Walking in the Light — 1 John 1

0:00 Good morning. Good morning. Happy New Year. Scripture passage this morning comes from the book of first John. First John chapter one.

0:26 First John chapter one verse one. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life, the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and which was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you.

1:09 Now what is the message? That God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1:38 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. And Father, please bless our understanding of your word this morning. Please speak your message through me. Help us to receive your word and to go forth from this place to advance your kingdom.

2:06 In the name of Jesus our savior we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well the Sunday after Christmas, this is it, the Sunday after Christmas historically is the least attended church service of the whole year.

2:24 Now this year it might have been a little different because Christmas fell on a Sunday, but in general, the Sunday after Christmas you find the least people attending church. So, you know, when I was asked to speak on the week after Christmas, I understand, I get it, I understand how things are. Let's get the math professor up there to speak, and make sure it's a week where there aren't going to be too many people there. So, all know what's going on here, but it's good to be with you. What better place to be than among the Lord's people on the first day of the new year.

2:58 It is just good to be here and to see all of you. I just feel right at home here. Megan and Paul both send their love. They are both back at the house sick, which means that I am probably getting sick. So I'll try not to breathe on you, it's just, it's so good to be here, and to start the new year.

3:23 But I just want to start by sharing with you a Christmas present that I received, because it actually ties in a little bit with what we're going to talk about this morning. One of the things that I received for Christmas is this book, I got this from my wife, which is called Weird Ohio, Weird Ohio. Your travel guide, because we live in Michigan now, we have to travel to Ohio, Your travel guide to Ohio's local legends and best kept secrets. This book is just full of all kinds of crazy things that you would not expect, Ohio history and famous roadside attractions and interesting stories about the people who live here or have lived here. There's actually a book for every state, so you can get weird Michigan, and you can get weird California, although I suspect that weird California is actually just the phone directory, but this is weird Ohio, and that was mean.

4:22 I didn't mean to say that. I didn't mean to say that. But one of the stories from Weird Ohio is about a famous Ohioan by the name of Thomas Edison. Alright, now I want somebody who is under the age of 18 to tell me, what is one thing that Thomas Edison is famous for? Anything, Thomas Edison, young people.

4:44 Oh boy. Oh boy. Zach. Invented the light bulb, right? And he invented the real light bulb, not these spirally compact fluorescent things that break in your hand, he invented the actual light bulb, right?

4:58 Among other things, invented the, what we would call the, well, it used to be called the phonograph, and now it's called the record, well now it's not called anything. And he did some work with early video recording, and so he was a very smart man. He was born in Ohio in the town of Milan, right, very good, which is, I don't know, maybe an hour west of here, something off of Route 113. And I wanted to tell the story about Thomas Edison, came out of this book I got for Christmas. Thomas Edison was a very smart man, but here is the problem with Edison.

5:31 He lacked any sense of an objective external truth in his life. And because he lacked that external truth, his intelligence often led him down the wrong path. In fact, Edison spent a portion of his life trying to build an invention that would allow him to communicate with the dead, if not bring them back to life. I just want to read you some of his own philosophy on this. Edison believed that the human mind was built of swarms of particles from outer space.

6:14 This is a true story, I have this confirmed from multiple sources. He believed that we had these particles in our mind from outer space, each of those particles having their own little mind. And when those little minds disagree, that was the cause of sickness and eventually death. And when a person died, all of those little particles were free to go and have adventures elsewhere. And Edison thought if he could just get those same particles back together again, let's get the band back together boys, that we could reanimate dead people.

6:49 And so he spent several years of his life working on basically what now is jokingly referred to as a telephone to the dead. I bet you didn't learn that story in school. That's Thomas Edison. What is the point of that story other than it being very strange? Edison had a lot of intelligence, but his mind was not illuminated by the knowledge of God.

7:12 In a sense, he was just this very smart man who was kind of stumbling in the darkness. Sometimes he had some reasonably good ideas and sometimes he had some really bad ideas and he had no way of knowing which were the good ones and which were the poor ones because he didn't have the light of God to brighten his understanding. And that's kind of where this message is going to center today. That the light of God as manifested in the person of Jesus is the source and the standard for truth. The source of truth and the standard of truth.

8:43 Who was this guy named John? Well John was one of the original 12 disciples of Jesus. In fact, he is described in the New Testament as the disciple whom Jesus loved. So John had some special relationship with Christ. He was eyewitness to many of the events in Christ's life.

