting to remember about who God is and what he's done? That's our cognition. Our affection would be what do I want so much that I'm willing to sin in order to get it or sin if I can't have it.

And then our relation is like what other heart commitments have we made or who is on the throne ruling me? And we're gonna have to explore these different questions in order to be able to fully confess what's going on in our hearts. I know I think just recently I think just last week you and I were talking Brenda and I realized the Lord was showing me envy and it's funny that as soon as I confess envy it was like as soon as that got out of the way I realized

really what was at the root of the envy was a fear. Like there were some spaces that I wasn't willing to step into that somebody else was and I was really envious not so much of their gifting or their calling, but I was really struggling with the fear that I wouldn't do that. It was almost like I had and I had to confess the fear in order to see the attitude and the desire of my heart that was really feeding that and so it was

it's always good when we're teaching these things and God just shows us over and over again how we're struggling with it. But I think the so the question we're asking is when the Holy Spirit convicts us are we willing to confess fully? And I think again we have to realize that that can be a process that sometimes we're not able to confess fully because we don't see it all but we confess what he shows us and then he'll continue to show us.

Brenda (23:04.814)

Hehehehehe

Brenda (23:25.678)

Hmm.

Yes, and I think that even goes back to what you were saying about the work of the Holy Spirit, right? Just realizing that he's gentle and sometimes we need time to marinate on one aspect of our confession. You know, like kind of like, okay, yep, I'm that bad and then go down, like continue to drill down. Oh yeah, and there was that and oh yeah, there was that as well. So, okay, so we've talked about confessing quickly and fully and number three is sorrowfully. And what we mean by this is just that we have a

Alex (23:54.085)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (23:56.688)

recognition of the seriousness of our sin and the impact.

And I just think this is a place, if I'm being really honest, that I know that I can skip over pretty quickly. Like, if the impact, if I don't see the impact in a big way, sometimes I don't think the sin is that serious. But the sin is serious because it's first and foremost against God. And I love in James 4 that, you know, we're told to draw near to God, that we have this confidence because of His grace and He's drawing near to us. And we're called to cleanse our hands and our hearts of sinfulness and double -mindedness. And then we're told to...

engage in an emotional response to our sinfulness. He says, let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter and gloom instead of joy. And that's pretty convicting to me because what the scriptures are telling me is not only do I need to... am I called to lament in my suffering, but I'm also called to lament over my sin. In Psalm 51,

Of course, King David, after being caught with Bathsheba, says, And I was reading in Revelation about Jesus coming back and how those who see him will be pierced in heart. And that made me think about Isaiah 53, 5 that says, But he was pierced for our transgressions. And I know it's a community because

God came to save everybody but when I think he was pierced for my transgressions, he was crushed for my iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought me peace and with his wounds I have been healed. So I think we just need to, I think a lot of times we just need to stop and take a minute and really consider the cost of our sin to Jesus.

Alex (25:32.357)

Hmm.

Brenda (25:56.046)

what it has cost us to be forgiven. And that's going to lead us to, again, at the end we're going to talk about thankfulness, but I think just this acknowledgement of his goodness to draw us back and just to see the gospel again and again.

Alex (26:08.325)

Mm -hmm. Yeah, so are we?

are we confessing sorrowfully? And I think that understanding the impact is what helps move our hearts towards that sorrow. Like you said, sometimes we can sit with the sin itself and we don't want to see the impact or I call it the shock waves that come out from what we've done. And so over and over again, we have to recognize that the Bible tells us that sin leads to death and misery and destruction.

So we need to look around and survey We are more likely to deal with our sin when we understand the consequences in our relationships like how they're going to affect other people and I think oftentimes we can think that there are sins that we can commit that are in isolation or alone but to recognize that all of our sin has some ripple effect in relationship and so We recognize it changes our relationship with God that we are how we fear him that we may

Brenda (26:57.934)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (27:11.175)

avoid him, we might have a hard heart or a cold heart towards him. Remember one of the things that John Piper used to say is when people would ask him, am I allowed to do this or that? You know, is this permissible or not? Like sometimes we're asking the wrong question there. We're asking like what keeps our affections warm towards Christ and what turns our hearts cold towards him. And then we have to look at our relationship even within our own self. We talk about like we feel alienated from ourselves because

Brenda (27:32.846)

Hmm.

Alex (27:41.095)

of guilt, shame, self -contempt, the anxiety that sin produces. Maybe our physical health is affected by our sin because we can't eat or sleep or we have a stomach ache. And maybe we begin to numb our own conscience because we continue and we persist in...

Like life, what is the word? I lost it. Not life dominating. There we are. Life dominating sins with drugs or sex or alcohol. And then we also have to recognize that we have a broken relationship with others. And so there's broken intimacy and unity, flourishing. That even if I don't think other people are being directly hurt, it's interesting. But if I'm hurting myself, and let's say I'm just struggling with anxiety because of this sin, that I'm

Brenda (28:04.942)

Dominating.

Alex (28:31.111)

I'm more distant from others. I'm more insulated. I'm more turned in on myself and not outward facing in my relationships. And then the last broken relationship is with our environment with...

Brenda (28:33.006)

Yeah.

