1 John 1:8-22 ; 2:1-2 | Jesus our Advocate

This is City Post Church, we're about three things, build

equipped and send all under the lordship of Jesus Christ, a

small Church Plant in Fort Worth Texas, who decided to do things

a little differently. I would almost I had to Crystal,

I love City Post because of the people.

It's where I belong, we truly preach the word.

I love City Post because of the community.

We've been able to build to do ministry.

Like Jesus perlite to push back Darkness.

This is City, Post podcast. All right, so we're going to be

in the book of First, John. We're going to keep trucking

through this thing. Woo.

It's like I feel like we have to like calm down a little bit man.

I was like I gotta move. It was good man.

That's awesome man. So we're going to be in the book

of First. John going to be looking

starting in verse 8 1:8 before we dive in, let's pray together

father we love you and we thank you so much for this time

together and Lord I pray that you speak to us through your

word this morning. God.

Pray for myself. Lord that you helped me to

remember the things that I've studied father to trust the Holy

Spirit Lord and for any of these ideas not to be mine but to be

all you. So Lord, I pray that you open

our hearts and Minds to your word and that you be with us

today and your name, we pray all these things.

Amen and Lord. Please don't let the Cowboys

choke. I come on man.

Play it like you did last week, man.

Let the quarterback. Get a stomach bug.

I don't know what they're like, man.

Come on, we can do it. All right, so we're going to be

in the book of First John. We're going to dive into it.

So last week we talked about God is light and we talked about

what that means but I also want to fast forward one other week.

So the first week we looked at verses 1 through 4 and we talked

about what this book is about John is writing to the gnostics

and the gnostics. That you could separate the

spiritual from the physical. That's right.

The material and there and we looked at the implications of

that. So John immediately Begins the

argument with, you got to get Jesus, right?

You guys got your view of Jesus is all jacked up because they're

like, how can Jesus be 100% man and 100% God at the same time,

if the spiritual and the physical don't match up and

there in John is like, you guys are wrong.

And here's why Then last week, we talked about how God is

light. The implications of that and how

because God is light, because of his Holiness, he shines a light

on our sin. So if you walk with Christ, if

you claim to walk with Christ, people who walk with Christ, who

love Christ are always confessing their sin because of

his Holiness. So I mean, like, you don't

become numb to sin. You don't like you, you don't

claim to love Christ and love Jesus, but yeah, Yet live in sin

knowingly. So we are going to trip up.

We live in a sinful world but that's why we need his

forgiveness. And pretty much what John is

doing here. Is, he's sorting out the fake

Believers from the real ones and that's kind of what our culture

is doing right now. And I truly believe that's what

God's word is doing right now because there's a difference

between someone who professes Christ and someone who possesses

Christ, there's a difference between someone who's in church

and someone who's in Jesus, like we see these things and I mean,

like, let's just be honest, we Live in Texas in north Texas.

We are the belt buckle of the Bible Belt and going to church,

has become, like, a cultural thing.

People go to church for so many different reasons and what we

need to look at. We didn't make sure that it's

not about attendance. It's not about just showing up

to something, it's not about serving.

The good of the community. No, it's about surrendering your

life to King Jesus. It's about his lordship.

It's about following. Him and John is calling out

these folks. So we saw there's like to test

that John is pretty much doing to everyone right now.

Number one is the Christ test, which we saw the last couple of

weeks. So, who do you say Jesus?

Is because, if you get Jesus wrong, then you can't get right

with God. So, that's the first smart.

But then the second Mark, is the confession test.

Because there's no one in the history of Christendom that has

come into salvation without confession of sin.

You just can't sign up for it like there's got to be some

confession of sin. There's got to be some kind of

of you saying, I need a savior and John is also going to go in

and say you can't separate regeneration and sanctification.

So if you say, your heart has been regenerated by Stiff, God

changed your life. That means, from that point on,

he's going to be keep forming, you toward the image of his son.

That's what we call, sanctification, and you are

going to become Sanctified until you reach glorification, which

is Us in heaven with Christ. So there is no Ann's if there's

no division here, if you claim to know Christ, and that means

your life is becoming Sanctified, you're being modeled

into the image of God through the holy spirit.

