One of the real catchwords that advertisers love to use these days is pure. I guess the thinking goes that if the company can convince us, the consumers, that the product is pure, we will buy it. If we really stop, and we listen to what people are saying, we can hear them using the word “pure” often.
That got my curiosity going. Often when I am curious I will go out on the Internet and do a little bit of research. I got on the search engine Google and typed the word “Pure.” There were more than 342 million responses. Yahoo had 112 million. I guess that Google really is more thorough that Yahoo.
I thought I would look into a few of those sites. First there was “Vermont Pure Spring Water.” They claimed that they prided themselves “…on bottling Vermont Pure Natural Spring Water, the best tasting spring water available. Vermont Pure Natural Spring Water naturally bubbles to the surface deep within the Green Mountains of Vermont after being naturally filtered for up to 0 years through a geologic cornucopia of rocks and minerals.”
Then there was Pure Canadian Maple Syrup. That reminded me of the pure maple syrup that Rick and Pete Lon brought me from their spring break trip to the northeast.
There was also pure Java (that is an Internet computer language), pure and applied geophysics, I will guarantee I didn’t even look at that website, pure fishing, pure baseball, and even something called “Pure Honda Juice.” I didn’t look at that one or a few others that I won’t even mention this morning.
There were also a few news stories that talked about things being pure. The most common of these stories, by far, were stories about the purity of illegal drugs on the streets. One headline jumped out. It read, “Pure Heroin.”
Ivory soap has a slogan that is one of the first things that sprang to mind when I started thinking on this idea of purity. That slogan lent itself to be the title of this morning’s message. 99 and 44/100% pure has been their claim to fame for more than a century now. As I think about that it makes me wonder, pure what? If it is pure soap, I would hope that it would be 100% pure.
If I remember my VERY basic high school chemistry, it takes more than one chemical to make soap. How pure can it be? And, by the way, what is the other 56/100%.
One of my all-time favorite musicians is Ronnie Milsap. He had a song out several years ago titled “Pure Love.” IN the song he borrowed Ivory Soap’s slogan too, “99 and 44/100% pure.” Milsap added the word love on the end. The song said, “Pure love. You’re the picture of pure love, 99 and 44/100% pure love.”
As I thought about our lesson this morning, and also about Ronnie Milsap’s song, I also though about John Wesley’s idea of going on to perfection. In the lesson John talks about our hope and that everyone who has this hope is pure, just as Jesus is pure. He also says that what we will be is not yet known but that we will be like Jesus. Then there is also a third idea in the text that if we are living in Christ we have no more sin. This all seems quite puzzling to me. All of my life I have been taught and told that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. First I believe that. And, second that isn’t a saying that is in the past tense. It is a current tense statement. Further, it seemingly contradicts what John says in chapter one when he says that we all sin and that anyone who says that he is without sin is a liar. So, what is up with all of this? It just doesn’t seem to make any real sense.
I have no problem with the part of the lesson that tells us, “We shall be like him.” That idea is an element of Wesley’s idea of going on to perfection. But I also see that as saying that we are not perfect yet, we are just working in that direction. From the time of our conversion, for the rest of our lives, we are striving to live a Godly life through the power of the Holy Spirit. That is called sanctifying grace. It starts the moment of our conversion and goes on for the rest of our lives. Does that mean that we don’t sin? No, I don’t think so. Does it mean that we are totally righteous? Again, I don’t think so. Does it mean that we are constantly striving to live that Godly life? It absolutely does.
So what does John mean in this text when he starts talking about us being without sin? That, my friends, is a really good question. It is a question that I believe deserves an answer. I only wish that I could give you one.
After thinking on this problem and doing some study on it, I looked at what several commentators had to say and I was really pretty surprised. Most of them, at least the commentaries that are in my library, are strangely quiet on the subject. So I am going to tell you what I think and at the same time I am going to tell you up front that I have very little in the way of scholarly information to back up what opinion on the subject. What I am saying to you is what I believe that God is saying to me after a time of serious prayer.
How can we reconcile this idea that John has in this morning’s lesson with other places in Scripture, even other places in this very letter than communicate a clear message that we all sin? How can this idea of purity exist in light of the seemingly contrary idea that we sin and that we humans are far from being perfect?
I think that it has to do with two things. The fist has to do with the concept of focus. What are we looking at spiritually? Before our life in Christ we are focused on any variety of things. Perhaps we look at what is good for us. Or maybe, what makes us feel good. Quite honestly, before our life in Christ we are likely focused first and foremost on something that is self-centered. We are the center of our own universe. The world, at least as we see it, revolves around us, or at least it should revolve around us. What is most important to us should also be most import to everyone in the world around us.
When we come to the faith that whole idea begins to change. As people of faith we stop looking so much at what is good for us and begin to look at things more in the ways that God looks at them. Our focus moves from focusing on ourselves to focusing on Christ. That is a move toward perfection.
Does that mean that we always look only at what God wants, what is God’s will? Is our focus always on Christ? No, it isn’t. And, when it is not, that is when we fall short of a Godly life, when we don’t live out God’s will, that is when we sin.
So, what do we do about it? That brings us to the second of these two concepts that are important to understanding this passage. That is, we confess our sins. We repent. The word repent literally means to turn around and go in a different way. When we, as people of God, sin against God, and we will, we come back to God with humble hearts. We confess before God, in prayer, what we have done, and pray to God for the strength and the ability to turn our lives away from that sin. We pray that God will lead us and help us to keep our focus on Christ and the kind of life he calls us to live. Does that mean that we will never sin again? No, it simply means that we are forgiven. And, I think that is what John is talking about. We confess our sins to God and earnestly repent. Then, from that moment in time, we are without sin.
How do I come to that conclusion? The Scriptures tell us that, “If we confess our sins, He [God] is faithful and just. He will forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” That, my friends is good news. That is news that we can celebrate. God loves us and God forgives us. The sin exists no more. It is gone. It is forgotten. And, at least for a moment we are without sin, we are pure.
You might ask, how can our sins of the past no longer exist? That too is a really good question. I once heard it put this way. A man was struggling with this idea of forgiveness and that his sins were permanently removed. In a dream one night God seemed to say to the man, “When you confess your sins, I take them and leave them in the deepest part of the sea. Then to make sure that they are not disturbed, I put up a sign that says, ‘No Fishing!’”
We are about to come to the Lord’s Table. When talking about the Holy meal, Paul reminds us that we shouldn’t come to the table in an unworthy manner. I believe he meant that we shouldn’t come to the table with our sins still in our hearts. We need confess our sins before God so that we come to the table with a pure, clean heart. That is why having an opportunity at the table to pray is such an important part of our Communion Sunday worship. We come to the Lord’s Table as humble repentant servants. We come confessing our sins. Then when we confess our sins, God takes them away. They no longer exist in His eyes. We are forgiven. Our hearts are pure once again.
Does that mean that after we leave the table, in five minutes or an hour or at ten o’clock tonight or first thing tomorrow morning we will still be without sin, that our hearts will still be pure? Possibly, but regardless of the time, we will all still sin. We will all fall, at least for a moment, away from God. But we know the way back to God. We can confess and repent.
It does mean that we are going on to perfection. We are striving to have a pure heart and a pure life. It doesn’t mean that we are there, at least not yet. And, we will not be, at least not totally, not in this lifetime. We aren’t quite there, but we are working on it. IN that way we are a great deal like that Ivory soap. We are 99 and 44/100% pure.