9:06 In particular, he was one of only three disciples to be present at the transfiguration. He is also an eyewitness of the raising of Jarius' daughter. And as far as we know, he is the only disciple mentioned to be at the crucifixion. In fact, Jesus spends some of his last strength and breath to commission John to take care of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In addition to the Gospel, which bears his name, John wrote these three letters, and also the book of Revelation, and died in exile on the Island Of Patmos.

9:45 So that's my little thirty second summary of the life of John, and there's certainly more you could look up into that, but what I really want to do is to get into this text. And right away, we noticed that one thing that distinguishes the letters that John wrote from the gospel that he wrote, is that the gospel of John was primarily directed toward unbelievers. These things I write to you so that you may believe. Whereas the letters of John are primarily directed toward believers to confront various false ideas. Well, to do two things, to correct false ideas which were creeping into the early church, and also to give us right ideas about salvation.

10:33 And the very root of salvation in John's eyes is the coming of God in the person of Jesus Christ. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, which our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. This life appeared, this is the appearance of God. We have seen it and testify to it and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father has appeared to us.

11:01 Now, you read this through, if you had no background in the scriptures, it might be difficult to understand who is he talking about. What is this word of life? But if you put this passage in parallel with the beginning of the Gospel of John, it becomes pretty clear who John is talking about. The Gospel of John starts off how? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God, and it goes on to say, In Him was life, and that life was the light of mankind.

11:32 And since the Gospel of John is clearly talking about Jesus Christ, then the first letter of John is also talking about Jesus. This is the person of Jesus Christ who appeared on the earth during John's lifetime. Now, the appearance of God as a human being is such a radical idea that there have been people throughout history who just cannot accept it. Generally these people fall into three categories. One, you've got the people who say, no, that's just ridiculous.

12:10 The whole Bible is a total fabrication. I can't believe you believe any of this stuff. It's all made up. So there's that group of people. That's actually a tough group to be in, but there are people who just reject the entire thing outright.

12:26 There's other people who reject the incarnation and say, well, you know what, there actually was a historical Jesus. There definitely was a man, he was a physical human being. John is right, he saw him, he heard his voice, he touched him, but that wasn't God, that was just Jesus of Nazareth, a good man, he came and he told us how to live our life. If we could just live more like Jesus, the world would be a better place, but he died a long time ago. So that's camp Number two.

12:55 And then the third group, and this was the particular group that John was addressing here, were the people who said that yes, God did appear, but he wasn't a physical human being. That Jesus Christ was just some kind of a vision or a spirit. This was particular heresy which was alive and active when John was writing this letter, and so John is going out of his way to say, woah, no, that's not true. I lived with him for three years. I saw what he did, I was an eyewitness of these things, I heard his voice, we ate the same food together, he was resurrected and I touched his physical body.

13:38 John is convinced that Jesus Christ was the physical human incarnation of the eternal God. I know that seems hard to believe if you have not been raised in the church, but that is what we believe. That is what we believe, that Jesus Christ was 100% God and yet he was also man. He had the same skin that we do, he had the same eyeballs and intestines and liver, I'm sure he suffered all of the common ailments of being a human, he felt the same pains, he suffered the same temptations that we do, even and though He didn't give into those temptations, they were tempting to Him nonetheless. He was not some mere vision or spirit.

14:22 Second Peter two sixteen, two Peter one sixteen, one sixteen, For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the message of our coming of Lord Jesus Christ and power, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Here's the big issue with Christianity to some people. It's not that we claim to believe in God. I don't actually think belief in God is that big of a deal for most human beings. But what we claim to believe and the real stumbling block for people is found in this phrase.

14:58 Right at the beginning of verse two, this life appeared. Your Bible may say this life was manifested. The Bible claims that God was embodied in the person of a particular Jewish man at a particular time in history, and we have to obey Him. You see, everything that Jesus says automatically becomes law because He is God. We have to obey Jesus.

15:24 Everything he did is perfect, and furthermore, the descriptions in this book supersede and have authority over any other book that has ever been written. That's why the incarnation is a major issue for people. Part of the reason is because we like to be little gods ourselves. But as soon as I admit that Jesus is God, well, I can't do my own thing anymore. I got to do Jesus's thing.

15:52 I can no longer pretend to be self sufficient because Jesus says that we need him. I can't rely on my making my own way in life because Jesus says that he is the way and the truth and the life. John Piper puts it this way, when God became a man, he stripped away any idea of man ever becoming God. So this teaching that Jesus is the embodiment of God, that he is the perfect representation of the eternal creator. This goes against our human nature.