So John is going to go through this back and forth here because

if you look at verses 6, 8 and 10, they all begin with.

If we say John throws that out there.

It's like if we say but then verses 7 and 9 The evidence,

it's the if you do. So I'm glad that you're saying

it but the proof is are you doing it?

And John's calling him out on it, he's calling them out on it

and he's calling us out on it too.

You see, you can't separate those two.

I mean, think about it. It's like if Jesus says, narrow

is the gate, you can't separate the narrow path of the gate and

the path itself. So it's like you don't enter a

narrow gate in order to go into a wide path.

That doesn't make any sense. Jesus is saying no like narrow

is the gate because Narrows the path.

That's kind of what he's calling us to and the truth is, a lot of

us believe that if you walk a now you raise a hand.

You join a church, you teach a class.

Some of us even lead worship. We get, baptized you join a

choir but yet your life is never changed.

So you could do all those things that's great.

But the, the true, it has your life and transformed by Jesus

and John even calls it out and the Book of John chapter 3,

John 3 · chapter mention

where he talks to Nicodemus, and he's like, you've got to be born

again. And he talks about all the

implications of that So, look at verse 8.

So, with that being said, let's jump in.

Look at verse 8, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive, we

deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

So in verse 8, John is immediately going to the false

teachers. Now, remember the false teachers

were saying that we are enlightened, we have the

revelation, we have the truth of God in our lives but yet we

could live anyway. We want to because the body is

not connected with the spirit and we talked about, you know,

we do that too. So he's immediately saying if we

claim so that means y'all to that we have that we are without

sin, we are playing ourselves, we are deceiving ourselves.

There's no way if someone admits of being a sinner or if you

don't admit to being a sinner there's no way salvation could

be in. You See, these guys were

floating around saying, everybody else is wrong, except

us. And John is calling them out on

their fill-in-the-blank. He's like, no, this is not the

way it works. So, let's go ahead and dive in

the verse 9. This is where I really want us

to kind of dig our heels in. Look at verse 9 and 10, if we

confess our sins, he is faithful.

And just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all

unrighteousness verse 10. If we claim we have not sinned,

we make him out to be a liar. And his word is not in US.

Whoa, so we got to go back. Look at verse 9.

Let's dissect this because man, these next couple of verses are

so powerful because John is going to be talking about how

this all works with forgiveness here if we confess our sins.

So that means that there must be a declaration of you confessing

your sin, it must be on your own terms.

You can't confess something just because you feel bad, you

confess it to a holy and righteous God because you

understand who he is and you understand who you are, like I

sinned against a holy and righteous God.

Like that there should be something in me that the Holy

Spirit would convict me of that. That's how that's a true sign of

a Believer right there. So as Christians, we are

lifelong, confession, errs. We are always confessing our

sins to God. If you fail, a hundred times,

you run back to Jesus 101 times. There's always there's something

in us that when we do sin, we feel convicted about it.

We confess it to God, but it doesn't stop there because

there's got to be something called.

Repentance. Repentance is an about-face.

Right. It's like you turn around so

there's got to be something in you.

That's like I keep failing but I'm going to do whatever it

takes not to do this anymore. That's when repentance hits.

There's got to be something in you.

When you're like, this has got to stop.

You see the word confess actually means that you cease in

the same way, God sees it. That means that you disagree

with it the same way God disagrees with it.

It's like, man, like you're bothered by your sin.

So if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just we got to

break that down too because that's big-time right here, he's

talking about. So who's faithful and just Jesus

is faithful and just what does he is?

Faithful actually mean, he is faithful says he will do exactly

what he said he's going to do no ends at no ifs, ands or buts

about it. If Jesus said, if God says he's

going to do something is going to happen, it's going to be

done. So he is faithful what Be

faithful to read the vest rest of verse 9.

To forgive us of our sins and purify and purify us from all

unrighteousness. So, Jesus is not just faithful,

he's not only going to do it because he said he's going to do

it, but he's just, that means he's Equitable.

