Deceptions We Believe - 1 John 1:8-10 - May 26, 2013
Series: That We May Know – Life With Jesus - #3
Let’s open our Bibles this morning to the book of 1 John. 1 John, chapter 1, beginning in verse 5. This is the third message in our series entitled “That We May Know – Life With Jesus.” And John has written these words so that we may know we have fellowship with God. Fellowship is a term that refers to a shared participation in something.
The apostle Paul, as he is sharing his testimony in the book of Acts, says that Jesus spoke to him saying these words: “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” (Acts 26:17–18, NIV84)
What he’s talking about is the fellowship that we enter into through faith in Jesus. As the Gentiles moved from darkness to light, they received forgiveness of sins and a place among those who had been sanctified by faith. That is they shared in, participated in, the blessings made possible by Christ’s shed blood. Scripture teaches us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sin. That was the basis for the whole Old Testament sacrificial system whereby animals would be put to death for the sins of the people. The blood of the animal would cover up the sin – like sweeping the dirt under the carpet – but couldn’t atone for it, couldn’t get rid of it. However, the Bible also teaches us that the blood of Jesus was far superior to that of the animals, and that it is sufficient, not just to cover sin over, but to wash sin away. It is able to atone for our sin – something which the blood of animals never could do. It is the blood of Jesus, that washes away my sins, that makes peace between me and God.
And Paul is saying that as the Gentiles share in the blessings of the blood, they have fellowship with God. And because they share in that fellowship they become heirs of the kingdom of God. An heir stands to inherit something. Those who participate in that fellowship that comes about through Jesus, have the promise of heaven, this is, among other things, their inheritance. If you don’t share in that fellowship you are not saved, you are not a Christian despite what you may call yourself. John writes these things because he wants us to know that fellowship personally and that’s why we’re doing this series – that we may know.
In my study of Scripture in these last few weeks I’ve been impressed, again and again, with the warnings we see throughout the Bible. The warnings often begin with these words: “Do not be deceived.” What does that mean? It means don’t be fooled. Don’t be led astray. Don’t blind yourself to the truth. And John, in the verses that we began to look at last week, laid out three errors that people tend to fall into when it comes to sin. These are three ways that we tend to deceive ourselves when it comes to the sin in our lives.
We spent most of our time last week looking at the first error. It’s right there in verse 6. “If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:6, NIV84) What’s the error? Believing that we have fellowship with God, that we share in the blessings of the blood and the hope of heaven, if we continue to choose to live in habitual, on-going sin. In verse 5 John says this: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5, NIV84) See, light and darkness aren’t compatible. We don’t continue to live in the darkness having seen the light unless we’re choosing the darkness of sin over the glory of God.
John says “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. [If you’re not coming into the light, there’s a reason for it. The truth is you love the darkness more than the light. You like your sin and don’t want to exchange it for the light. You love your sin more than you love God. You fear what the light will reveal. But John goes on to say,] whoever lives by the truth comes into the light.” (John 3:19–21, NIV84) Darkness and light are irreconcilable. Darkness and truth are incompatible. They just don’t go together.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NIV84) And again He says, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” (John 12:46, NIV84) Jesus has come so that you and I will live in the light. And if you think that you can follow Jesus, and yet continue to walk in habitual darkness, you’re deceiving yourself. When a person comes to faith in Christ, they receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God comes and indwells them and begins a work in their life. It’s a life-long work. It won’t be completed until we stand before Jesus in the throne room of heaven having been glorified through Him. Until then it is an on-going work in a believer’s life.
But the book of Titus tells us this: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:11–14, NIV84) The Spirit of God, dwelling within a believer, longs not for the darkness, but for the light, seeking out the things of God rather than the things of the sinful nature. That’s why we can’t walk in habitual darkness as a believer – the Spirit of God within us calls us to the light.
And that brings us to the second error which we find in verse 8. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8, NIV84) See John starts with that first error and he says, “Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that you can habitually walk in darkness and be a Christian because you can’t. It’s not possible. If you’re trying to do this you’ve deceived yourself. You’re not saved and you’re on the road to hell.” Some people are going to be misled by that into believing that Christians are without sin, so he gives us another test saying, “if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
See, people claim a lot of things to be true, that just aren’t true. And just because you claim them to be true, or even believe them to be true, doesn’t mean that they necessarily are true.
