Episode Transcript
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Please remain standing, and let's turn
our attention to God's Word in First John
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Chapter One. First John One.
I'll begin at verse eight and end in
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the first verse of the next Chapter. First John Chapter One, Verse Eight.
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Grass withers in the flower fades,
but the word of our Lord stands
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forever. So give your attention to
it. Here it with faith. First
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John One. Eight. If we
say we have no sin, we deceive
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ourselves and the truth is not in
us. If we confess our sins,
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he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from
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all in righteousness. If we say
we have not sinned, we make him
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a liar and his word is not
in us. My little children, I
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am writing these things to you so
that you may not sin. But if
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anyone does sin, we have an
advocate. With the father, Jesus Christ,
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the righteous, he may be seated. John writes to these Christians in
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the first century, here as as
an elderly man, the near the end
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of his life, having served in
the churches for a long time, having
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known Jesus many, many decades before, and he writes to them out of
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love and concern. My little children, he says you hear compassion in those
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words, a tenderness in the way
that he writes. He wants something for
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them. He says, I'm writing
these things to you so that you may
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not sin. He wants them to
head a particular direction, he wants them
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to be living a particular kind of
life. And of course John isn't just
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saying these things because it's what he
wants. No, he's an ambassador for
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the Kingdom of God. He says
these things because they're what God wants.
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God wants his little children not to
sin, to live their lives in obedience
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to him. But even though we
are not to sin and we should strive
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not to sin and we ought not
sin, we do sin, and that's
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a point John Wants to make sure
that we all remember and we understand.
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It seems that there were people claiming
adjust the opposite of that, claiming that
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they have no sin. It might
sound a little ridiculous, but we'll come
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to that in a minute. The
point he is here is. John is
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saying there's a way in which people
say these things, a way in which
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people, in their hearts, just
quietly and privately or sometimes publicly, think
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of themselves not as sinners think of
themselves as either having no sin or having
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not the guilt of sin, or
both. If we say we have no
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sin, though, we deceive ourselves, he says. Instead of denying that
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truth, he wants us to recognize
it so that we might avoided, so
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that we might not walk in it. And of course, when we do
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sin, he says, there is
something that we have an advocate with the
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father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Paul is rot or sorry, John,
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is riding there for to Christians to
help them clarify some things, to
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help understand some things, to cut
through false claims and miss conceptions or perhaps
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even outright lies about what it means
to be a Christian. And this is
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very helpful for us, because we
need this as well. We need clarity
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in our lives about who we are, how we ought to be walking and
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what our relationship is and what it
shouldn't be to sin. Paul or,
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I'm sorry, John, says.
John said earlier that if we say we
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have fellowship, this is verse six. If we say we have fellowship with
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him while we walk in darkness,
we lie and do not practice the truth
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for seven. But if we walk
in the light, as he is in
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the light, we have fellowship with
one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses
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us from all sins. John sets
up a very strong duality, a binary
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two sides, light and dark.
These are opposites, he says. The
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Christian is the one that walks in
light. If a Christian walks in darkness,
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he doesn't have fellowship in the light, he doesn't walk in the light
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because, well, darkness is not
light. He sets up, he exp
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doesn't set up, but he describes
our life as Christians and as people in
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this world in this way. But
you can see how someone might conclude,
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wrongly, that if we are to
be walking in the light, well,
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then perhaps the one who walks in
the light is one who does not sin.
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Well, if I am not to
walk in the darkness and I know
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I belong to Jesus, well,
perhaps there is no darkness in me.
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It looks sort of difficult problem.
You see, how is it that we
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are children of the light? How
is it that we walk in the light
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and yet walk in the darkness?
This is a truth that is very plain.
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We know it from the scriptures,
we know it from the experience of
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ourselves, of our brothers and sisters
of the apostles themselves. Paul describes it
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in Romans seven when he says I
do the things I ought know I ought
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not to do. He Paul says
I am the chief of sinners, and
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yet you never see him doubting that
he is a child of the light himself.
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How do we understand these things?
Well, let's start by how we
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ought not to understand them, and
that is by saying that we have no
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sin. This is the wrong solution
to this paradox and this is what people
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were claiming. Now, for me
and perhaps some of you, when you
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hear this verse, Verse Eight,
if we say we have no sin,
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we deceive ourselves. When you hear
that, you kind of sort of put
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your head to the side and go
who says that? That's a crazy thing
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to say. What kind of arrogant
person would say they have no sin?
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It's a little unimaginable. Now we
might be able to point to particular people
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in history, particular heretics like Pollagius, even people today alive that claim these
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very bold things, that they do
not sin or that they have reached a
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level of perfection. But for I
think many of us here, perhaps not.
