The Sin Test: 1st John Lesson 4

 Let’s go once again to 1 John chapter 1 today. We are studying this epistle from the Apostle John. John was known as the Apostle of love because he wrote more about the love of God than any other NT writer. But John’s three epistle bearing his name are all about the importance of truth. John illustrates for us what true Christians understand. If you truly love someone you will always stand for truth, confront them with truth, and never allow them to pursue a lifestyle contrary to the truth.

 John has written this letter, according to 1 John 5:13 so that those who believe on the name of the Son of God may know that you have eternal life. This book gives us the blessing of assurance concerning our salvation. We definitely need solid teaching, biblical teaching that provides this security. Many who believe in Jesus lack this security because they don’t understand the truth about the work of salvation. Others who believe in Jesus have an unfounded confidence in their eternal security. This confidence is unfounded because their lives fail to produce any fruit, or evidence. Their confidence is based on some experience they had or a prayer they prayed in response to some preacher’s urgent and convincing altar call.

 We can know that we have eternal life. We should know that we have eternal life. And John would be the first to tell us that this assurance must be based upon verifiable evidence. John gives us the tests by which we can evaluate our lives and know for certain that we have eternal life. John was the perfect one to give us this test because he was the sole surviving apostle of Jesus Christ. He lived well into his 90’s and he lived long enough to see the heresies that were infiltrating the church. These heresies were designed to lead people away from the truth. These false teachings were from the prince of darkness.

 But John was a reliable eyewitness to the Word of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ. John announced, with undeniable credibility, that God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all. John gave us in verses 5-7 the first test of true salvation and the first test by which we can know we have eternal life. Last week we saw the fellowship test. If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light – meaning we walk according to the truth – we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If you did not get to hear last week’s message I would encourage you to do so. Far too many “believers” today have a false sense of security. They “believe” in Jesus but they are not walking in the Light.

 Today we come to the second test, the sin test. I must point out again, as I did last week, that the test of genuine salvation is not what we say. John repeats this theme throughout this paragraph. “If we say” John writes in verses 8 and 10. We can say whatever we want. The fact that we “say” something does not mean that our words are an accurate reflection of reality. Salvation’s reality is not validated by the words we speak. It is validated by the lives we live.

 I need to remind you of a little historical context related to these verses. Notice the two “If we say” statements in verses 8 and 10. “If we say we have no sin…” (v. 8) “If we say we have not sinned…” (v. 10) Who among us can say “I have no sin?” There is a sense in which we can say “I have no sin.” It is in the forensic sense. If we are truly born again, we know we will stand before God in spotless array. Salvation cleanses us from all sin, past, present, and future. Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, the righteous wrath of God was satisfied and we stand before Him with the imputed righteousness of Christ. We not only stand before Him with our sins wiped away, we also stand before Him being credited with the sinless life He lived. “He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

 John is not addressing the issue of forensics. He is addressing the issue of factual sins committed after a person claims to have come to salvation in Christ. None of us can make the claim to have no sin. None of us can make the claim that we have not sinned. Why does John address this issue? We have to go back to some of the information we learned in the introduction to this letter. John is writing to confront the errors of false teachings that would come to be known as Gnosticism. The Gnostics claimed to have received special revelation. They had a higher knowledge. One of the things they claim to have come to understand is that the physical and the spiritual were separate. They embraced a dualism. This was originally embraced by some of the Greek philosophers. It taught that everything physical was evil and only that which was spiritual, or immaterial, could be righteous.

 These false teachers, and some of the believers who were influenced by them, were claiming to have no sin, or claiming to have not sinned because they believed that what was done in the physical body was irrelevant. The real you is somehow separated from the physical you. The physical you is corrupt and cannot combat the physical desires of the flesh so you can pursue those with reckless abandon and indulge the flesh and still not have sinned because that isn’t the real you.

 The fact is that for every person who still lives life in flesh which has been corrupted by sin, sin continues to be a problem. The issue is what we do in response to our sin. John is contrasting two different responses. One response is to deny sin. The other response is to confess sin.