16:45 That's very authoritarian. That violates my rights. Who does God think that he is? Anyway, verse three, that which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you that you may have fellowship with us. So John is saying, I saw this, I heard this, I touched this, and now I'm passing this on to you, so that you could have fellowship, we could have fellowship together.

17:11 Now there's two types of fellowship, just in this first chapter of one John. There's fellowship with God, and if you look down in verse seven, there's fellowship with other believers. Fellowship with, how can you have fellowship with God? That seems remarkable. I can have fellowship with God?

17:29 Yes, fellowship with God. That means you see things the way that God sees them. You have the same desires. You desire for his kingdom to come. You share in this communion with the Lord.

17:42 As believers, we have extraordinary blessings from God. Believe as Christians that we have supernatural communication with the God of the universe. And that he actually listens to our prayers. We have this relationship with God, and that God raises us up above the misery and the sin and the sorrow and the despair of life on earth to enjoy some foretaste of glory that we will eventually have in heaven. And we have fellowship with other believers.

18:21 Fellowship with other believers is supposed to be one of the best tastes we have of heaven here on this earth. I know sometimes we try each other's patience. We get on each other's nerves. We're not perfect people. Sometimes you leave church more upset than when you got there.

18:38 But you know, I think about my own stage in life where I am living in community with other believers who are praying together and worshiping together and raising children together and studying the word together. And if this is your experience, you are truly blessed. And if you don't have that experience, then you're missing out on a significant portion of the Christian life. The basis of any true fellowship with other believers has to be the message of Jesus Christ. If we keep that message central, then we can enjoy that rich fellowship because without it, I don't know how I could ever hope to be any reasonable sort of father or husband or teacher or brother or friend.

19:27 And John writing this, he writes this why so that the joy, your joy, his joy, our joy may be full. To believe in the Lord Jesus gives joy to other Christians, right? Don't you just feel a sense of joy that Bob's dad is a believer? Or don't you feel a sense of joy over that? It makes your joy more full.

19:51 I think of my own son, right, little Paul, who I can't think of, there's nothing, there's nothing I can think of that would give me greater joy than to one day see him walking with the Lord. I can't think of anything else. It is hard for you guys to understand how much your parents want you to be saved. I did not understand that as a little boy. Why are we always talking about Jesus?

20:20 Why are we always praying? Why are we always reading the Bible? Going to church again, really? We just went last week. Because the salvation of your children brings you great joy.

20:35 And John is saying, I'm writing these things to you so that you may believe and so that your joy may be full. That's the first point. That the appearance of God in the person of Jesus means, well, we're accountable to Jesus. But we can also have fellowship, not just with one another, but with God. So move on to verse five.

21:00 We have the appearance of God, and I want to talk a little bit about walking with God. Verses five and six, this is the message that we have heard from Him and declare to you, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. So I read that passage and the first question that came to my mind was quote, what is truth? So who was it that said that?

21:33 Pilate. Pilate. So Pilate says to Jesus, what is truth? What does it mean we live out the truth? It is not easy for us to always know what the truth is.

21:45 I probably don't need to go into the fact that we just went through an election season, in which it was difficult to ever know what was true and what was not true. But we kind of expect that from the world, right? As Christians, we always know what's true and what's not true, right? We a handle on the truth, but unfortunately that's not the case. I'll just give you one example.

22:52 They actually made a movie out of this book, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven. So The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven was a book about a little boy who was in an automobile accident, and who claimed to have died, and went to heaven and saw Jesus and the angels, and then after two months in a coma, is resuscitated and now is telling you his story of what he saw in heaven. The book was written by the boy's father whose last name, you just can't make this up, His last name is Malarkey, and I didn't realize that till right now. That's his name, and so it became a best seller. Well, it turns out that for the last two years, the boy and the mom have been trying to set the record straight that the entire story was a hoax.

23:44 It was made up by the dad in order to get some money. And now the dad is nowhere to be seen, and he's left the little boy and his mom, and they haven't got any money from this. And so they were suing the publisher of this book, saying that the publisher was making all kinds of money off the story that the boy said, it's never true, I never died and went to heaven, dad made that up. And so now the question is, well when did the publisher find out that this story wasn't true, and maybe this book shouldn't have been a best, actually it shouldn't have been a best seller in the first place because frankly, if you want to know what heaven is about, you should just read the Bible and not rely on the word of kids who claim to have come back from the dead. That seems like good advice.

24:27 But what can we believe? We all fall prey to lies. Here John is talking about the truth. But, see, have an adversary, the devil. And the devil is known as the father of lies.