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But my guess is that for many
of us here it seems like just
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a outright clazy, crazy thing to
say. There's nothing tempting about saying I
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have no sin. There's no temptation
that you might fall into claiming this kind
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of thing. Or is there?
There are a lot of reasons people might
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say this. One reason is that
people might claim this is a way to
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sound more religious. Right, this
is sort of the idea of you've sort
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of reached a higher level, a
higher plane of morality, of walking in
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the light. Perhaps there was a
time you, this person might say,
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when I live down here, but
once I came to a certain knowledge or
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I understood something better, or or
God did something miraculous in my life,
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or I received a sacrament or something, it sort of bumped you up.
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You leveled up and do a new
level where now I have no sin.
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Imagine if somebody told you that who
actually lived in a very moral way,
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somebody. Imagine somebody telling you that
who was a very religious person who strived
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and obedience after the Lord, regularly
attended church, read their Bible and focused
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on good theology and all these kinds
of things, and you admired them.
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And what if not some hypocrite who
is always sinning, but somebody who you
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respected came to you and say,
you know, ever since x happened,
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I haven't sinned. You can see
why it might be a little more tempting
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to believe they are really holy.
They seem like really good people. Perhaps
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there is something that they have that
I don't. A spiritual discipline, maybe,
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attendance at a particular church, knowledge
or of some special thing or doctrine.
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What is it? What's their secret? Some people say they have no
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sin as a way to perceive themselves
as of a higher religious or spiritual level
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or order. Some people do it. Some people say I have no sin
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as a way to elevate themselves into
a higher or social order. This is
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what I mean. We have lots
of people today who don't raise themselves above
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others by saying they have no sin, but sort of level the playing field
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by saying no one really has sin. I don't have sin, because come
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on, none of us do.
Sure, we make mistakes and we have
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imperfections and we're limited in various ways, but sin. When's the last time
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you heard the words sin outside of
Church or outside of the conversations of your
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family? Well, the last time
you read the words sin in a newspaper
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or in a magazine, it's I
pointed out just to say that it's not
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a part of our social lexicon.
It's not a part of how we think
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in our culture anymore. Not I
mean it is in some ways, but
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it's not in another really big ways. Lots and lots and lots of people
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say they have no sin, not
because they think themselves that they're perfect,
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but but just because it's a not
a category that we think in. And
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it seems that people who push this
the most in our time. This isn't
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always been true and every time,
but in our time these people have a
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kind of higher social standing. You
get to sort of elevate yourself, I
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ronically, in this way by saying
you accept everyone, you're not judgmental,
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it's sin isn't something that is you're
thinking in a category for you that you
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just live your life freely in,
according to your own inner light, or
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however people might put it. It's
a social plus these days to downplay,
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ignore or to deny sin. And
increasingly when our own laws, and this
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isn't just been in our time,
but whenever the laws don't line up with
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morality itself. It's a lot easier
for people to say, well, I
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obey the law, not thinking about
things in relationship to God, as John
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Clearly wants us to be doing.
There's a third reason. People sometimes say
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I have no sin, and it's, of course, to ease their conscience.
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They want to calm things down.
Their conscience stings them, hurts them,
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it makes them feel the weight of
the things they've done, but unwilling
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or unknowing or not knowing how to
come to Christ, they push it aside.
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They say they have no sin as
a way to make themselves feel better.
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Now, when you hear these various
reasons, as you think about them,
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as I think about them, these
are patterns and things that I see
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in myself as well. This is
not just other people out there who do
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these kinds of things. The truth
is that most of us aren't nearly as
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aware of our sin as we could
be. We don't recognize it or think
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about it as we ought. Let
me ask you this sort of test question
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for your heart. Do you think
that you spend more of your time repenting
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of your sin or ignoring, excusing
and, under the rug, sweeping it
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if you just sort of put them
on a balance. Which one is more
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if you think that it's the latter, if you think you spend more time
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ignoring, excusing and sweeping it under
the rug than you do repenting of it,
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well they maybe these excuses aren't just
for other people out there, but
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they're in your heart as well,
and maybe even other things I haven't mentioned.
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The flash is what says I have
no sin. The flash is what
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tries to work it sway out of
a situation through this false claim. Another
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way you might think of this is
a another way you might test your own
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heart in this matter is this way. If someone came to you and said,
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brother, sister, you sinned against
me and it really hurt, would
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your first reaction be, what are
you talking about? I can't believe you
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would accuse me of sin. Or
would your first reaction be? Well,
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probably, what did I do?
If it's the first, well then you
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probably have a regular operating procedure in
your heart of excusing and ignoring and saying
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I have no sin, I'm not
a sinner, I don't do those things.