That means like, there is no underlining.

There's no small print here is not like, I'm going to forgive

your sins, but you must sacrifice things in your life in

order to repay me. That's not how this works here.

And I'm just going to call it out.

I know a lot of us fall into that especially before Easter

hits where we decide to give something up to try to make God

a little happier with us. That's not what it says here.

Because what it says here is that he's not just faithful but

he's just And I mean, it's a good restart.

We could give up, dr. Pepper or chocolate?

Because it's going to help us. But if you think that, that is

going to, please the Lord. You're wrong and I'm sorry, but

that's not the right theology here because there's nothing

that you can do to appease God's Wrath.

Especially something like giving up candy.

So we need to make sure that we get these Traditions, right?

Because he is faithful, he was going to, he's going to do what

he says he's does. He is just, that means he's

Equitable. There is no underlying, God is

righteous to forgive our sins, and he will forgive our sins and

purify us. So there is a cleanse to this

because when we sin and we, we get in our sin, it's almost like

you feel kind of dirty about it. Like, there's like this guilt

and shame that falls on your shoulders.

And you just kind of feel like, oh, man, like I got to go into

hiding right now and what Jesus is saying is I'm not just going

to forgive your sins, but I'm going to free you of that.

You see, there is no such thing as guilt-based faith.

Our faith is not out of guilt. If you're feeling guilt and

shame, that is not coming from God, that's coming from

somewhere else because God does not operate in a guilt pushed

religion, he doesn't operate that we don't go based off of

guilt, we go based off of conviction because God is light

and he is highlighting our sin. And I know sometimes our

families guilt us into things. But the truth is, we don't

worship our families. Our families are not faithful

and just to forgive our sins Christ is So when people try to

kind of guilt you into things, you remember who's the one that

forgave my sins and purified me of all unrighteousness.

And that's what keeps me looking forward.

Like my Ricky but like, my family loves me.

I know my family loves me too, but they also understand that

there's somebody greater that I serve.

So, we've got to make sure that we do not get pushed into this

whole guilt driven Faith because that's not what the word says.

So he calls us. When we feel dirty and unclean

because of our sin, he cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

So wherever sin, abounds Grace is greater.

We are covered by his grace. He covers us and no matter what

you've done, Jesus is greater Isaiah 1:18.

Isaiah 1:18

I'm just going to go and read this just for time sake.

Isaiah 1:18 says come. Now let us settle.

Isaiah 1:18

The matter, says the Lord though your sins are like Scarlet.

They shall be white as snow though.

They are as red as Crimson. They shall be like wool.

See what Christ does is that he he doesn't just forgive us but

he cleanses us. He cleanses us of our guilt and

our shame. He covers it and I will say

this, even even if Are slow to confess Christ.

Is quick to forgive. So, your confession does not

determine how Jesus forgives us. So there might be something that

we're holding onto for years. And we're like so ashamed of it,

like my house. Jesus going to, like, forgive me

because I've been, like, just into this thing in crisis.

Like, I don't just ask for forgiveness and I'll give it to

you. It is made available to you, but

you must confess your sin. So even though you're slow to

confess Christ is quick to forgive and if you don't

remember anything else today, please know that, then verse 10.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar,

and his word is not in a. So now what John is doing, he's

he's talking to the he's addressing those fake those

false teachers, but now he's kind of Shifting the focus to

the The fake Believers, the false teachers, he calls out a

little bit but now he's going to the false believers.

And when he's calling him out on his, their view on sin.

So if you claim, you haven't sinned, and that means that you

make him out to be a liar. Now, in verse 6, he talks about

how we lie and now I'm verse 10. He's taking it up a notch and

he's saying how you're saying that God lies, man, that's big

You're brave soul. If we say we have not sinned

then then we're calling God a liar.

Now, a lot of us are like, that's right, but but hold on a

second because I want us to think about this first, what

excuses, do we come up with? For not just our sin, but also

our support of sin. Because remember, we saw that in

Romans chapter 1 even if you support it, You're in the same

Romans 1 · chapter mention

gang as those who admire it or doing it.