24:44 Now Jesus said, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. We've heard that a lot, right? I know the truth and the truth will set me free. Set you free from what? From bondage to Satan.

24:55 That's what he's talking about. And in particular, from the devil's lies. The devil is going to lie to us about the world. We're going to hear lies about God, lies about our bodies and what we're allowed or not allowed to do with them, lies about the scriptures. So when John writes that God is light, we declare to you that God is light.

25:19 We can interpret that as almost being synonymous with saying that God is truth. Because in verse six, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth. Walk in darkness versus live according to the truth. John could have said live according to the light, but he doesn't, he chooses the word truth, And if you read on in chapter five and verse 20, it seems that he is using the terms truth and light as synonyms here. That God is light means that He is the source and the standard of all that is true.

25:56 Another way to put it would be to say that nothing is truly understood unless it is understood in the light of God. This was Edison's mistake, right? He didn't have the light of God as his standard of truth. This is why Proverbs says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. You don't even get on the playing field of knowledge, you don't even get out of the dugout, you don't even get in the ballpark of knowledge unless you've got the light of God.

26:25 And folks, this is why secular education is such a mirage. And I'm telling you this as a secular educator. Right? Let me just put it this way. Another purpose of John's letters was to combat yet another heresy.

26:47 This was called Gnosticism. That's with a silent G. Gnosticism, which takes various forms, but one form of Gnosticism is that, yeah, the Bible has said some good stuff, but you know there's a higher knowledge out there. There's better knowledge. Everybody kind of believes the Bible, but hey, I got something even better for you.

27:10 And if you can just attain to this higher knowledge, which is really only for the select few. If you can attain to this higher knowledge, well then you're really going to solve the problems in the world. And John is saying, are you kidding me? There is no knowledge outside of God. But I teach at a university, and believe me, there are people there who think they've really achieved this higher knowledge.

27:35 And the basis of this knowledge is totally within themselves. The notion that there's any external truth at all, any standard of holiness is just completely rejected. You know, and these are not necessarily wicked people. Some of them are my friends. I've known them for years.

28:20 Oh wow, that sounds so smart, doesn't it? Oh boy, you're so smart. What does that mean? Objectivity is a myth afforded to the privileged. Well, that means what she's saying is, is that only white straight males believe in any type of objective truth, and the rest of us who know better realize that objective external truth is ridiculous.

28:43 That's what she's saying. This is the world in which we live. But the temptation to reject external truth isn't just a temptation to unbelievers. We feel that temptation too. Particularly young people feel this temptation to think that we just know more than our parents.

29:03 You know, the world is such a mess. Our generation is going to fix this. Know mom and dad, they believe everything the Bible says. Isn't that quaint? Grandpa is always praying.

29:16 So nice, he prays before Christmas dinner, but I know better than that. Right? We think we're so smart and so educated and so tolerant, but the whole foundation of the wisdom of many people in our generation is just crumbling. That foundation is crumbling because there's no sense of any truth outside of what I can think up in my own heart. You know, I see all these things that say 2017 is going to be such a great year, we're going to fix all these problems, and it's just going to be a nice year.

29:48 2016 was so bad, but 2017, I'm just looking so forward to this, everything's gonna be hunky dory, isn't it? It's not, it's a lie, it's a lie. And don't get sucked into that because the result of trusting in ourselves to know what is right and true, isn't going to be a better world. It's just a foretaste of hell. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

30:17 And it's a willful darkness. It's not that I'm deceived. The light has come into the world and men love darkness more than light because their deeds were evil. Their deeds were evil. We choose the darkness other than light when we reject God as the source of truth.

30:35 Verse seven, 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. I find it interesting that the Christian life is described as walking. So walking in the light, this is what we're supposed to be doing as believers. Walking implies some kind of activity, right? One step does not mean that you're walking, Right?

31:04 Walking has to imply continual movement. You see, redemption in the Bible always involves being saved from something and to something else. Well, I got saved twenty years ago. Well, how's your walk? My walk.

31:23 Well, I must be good. I got saved, right? Well, not one prayer, not one church meeting, not one sermon is going to make a walk with the Lord. Walking in the light means that I continually moving forward in my Christian experience. See here's another heresy.

31:46 There are a lot of heresies going around then, most of which are still around today. Another heresy which John was combating, and this one was very dangerous, was something called antinomianism. That one does not have the silent G, it's just an N. Antinomianism. And this was a heresy which said that because we are saved by grace, I don't have any reason to even try and follow the law, no moral or ethical standard.