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So if somebody comes to you and
says hey, I you sinned against
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me, our first, our first, our first reaction, are sort of
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knee jerk reaction, will be to
say I can't believe anybody could ever think
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that. I certainly don't think that. But if we're regularly recognizing our sin,
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if we regularly think of ourselves as
sinners in need of grace, and
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somebody comes to us, either rightly
or wrongly, and says I think you've
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sinned against me and it really hurt, our reaction won't be quite so defensive.
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It'll be well, yeah, I
send all the time, brother,
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and I'm sorry. Can you tell
me what I did again, not saying
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anything about whether that person is right
or wrong, and you have to sort
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all of that out. That's another
discussion, but my question is just focusing
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on what's your kneejerk spiritual reaction when
it comes to thinking about sin in your
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own life? Do you say I
have no sin? Maybe not outwardly and
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publicly in writing it in a book, but in your own heart. Are
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there ways that you do that?
Well, there are ways that we do
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that. We all do it and
we ought to fight against it. It
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is, after all, us in
to say we have no sin, and
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this is what John Points out for
us. So if that's the deception of
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it all. What's the truth of
the matter? Three things. First,
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John says that if we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
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This false claim, either whether it's
when US or outside of us, is
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just a lie. It's a deception, it's it's a blindness. End Of
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course, as we know, when
we are deceived or when we are self
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deceiving, there's all kinds of bad
things that are attached to this, negative
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consequences. Being self deceived is not
a good thing. Let's say you're driving
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down a one way road in the
wrong direction and you keep telling yourself,
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as you see sign after sign that
says wrong way, wrong ways, oh
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no, it's good, I know
what I'm doing right. It's dangerous.
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I used to live on a street
that was a one way street and every
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now and then I was right on
the corner and people would come down that
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street and we'd see them and then
come down about a block and then they
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usually there be people yelling and wave
and I'm going to going back, and
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then they'd try and turn around and
go back. And every now and then
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you'd see someone whould kind of like
figure it out and just be like just
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gut it. You know, it's
like, let's just just go through it.
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Fortunately, never sawny accidents, but
they could likely happen. Right when
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we are selfdeceived, it's a dangerous
situation. It's the fool that is selfdeceived.
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It is a person that will bring
harm to themselves and others, not
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to mention, as I said before, it is a sin. Selfdeception isn't
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just a problem in its consequences,
it's a problem in and of itself.
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God is a god of truth and
we ought to seek the truth. We
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ought to want to know the truth
and not live in darkness and lies.
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That brings us to the second thing
about this kind of thinking. When we
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say we have no sin, it's
not only a selfdeceiving thing, but it's
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also an accusing thing. Notice what
it says in verse ten. If we
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say we have not sinned, we
make him, that is God, a
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liar. Right, if God is
a god of truth, is, if
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God is the one who has establish
things between right and wrong and good and
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evil, and we say I have
not sinned when God has said you have
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sinned, then we accuse God,
the one who is sinless, the one
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who is perfect, the one who
is entirely good of lying and we had
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yet another sin to ourselves. Who's
the liar, the selfdeceived, one that
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sins all the time, that was
born into sin and is constantly falling into
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sin? Or God, who made
the World Perfect and goodness and righteousness and
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holiness? Jesus Christ, the son
of God, is called in verse one,
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the Righteous, the righteous God is
righteous. We are not. The
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third thing it does is it makes
the atonement meaningless. The atonement is the
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thing that Jesus did on the Cross. When he died, we say he
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atoned for our sins. One way
of describing that is using the words of
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verse nine. He says if we
confess our sins, he is faithful and
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just to forgive our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When Jesus
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died on the cross, he did
it because of sin. So what does
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it mean, and especially as a
Christian, if you're thinking I have no
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sin, what does that make of
the cross? What does that make of
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the work of Jesus? If Jesus
died to forgive sins and you say you
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have no sin, it's to separate
yourself from him. It's to stand apart
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from him and say I'm not going
to trust him in the things that he's
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done because I don't need to,
I don't want I have not sinned.
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You remember Jesus saying said he came
like a physician to heal the sick.
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Well, if you're not sick,
you don't go to the doctor. Christians
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don't think this way. Christians don't
feel this way because they're attached to Christ,
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because he is their physician, their
healer. Remember David's words and Psalm
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thirty two about blessed is the one
whose trespasses as are forgiven. We find
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ourselves in a state of blessedness,
in fellowship with God, walking in the
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light all of these wonderful things because
God has responded to our sin, so
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to say or to think. And
even the smallest way. I have no
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sin, is to is to separate, it's to put, to put what
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space between you and your union with
God. Of course, as a Christian,
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nothing can ultimately separate you from the
love of God in Christ, Jesus,
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Our Lord. He holds US close
even when we push away. But
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does that mean we should keep pushing
away if our father's holding as close and
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a big bear hug and saying you're
not going anywhere, I love you,
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I'm going to keep you. Does
that? Is that a good reason to
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push harder or to relax and let
go to say we have no sin.