It’s not uncommon these days to hear someone say something like this: “people are basically good.” And what they mean by that is that they believe human nature tends towards goodness and light, rather than towards darkness and evil. To those who believe this, a person is born good, and may, on occasion sin – but they don’t have a sin nature – they have a good nature that is occasionally sullied by sin. But what we believe about our basic nature has huge theological implications and so we want to be sure we get it right. That’s why John warns us not to be deceived – you want to get this right because …
The person who believes that they are without this sin nature has no need for Jesus. Listen to this passage from the Gospel of Matthew … “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. … For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”” (Matthew 9:10–13, NIV84)
Let me ask you a question: What’s the difference between your typical Pharisee and your typical tax collector? … The Pharisee is the religious elite of the day. They appear to have it all together. The tax collector is the scum of society. They cheat their own people, put heavy burdens on them. Nearly universally disliked by everyone but other tax collectors. So what’s the difference between them? … The difference is this: the tax collector knows that he’s a sinner; the Pharisee has deceived himself into thinking that he is without sin.
Jesus says it’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. And it’s true - you don’t go to the doctor if you don’t think there’s something wrong with you, do you? But listen to what Jesus says later on: “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. [He’s talking to the religious leaders.] For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.” (Matthew 21:31–32, NIV84)
The scum of society is entering heaven while the Pharisees are being left out in the darkness. Why? Because they don’t even acknowledge the reality of their own sin nature. And if you don’t acknowledge the reality of the sin nature lurking within you, you’re never going to turn to the one who can save you; you’re never going to see a need for Jesus in your life. And that’s exactly where the Pharisees found themselves. All around them people were being confronted with the reality of their own sinfulness, being broken, moving in repentance, receiving forgiveness and entering into new life, and the Pharisees couldn’t see it – they were blind to it.
The Pharisees excelled at looking good and doing the right things. In the worlds eyes they were the epitome of righteousness. People believed, and the Pharisees themselves believed, that if anyone was good with God, it was them. But Jesus looked at them and saw the truth. He said they were like whitewashed tombs – looking good on the outside, but dead and lifeless on the inside. They claimed to be right with God, but they were wrong. Churches are filled with whitewashed tombs today – people who have deceived themselves into believing that they have fellowship with God, forgiveness of sins, and the assurance of salvation, when all they really have is the shallow trappings of religion.
In the book of Ezekiel God says “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26, NIV84) Why would He do this? Because a heart of stone can’t respond. A heart of flesh can. And this second test that John gives us, to test and see whether or not we really are in the faith, is a test of the heart. How does your heart respond to sin? Our attitude towards our own sin will be very revealing as to whether or not we really are in the faith or whether we have simply deceived ourselves into believing we are in the faith.
A Christian will be sensitive to sin. When that sin is revealed to them they will respond to it. How does a Christian respond? That sensitivity, that awareness that they have transgressed against a Holy God who has sent His own Son to die for us in order to deliver us from death to life, leads to brokenness before God. Psalm 51 … “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17, NIV84)
When was the last time – has there ever been a time – when you were broken by your sin? Not broken because you got caught. Not broken because of the consequences of sin in this world. But broken because you’ve sinned against God? Because you’d done what was displeasing and evil in His sight?
The teaching of the Bible is this: you and I - we are depraved … and not just a little bit, but completely. That doesn’t mean that we are completely as bad as we can be at all times, but it does mean that our natural tendency is not towards the light, but rather towards darkness. Our nature has been corrupted by sin. And that’s something that you can’t overcome on your own. It’s humanly impossible. And when you realize that, that’s when you can call out to God for mercy, for healing, for forgiveness, for a Savior.
Some of you have never accepted this. You have fallen prey to the lie that you’re basically a good person who occasionally does bad things. That’s why you haven’t trusted in Jesus, it’s why you haven’t cried out to God for forgiveness for your sin, it’s why you can’t seem to find victory over your sin, it’s why you’re not moved by your sin, because deep down you believe you’re a good person and that God owes you heaven. You’re not and He doesn’t.
2000 Years ago Paul wrote these words – and they are just as true today as they were then - “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:1–3, NIV84) That sin nature that so many people deny even exists – that’s what makes us objects of wrath. We were without hope, and without God in this world. Yet here’s the good news: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4–5, NIV84) And the experience of that grace, that love, that mercy, that life with have in Jesus, means that the Christian is sensitive to their own sin.
Verse 9 says this … “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, NIV84) We’ve been brought from death to life because of God’s love for us. That love was profoundly demonstrated to us on the cross as Jesus bled out His life’s blood. The penalty for sin has been paid, God’s justice has been satisfied. But the Christian is still going to sin. Doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t make it alright. But it’s the reality – the Christian is still going to sin. And a test of whether or not you are really saved is this: How are you going to respond to the reality of that sin in your life? There are only two ways to respond. Some will be untouched, or simply feel vague feelings of guilt because of their sin. But deep down they will be unmoved. They will deny the reality of sin in their own lives. And then they will choose to continue in sin because it’s pleasing to the flesh. The heart is made of stone. It is unmoved by God’s love and untouched by His mercy.