32:22 I'm just saved by grace. I don't need to try and walk and improve. I don't have any room in my life for exhortation. I just keep on sinning because I'm living in grace. Now this heresy was dangerous because it's almost true.

32:38 There's parts of it that are true. You are saved by grace. You cannot keep the law. But the heresy of antinomianism was, so don't even try. Hey, just keep sinning.

32:51 It's a good deal, right? I'm saved by grace. I like sinning, God likes forgiving. So I just keep on sinning and keep bringing the same sins to Him. Same sins I struggled with last week.

33:01 Now I'm not gonna... There's no reason for me to try and overcome this sin. I just am living in grace. And some of us, particularly those of us who are strong on the gospel of grace, I'm afraid that even I fall into this sometimes. Because I tend to think of God, I use a mathematical term, in binary terms.

33:56 God is the judge. And that is not a bad way to think about God. But if I only think about God as a judge in this two category mindset, justified or unjustified, then I sometimes trip myself up because I lose sight of the fact that God is described in the Bible as more than just a judge. He's described in sort of familial terms. The Bible actually describes God as our father, that's right.

34:25 And a father who has adopted us can be displeased with me even though he still loves me. Maybe He's actually displeased with me because He loves me. Maybe I am disciplined by God because God loves me. Or maybe He is pleased with me when I try my feeble best to obey. So I've tried to think recently, no, I'm not rejecting the idea of God as the judge who justifies, but to also keep in mind that I have a relationship with God.

34:59 I like this quote, our legal standing in Christ is unalterable. You're not gonna lose your salvation. Your legal standing is one of those two things. You're either saved or you're not. But our communion with Christ can ebb and flow.

35:22 And so when John talks about walking in the light, I am taking this personally as an exhortation. And in the coming year, I'm going to think more about, am I walking with God, or has my Christian life sort of come to a standstill? So we take care not to walk in darkness. We avoid walking in darkness by accepting that God is the standard of truth. And I continue to walk in the light by doing everything I can to maintain a strong relationship with my heavenly Father.

36:00 And the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Now this is the last point I'm going to make. What does it mean that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin? Well, means at least two things. First, it refers to the experience of having all of my sins forgiven.

36:21 All of them. Past, present, and future sins. That's a good kind of cleansing right there. All of my sins are cleansed. This is what the Bible talks about, and again, in these legal terms of being acquitted or being justified.

36:36 Romans five:nine, since therefore we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. Ephesians one:seven, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. To be cleansed by the blood of Jesus means to have all of our sins forgiven. So, it could be that's what he's talking about in terms of cleansing. But the other kind of cleansing that happens to the Christian is an ongoing moral effect of the blood of Christ on my conscience.

37:10 This cleansing weans me away from sin. It starts to give me more and more freedom over sin's power, and it starts to reveal to me more and more the joy of righteousness. And this is what the Bible refers to as sanctification. And part of the reason I think that this particular passage is also talking about sanctification is the very strong emphasis that John brings in chapter three of this letter to Christ's purpose in coming to destroy sin in our lives. Particularly chapter three verses eight and nine.

37:52 He who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God commits sin, for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. I'm glad I'm not speaking on that passage. We'll leave that up to somebody smarter than me.

38:14 But my takeaway from this is that Christ came not just to cover my sin, but to conquer sin. He didn't come just to justify me, but to sanctify me. Not just to acquit me, but to reform me. The ongoing effect of the cleansing blood of Christ is that I am no longer content to go on sinning. As the years go by, sin is, alright, it never goes away, but it should become less attractive to us.

39:12 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse 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. So confession definitely seems to be part of the Christian life. I came across an app this week for my smartphone, it's called the Confession App. And the Confession App is supposed to help you if you, particularly those of anyone in the Catholic church who is familiar with the rite of penance.

39:45 But the confession app is pretty handy, right? It does a personal examination of your conscience, probably done by Siri, and then it allows you to keep track of the sins you've committed. You can either just enter them in, I didn't honor my mom this week, or you can select popular sins from drop down menus that are organized around the 10 commandments. Right? So, so, the reviews of this are actually pretty positive.

40:16 One one reviewer writes, the confession app is well made and well thought through. It is especially useful in helping me build up a list of sins over the course of a week so that these things are less likely to be forgotten in the confessional. I thought for only a dollar 99, that is a bargain right there. Now we say that facetiously, but there is an element here. The true sign of a believer is not sinlessness, but sin consciousness.