 Look back at these verses in 1 John we should point out the parallel ideas in verses 8 and 10. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. We are truly deceived if we think we have no sin. The truth is not in us because the truth concerning every man, woman and child is that we all have sin and as a result of the problem of sin, we have all sinned. Although we may have been cleansed from sin by the divine transaction of salvation, we still struggle with sin. We have been set free from the penalty of sin, but we are still in a battle against the power of sin because of the abiding presence of sin.

 Let’s talk about sin for a moment. We tend to think of sin as the individual actions we do that we know are wrong. These are things like lying and loosing our temper. We probably even realize that we have another God above Him. The manifestation of this is our selfishness – when we want things the way we want them because we think the world revolves around us.

 John tells us here that the problem with these who claimed to have no sin and claimed to not have sinned was that truth was not in them and the Word of God is not in them. Sin not only includes our individual actions like lying or loosing our temper. Sin is any aberration from the truth, anything in our lives that deviates from the truth or departs from truth. Everything in our lives that fails to measure up to the standard of God’s truth is sin. We have all heard the description of sin as “missing the mark.” Anytime we miss the mark of God’s perfect standard, we are guilty of sin.

 For example – if we blow it with the Golden Rule. Explain. If we fail with the imperative instruction of Philippians 2:3, “do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourself.” If we fail to “love one another” just as Jesus has loved us. If we do not abstain from every form of evil. These are all examples of the way our lives often fail to comply with God’s truth. How can any of us say we have no sin, or that we have not sinned? I can’t, at least not with a straight face.

 Jesus lived a sinless life, not only because He didn’t lie, steal, covet, or commit adultery. His life was sinless because it was lived in perfect harmony with all the truth. Not only did He never do anything wrong, He never failed to do what was right.

 Let’s broaden our scope of what is sin still further. It isn’t just the individual actions. It also includes failure to live according to the truth. Consider this also. Sin is missing the true end and scope of our lives, which is God. Any time I fail to live in light of the true meaning of my existence, which is that I live and breath and have by being for one purpose, that being His glory, His honor, His majesty, I fall short of His expectation. I must confess that this means that most of my life is a failure.

 I don’t think we truly understand how utterly sinful we are. The problem of sin doesn’t just involve the practice of sin, it also involves our proneness to sin, or our propensity to sin. I really believe this is what the tax collector understood when he stood away from the Temple and beat his breast and plead with God saying “be merciful to me, the sinner.”

 Verse 9 describes what the true Christian will do regarding sin. “If we confess our sins…” The word confession is “homologeo.” It literally means “to say the same.” “Homo” means “same.” The verb “logeo” means “to say or to speak.” You may recognize the noun form of the verb “logeo” as “logos” which is “word.” To confess our sins means that we agree with God concerning our sins. God has spoken concerning sin in His word. To agree with Him concerning our sin is an indication that we are not trying to make Him a liar and that His Word is in us.

 When the police get a confession from a criminal, they have gotten someone to admit they have broken the law. Confession starts with admitting we did something wrong. It is to acknowledge that we have violated God’s standard. Admitting we did something wrong is hard enough for some people. It is much easier to deny our failure by lying about it or to blame someone else. I never cease to be amazed at how quickly people are to blame someone else for things they have done. The blame game is far too easy to play. The first example of it is found in Genesis 3. Adam blamed both God and the woman. He said, “It was the woman You gave to me.” She blamed the serpent. If we are to confess our sins, we must certainly take responsibility. 

 Confession only starts with admission of guilt. It goes beyond that. Confession is total agreement with God. Confession involves understanding and agreeing with God that my actions, attitudes, and words are a violation of His holy standard. It also involves agreeing that God has the right to establish the standard. This is where many people fail in confession. They change the standard. They lower the bar. They will even rename the sin and make it sound like something everyone should want to do. Adultery sounds bad. Extra-marital affair sounds like something special. Homosexuality has hijacked the term “gay.” It used to be that if you were gay you were happy. These are a couple examples of how the standards are modified.

 Man does not get to determine the standards by which sin is defined. God is the authority on holiness and sin. Everything that does not measure up to His absolute standard is sinful. Man has to redefine God in order to change the standard. I said it last week and I will say it again. We don’t get to do that. We don’t get to recreate God into someone less than He is so that He somehow will be “ok” with our sinful propensities.