Alex (28:43.973)

with the creation. And so oftentimes we have an altered and marred relationship with our finances, with the way that we even use the resources that God has given us time or the resources of creation, but we limit our potential and our opportunities with those things. So it can really be hard and scary to look at the impact of sin, but we need to remember that the Bible calls us to be

poor in spirit and the Beatitudes and to mourn. So it says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I think that poor in spirit is really recognizing our own limitations that we're limited by the sin in our hearts and the suffering that we experience. But then blessed are those who mourn. And I like to tell people, I think that's a promise because it says they will be comforted. So there's a promise contained there that if we are willing to look at the impact of

of our sin and grieve it that the Spirit will come and He will comfort us. He's not going to leave us alone in that. So when God shows us our sin in His grace, do we respond with sorrow?

Brenda (29:59.342)

Okay, that was so good, Alex. Well, let's look at the fourth principle here and it's humility. Do we respond or do we come to confession humbly? And if we come humbly, it means that we're gonna be ready to accept the consequences and have some accountability. You know, I think about how...

God gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud is what James says. And so I like to imagine, you know, when we come to God in humility, like grace, all the supernatural riches of heaven poured out on us when we humble ourselves to come and confess. And yet when we're proud and stiff neck toward the Lord, we don't receive all of those benefits. And, you know, humility begets humility. So it takes humility to confess,

But then once we confess, it produces humility as well. I like what my pastor says about real repentance. He says in real repentance, real, and alliteration, real repentance relinquishes all rights. That's a mouthful. Real repentance relinquishes all rights to control the circumstances and the consequences. So often.

Alex (31:04.869)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Alex (31:12.485)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (31:15.15)

We want to make a confession, but then we want to control all the outcomes of what the fallout is going to be. And that's just not what humility looks like. And I think another aspect of humility is that we're ready to go to others who have been offended and make a confession. And we have a whole podcast on forgiveness and how to bring about restoration. That is actually one of the podcast seasons, probably one of my favorite that we've done.

Alex (31:20.229)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (31:45.104)

and really, really helpful in my own life because I was actually walking through something pretty significant. But I think this idea of like if we're not, if we can't be humble with the Lord who we know is gonna forgive us, who we know is promised to receive us back, how are we gonna move forward? Because the human relationships are very risky.

Alex (31:59.173)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (32:05.422)

And so we need to be really rooted and anchored in that humility with the Lord and receiving that complete forgiveness for Him and being willing to accept the consequences and have the accountability before we begin to move forward with other people. So the question we're asking here is when the Holy Spirit brings to mind that you have stepped outside of God's will, do you respond in humility?

Alex (32:26.821)

And the last one is thankfully, joyfully, which might seem like a little bit of a contradiction. We want to be sorrowful, but we also want to be thankful and joyful. And we know, because we've talked about this in other ways, that as human beings we're able to hold all these different and even sometimes conflicting emotions together. We can do that. But we do want to be thankful and we want to be joyful that we're invited to come boldly to the throne of grace and know that we will be forgiven. So when we consider the freedom that we have,

as a sinner to come to God and confess, seek pardon and purity. The question we're asking is, does it cause our hearts to be thankful? And it goes back to where we started, like, can we be thankful and joyful that the Spirit is inviting us back into the dance and that the way that we come back into the dance is through the three steps of the gospel waltz of confess, believe and love.

Brenda (33:21.006)

Yeah.

And Alex, I know you and I are very big in our counseling context and even just personally about writing things down, you know, taking some time to, I think writing just forces us to slow down, to really think, to really consider, to really invite God in. I think we want confession on the fly. We want everything on the fly, right? It's like, I want repentance on the fly. I want, you know, everything on the fly. And it just, our Christian walk doesn't work that way. Like it has to be very intentional because it's rooted in relationship. And listen,

Alex (33:29.093)

Mm.

Alex (33:41.637)

Yes.

Brenda (33:52.784)

We do enough counseling to know relationships do not work well on the fly. They do not work well on the fly. And so we've got a visual and a journal that we're going to link in the show notes. And we really would say, really encourage our listeners to print those out.

Alex (33:56.613)

Mm -mm.

Brenda (34:10.574)

take some time. We think there's really value. You don't have to do this for every sin, but I think particularly where we have really stubborn sins or serious sins, because we're going to get into more and more of what this looks like when we get into a repentance plan, and I think the more stubborn or serious the sin.

the more time it's going to take and more dedication and more commitment and more work and more accountability. And so, and I think, you know, the practice of writing helps begin to solidify a pattern in our mind. And so now we can do it without writing. But a lot of times that work that it takes to sit down and write and think and pray begins to build in a habit and a ladder, a hook, a

Alex (34:42.757)

Mm -hmm.

Alex (34:52.709)

Mm -hmm.

Brenda (34:57.36)

framework, you know, like this is a framework. That's what we're giving is a very simple usable framework, but it's only helpful if you actually use it.

Alex (35:06.693)

Mm -hmm. Yes.

So as we said before, we have tools, we have the journal, and we have the visual aid, and we're going deep into the Gospel Waltz in this episode and in the next two. So today we've covered confess, how we make a good, complete, humble, joyful, thankful, sorrowful confession. And next week we're going to talk about the next step in the Gospel Waltz, which is believe, which is often the more abstract step and maybe a little bit

harder to understand. So we're going to get some rest before we do that podcast so we can explain it well.

Brenda (35:43.438)

Yep, that's great Alex. Well this has been a great episode. I hope people will really glean from it and as we like to say, that's all we got.