The other way to respond is in brokenness. That brokenness stems from a godly sorrow that moves a person towards confession and repentance. It only happens when a Christian is sensitive to sin. John says the Christian response to the awareness of sin begins with confession and confession isn’t something we hear much about these days – but we need too, because …
Confession is meant to bring reconciliation to a relationship – in this case between you and God. “To confess” means “to say the same thing.” To confess our sins is to agree with God about the very nature of our sins – that they are in fact sin, wrong in God’s eyes, grievous to His Spirit, inappropriate for a child of God. When you confess, you ought to be naming your sins. Call them as God calls them. If you steal something, confess you’ve made yourself to be a thief; if you’ve speak that which isn’t true, acknowledge that you’re a liar; if you’re sleeping with someone outside of marriage confess that you are a fornicator, if you’re married and had sexual relations with someone else, admit that you are an adulterer; if you’ve failed to control your tongue confess that you are a gossip; if you imagined what it would be like to be with the girl down the street, confess your lust. Don’t use words that attempt to minimize the “wrongness” of your actions. Use the words that God uses. See your sin as God sees your sin that you might repent of it and turn to Him for forgiveness and cleansing.
Many people never practice confession at all. But listen to what David writes in Psalm 32. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”— and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 32:3–5, NIV84)
Often times we don’t practice confession because we haven’t been moved by the reality of our sin. The heart is still made of stone – we’ve never received the heart of flesh. That’s why John pleads with us not to deceive ourselves because we can be like the Pharisees, going through all the motions of religion, cleaning up the outside, without responding to God’s truth in the heart. If that’s the case, all we’ve managed to do is to fool ourselves into thinking we are saved. The truth is vastly more terrifying. The one for whom this is true is not saved at all but is still dead in their trespasses and sins. If we deceive ourselves in this way John says the truth is not in us. Those are the same words used in the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John where Jesus says this: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.” (John 8:44, NIV84) Is there truth in you?
In verse 9 John goes on to say that God is “faithful” and “just.” He is just because He hasn’t permitted sin to go unpunished – Jesus paid the penalty sin incurred. But He’s faithful too because He forgives those who confess their sins before Him.
My sins were paid in full on the cross. All of my sins – past, present and future were paid for in Jesus’ death. But when I sin today I still need to ask forgiveness for my sin because my sin interferes with my relationship with God. If one of my children sins against me, they don’t lose their status as son or daughter in my household because of that sin. They are son or daughter of my household forever. But the relationship between us can be grievously affected by sin. Yet as we confess, and repent, the relationship is restored; it’s healed. So it is between us and God. On the one hand we are without hope, and without God in this world, because of our sin nature and the sins which flow from it. But, having been redeemed by the blood of Christ, that sin has been atoned for and it no longer separates us from God. We have come from the darkness into the light.
Proverbs 28 … “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13, NIV84) When I sin today it grieves God’s heart and affects my closeness to Him. But when I confess, He is faithful to purify me from all unrighteousness. “Purify” is in the present tense indicating an on-going, present day reality: He cleanses me and restores the relationship as it is meant to be because when I confess I’m acknowledging the truth of God’s word. I’m agreeing that what I have done is sinful, I’m filled with a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and with His help I’m going to turn away from this thing I have done. When you confess and repent it’s not so you can go and do it all over again. The desire is to be cleansed and to turn away from that sin. And I need that cleansing because when I sin I defile myself. Have you ever sinned and felt dirty afterwards? Unclean? That’s what sin does – it defiles and shames us. But as I confess, I bring my sin into the light where it loses it’s power over me. I stop trying to hide it from God and allow Him to enter in and bring healing. And as I confess I’m reminded that I need to rely on God daily.
In a few moments we are going to share in the Lord’s Supper together. And I’ll ask the servers to join me up here at this time, please. What we do in this next little bit is a reminder, both of the seriousness of sin and of the depth of God’s love. It’s a reminder too that we who were once far from God have drawn near through the blood of Jesus. Therefore, as it says in Hebrews, “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:22–23, NIV84)
Let’s pray …
As the bread and the cup are being passed to you, I ask you to consider what you’ve heard from God’s word today. Test yourself to see if you are in the faith. And if you find you are not, then use this time to confess your sins to God and to repent, to turn from darkness to light, despair to hope, and from death to life. Use this time to call out to God that you may be saved!
And for those who find they are in the faith, use this time as a time of thanksgiving and gratitude towards God who has loved us so well.
…. [Bread and cups distributed.]
Father we give you thanks for what we have received in Jesus. You have given us a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone so that we may respond to You. May we be faithful in doing so in each and every day of our life that we may love you better tomorrow than we do today.
Thank you, Jesus.
Eat and drink …
Closing song ….