40:47 I become more aware as truth begins to indwell in me, what does it do? But exposes errors. To claim to be without sin is self deception. I don't actually think there's anybody here that claims to be without sin, right? I mean, haven't met you.

41:04 You haven't told me that if you feel like you are without sin. Hi, I'm Bill and I'm not a sinner. I'm perfect. Really? Really, Bill?

41:11 Yeah, I never sinned. Wow, good for you, Bill. Nobody would really say that, right? But we actually, as Christians, do have ways of sort of denying our sins. I can relativize my sins.

41:25 Yeah, I'm not perfect, I'm a sinner. But compared to the rest of these weirdos, I'm doing a pretty good job. So this is one way that I sort of deny my sin. Or I shift blame. It's not my fault that I sin, I was just raised this way, or I was born this way, or I wasn't educated enough, or that guy is always ticking me off.

41:47 It's no wonder that I sin, right? I'm not denying that I sin, but I am kind of denying that I sin, and the truth is not in me. I saw a commercial on TV the other night for the Ohio lottery has this campaign to help people who are addicted to gambling. That's not the story. That's just the start of the story.

42:10 So they run all these commercials now. If you're addicted to gambling, know, what you need to do is seek help. And here's the tagline of the current commercial. It's not your character, it's your chemistry. There's something biological about you that is making you do these things.

42:31 And I thought, I was almost half asleep, I woke up and said to Megan, that's not right. She said, I thought you were asleep. I said, it is your character. It might be your chemistry too. I'm not denying that there are biological motives behind sin, but to say that that's why we sin is really shifting the blame.

42:52 I'm just denying that I sin in that case. If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar and His word is not in us. These are strong words. Cause John wants us to be strong people. You know, we realize that we're not okay.

43:11 Even unbelievers deep down, you realize you're not okay. At least, you know that everybody around you is not okay. You know the thoughts you've had in your heart, and the fantasies that you have nurtured, the things you have done, the lifestyle you are living. If we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves. It's not real.

43:34 You gotta be kidding me. But what are we gonna do about it? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from unrighteousness. I thought this word just was interesting. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins.

43:51 I would almost have expected it to say, He is faithful and merciful to forgive our sins. Or, He's faithful and just to condemn us for our sins. That seems like the just thing to do. So a lot of people ask this question, you've heard this before, how can God allow bad things to happen to good people? But the question that the Bible usually is wrestling with is just the opposite.

44:50 I'm just going to start forgiving. Your sins, they don't matter. The law doesn't matter. You're free. Free day.

44:58 Here you go. That's not what happened. Right? That's not how we were saved. We weren't saved because God was some kindly old man who just decided to throw up his hands and say, oh, well, that's that's it.

45:09 No more. No more. No more. More. Big deal.

45:12 We were not saved by God eliminating the law, but by fulfilling the law. Jesus Christ lived the life that I could never live. He died the life that I could never die, And He was the propitiation. It's a big word, that's an important word, propitiation. He was the propitiation for our sins.

45:33 And so God, if He is going to be true to His own words, must forgive me. It is the just thing for him to do. And this is an idea that I struggled with even for a while after becoming a Christian. That the just thing for God to do is to forgive me when I confess my sins. Because of the cross, the cross is central to this.

46:06 And so it's not like daytime TV, you just got to learn to forgive yourself. Give yourself a break. Release those evil thoughts. No, we know that doesn't work. You know deep down, you don't deserve to forgive yourself.

46:20 But it was by an act of justice, what God did to his own son, that we now have forgiveness. John Calvin wrote, when you are walking in the light, even you, the one who walks in the light keeps the right way, even though in many things he is sighing under the burden of the flesh. And boy, we feel like that sometimes. We are walking in the light and yet sigh under the burden of the flesh. But the Gospel message, the more I read it, the more beautiful it becomes, the more powerful it becomes in my life.

47:08 I'm trying to live a life of holiness, I remain honest about the remaining darkness in my life. But I can live in a clean conscience. Because of this, if you confess, He will forgive and cleanse you. Cleanse your conscience. What is your conscience telling you today?

47:26 Some of us haven't listened to our consciences in a long time. I know some people who have just totally given up. There's no way I can have a clean conscience. They're just living lives with their heads down in some kind of a self loathing pity, never able to lift up their eyes and to greet the dawn. But this is a new year.

48:21 Thank you, Lord, that this is a battle with sin that you have already won. And we just pray that we could experience that reality more and more every day. Strengthen us in our walk with you. Cleanse our hearts with the blood of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.