 Confession also involves agreement with God that He is just in the way He deals with sin. God is just in His punishment of sin. Turn to Romans 1 for a moment. Romans 1 tells us why God is just in the punishment of sins. Let’s begin reading in verse 18. Read through end of chapter, include 2:2. Point out that it isn’t just the issue of sexual sins and homosexuality addressed in Romans 1. It is all kinds of sinful actions and attitudes.

 So, is God unjust in punishing sin? To borrow a phrase from Paul in Romans, “May it never be!” God has made Himself known and God has put a conscience in man to know right from wrong. God has done more than enough to make man aware of his sinfulness. It would be unjust if God was condemning sinners to hell without that knowledge and without warning. He is not. Confession of sin involves acknowledging that God is righteous and just in forgiving sin. He is righteous and just in condemning unrepentant sinners.

 God must punish all sin, wherever it is found. His holy character demands that all sin be punished. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages, the just and deserved penalty for all sin is death. That same verse also has my favorite word in it. It says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I told you that God must punish all sin. He either has punished it in Jesus Christ on the Cross, or He will punish it by pouring out His righteous wrath on those who reject His Son Jesus Christ. Either Christ paid the penalty for your sins, or you will. Your offenses were either nailed to the Cross, or they will be nailed upon you, for eternity.

 This is why John tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God is faithful to forgive because God is faithful by nature. And God is righteous to forgive, or just to forgive because He will not hold us accountable for something He has already punished. If Christ has paid the penalty, my friends, the penalty has been paid in full.

 So then, does 1 John 1:9 give us the freedom to go out and sin as much as we want and just confess it and claim complete forgiveness? Where does this concept of repentance come into play in this? Is repentance a necessary component of confession?

 Consider a few things with me. First, if we habitually sin we have not repented. Repentance and confession are two different things. Repentance involves a complete turning away. It is best described as a 180 degree turn. And repentance is at the heart of the gospel message. A presentation of the gospel that does not call the sinner to repent is not a true gospel call. When John the Baptist and Jesus began preaching the message of the Kingdom the first thing they did was call the people to repent. Anyone who refuses to repent might be saying they are walking in fellowship in the Light, but in reality they are walking in darkness.

 How can a person agree with God in confession and not understand that there is a need to repent and turn away from that which is not pleasing to Him. We just quoted Romans 6:23. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If we are truly converted and walking in the Light and confessing our sins we will be seeking to live a life pleasing to our Lord. Lord means “boss.” This does not mean we will be perfect. We will be turning away from our sin and striving to walk in the freedom from sin that Christ has provided.

 God has ordained consequences for sin as a reminder of the need to confess and repent. God forgives the sins. God cleanses us from all unrighteousness. But God does not remove the consequences. This is a good thing. If there were no consequences, we might think it was ok to continue in sin. 

 We should look quickly at Proverbs 1:20-33. Sin’s consequences should be very helpful in teaching the true Christian wisdom. Consequences are reproofs. 

 Hebrews 12 exhorts us to resist to the point of shedding blood in our striving against sin. This exhortation is addressed to those who are God’s children. Hebrews explains that God deals with us as with sons, or children, and He disciplines those who are His for the express purpose that we may share in His holiness. The product of His discipline is that it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

 Confession of sin has several components. It involves agreeing with God that we have violated His standard. It agrees that God has the exclusive rights to determine the standard. Confession involves agreeing that God is just in the way He deals with sin, even in condemning the unrepentant sinner. Confession includes the recognition of the fact that we must turn from our sin. Confession includes the understanding that consequences to sin are necessary and good.

 Let me sum this up with three words that I think might help you remember what we have talked about today. The Christian’s attitude and approach to sin must be one of honesty. It doesn’t do any good to say anything other than what God has said about our sin. It needs to be dealt with in honesty.

 The second word is humility. Denial of sin, redefining sin, arguing with God about what is or isn’t sin, these are all issues of a prideful heart. We must humble ourselves before a holy God.

 The third word is hunger. Jesus used this word in the Sermon on the Mount in the Beatitudes. We recognize our spiritually impoverished condition, which is the result of sin, and this causes us to mourn over our sin. We will then hunger and thirst for the righteousness which will make us right with a holy God.