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To say we have not sinned is
a anti Christ anti Christian thing to say,
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because as Christians we recognize what Christ
has done to come into this world
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to forgive us our sins, to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness, from defilement,
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from impurity. Jesus Christ didn't come
into the world to give us a
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pat on the back, to say
had a boy, you're such a good
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guy. Keep doing a great job, you're so nice. Jesus came to
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forgive our sins, so don't be
afraid to admit them, to confess them.
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Martin Luther says that a truth theologian
is the one who says who the
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truth theologian is, the one who
says it like it is, who's honest
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about our situation. That's what we
do when we say I have sinned.
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Our response, though, as John
gives it here, is not merely to
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say I have sin what's the verb
that he uses in verse nine? If
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we confess our sins, of course
they're related. We're not going to make
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a overly big deal about this,
but there is a point here when John
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says if we confess our sins,
he wants us to relate ourselves to God
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in this way. In other words, it's not enough to merely, in
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an intellectual way, say, okay, I agree, this is something that
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I have, I agree, this
is something that exists within me. No,
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the response is not just recognizing,
but it's confessing, and that means
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going to God in repentance and trust
that what he says is true so that
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we can be forgiven. There are
lots of people in this world who will
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go farther than saying I make mistakes
and will actually say I do bad things,
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I even sin, if I have
to use that word. People will
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say that, will admit that.
But it's one thing to feel the way
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of sin on your conscience and to
recognize it for what it is. It's
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another thing to take to then take
that and go to God and lay it
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before his feet and say I trust
you to forgive me my sins. That,
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of course, is a very bold
thing to do, because ultimately our
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sin is not against one another.
Of course, it's against God. So
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to go before the perfect and Holy
God of the world, of all of
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the universe, and to say I
have sinned and I have sinned against you
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is in some ways a dangerous thing, because not only have we sinned against
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him, but he's also the great
judge. We read in proverbs earlier that
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it's the wicked person, the wicked
person, who looks at and guilty person
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and says you're good to go,
you're justified, innocent. Right. Imagine
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that somebody did something very terrible to
you. They're caught by the police,
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they went to the court, they
were obviously guilty, obviously guilty, maybe
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they even were confessing their own guilt. Witnesses were piling up blood on their
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hands, and the judge says,
let him go. In fact, not
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just let him go, but you're
innocent. It would be shocking, right,
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it would be in the papers,
there would be recalls, it would
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be a terrible thing. So how
is it then, that the God,
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who is perfect judge over all things, says to sinners like us, innocent,
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you're free to go? Well,
I said earlier, it's not because
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God overlooks our sin or God is
somehow fails in a moment of justice,
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but it's because the judge steps out
from behind the bench and says you are
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guilty as sin, you're guilty as
hell, but I will take all of
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that on myself and I will die
in your place and I will forgive all
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your sins and I will cleanse you
of all your sins. That's why John
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later in this book describes this as
love. God is just, but is
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also loving and he's also very,
very gracious. When God steps out from
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behind the judgment bench after declaring his
judgment on the cross in Jesus dying there
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because of the sins that we committed, and lifts us up in the resurrection
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and the newness of life. He
does it because of his great grace towards
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us. It's not something you and
I deserve, but it is something he
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gives. That means that in our
lives, because of what he is already
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accomplished on the cross, because of
that justification, that we can stand before
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the righteous God and confess our sins
on the basis of this promise in verse
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nine. He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
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us from all in righteousness. God
is faithful to this promise and he has
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been over and over and over again
in the lives of the saints. Even
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now, there are people dwelling with
him a waiting for the resurrection of their
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bodies, who no longer sin,
who will enjoy a sin free life.
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People that you know, people that
you have heard about. Why has that
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happened? Because God is faithful and
when he says he will offer mercy and
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forgiveness and cleansing to all who believe
and trust in Jesus, he will and
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he does, fulfill that promise.
So open up your chests and lay your
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sins out before the Lord. Do
not hesitate and hold back, because when
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you are doing that, you are
trusting on the perfectly faithful and perfectly just
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God to cleanse you and to forgive
you. God is not a liar,
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he's full of truth. Trust in
him. If you've heard this word this
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morning and you've sensed a certain blindness
in yourself, a sense of self deception,
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I hope you now know the response
to confess and trust in Him who
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is faithful. Let us pray