We might hear things like that's just my personality to my DNA.

It's a mistake. It's just how I am.

It's how I Was Made. Listen, if you don't confess to

a holy and righteous God of your sin, Then you're calling him a

big liar. And last time I checked, you

didn't create a universe. He did, he's the creator of all

things and it is unwise of us to say that God is making stuff up.

When we come up with these man-made thoughts and ideas.

That something is our DNA, who cares?

If you were born that way, you're still a sinner and it

still must be confessed. Regardless of what you think, or

what people have told you, we are all sinners.

We all must confess, our sins, his, and then he tells us he's

like you're not just call me a liar.

But his word is not in you. That's a non-believer.

So, if you go around here, like, man, not like, that's not a sin,

that means that his word is not inside of you.

There's no conviction at all. Now, I'm not saying good.

Just hate people know, that doesn't give you a license to do

that. We love everyone, but you've got

to look at yourself inwardly before we start pointing at

everybody else. What am I?

What is God shining a light in my life to point out my sins?

So for us to say that God said it but yeah, we deny it, that's

crazy, that's crazy, talk. Okay, guy moves.

So look at verse verse 1 and chapter 2.

Now John is going to shift his Focus.

So he called out the false Believers.

He looked at kind of the fake Christians that claim to be

followers of Christ but yet there's nothing in their life

that shows it But look, all verse 1 starts in Chapter 2.

My dear children, I write this to you, so that you will not

sin. But if anyone does sin, we have

an advocate with the father Jesus Christ.

The righteous one going to go ahead and read verse 2.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for

hours, but also for the sins. Of the whole world.

So why do we start? So who's John talking to now?

Understand John is pushing about 90 years old right now.

So for him, my dear children, that's kind of like a term of

endearment like mijo or like, you know, whatever your parents

call you. But he's nine, he's allowed to

call people that, but he's also talking to the brothers and

sisters of Christ. Those are the children are.

He's talking about God's children here.

So my dear children. I write this to you, so that you

will not sin, the purpose of these Epistles.

And John, does this three times throughout the book of First

John, he gives a purpose on. Why?

The purpose I'm writing you to you, this is that you will not

sin. Now with John saying you will

not send indicates that we will sin.

Right? Like he's calling you out

because that's what we do. We are sinners.

We live in a sinful world and he's trying to say, like, the

reason I'm writing you today is so that you will not send a k,

you will stop living in your sin.

Because Jesus is going to be the advocate, the righteous one

that's going to forgive us for this.

He's going to go and talk about this here so that you will not

sin and real quickly, I just want to talk a little bit about

Sin. Because there's some things that

the reason why John is calling out, he doesn't want us to sin

because he understands what sin does.

So, five quick things and I'm going to run through these, what

is it, what is it? That sin does to us the

children, number one, sin dishonors, God, and we see that

based off of the text here. We serve a holy and righteous

God. And when we choose to sin, we

are saying we're chasing our heart rather than the Holy

Spirit we're giving in to ourselves.

So, number one, it dishonors God, number two, you lose your

joy. He's talked about that, how

Christ he cleanses us. So when you're buried in guilt

and shame, it's not easy to be joyful in that moment.

So when you're in your sin, you lose your joy as well.

Number three, you forfeit spiritual power, you forfeit

spiritual power. You know, if you really want to

see the Holy Spirit, moving your life, there's going to be some

things in your life that you're going to be like like that.

That's saying I can't have, I can't be around.

Can't have that. So whenever you have this

habitual sin, whenever there's a sin in your life that you're

clinging to, don't be surprised if there's no movement.

So we forfeit spiritual Power, number four, it dulls our

ministry, we'd all our ministry. So what John is saying is like

liquid, if you claim to know God that means you walk.

As he told us to we walk in the light but if you're too busy

falling into your selfish desires, what does that?

Tell the world. Yeah, you're claiming Christ,

you're claiming Joy, you're claiming Freedom that we were

singing about but yet you're in your sin and now you're

depressed and anxious. But yet you serve a God of Peace

but your life is chaotic. You see the dualism there.

That's exactly what the gnostics were going through and then the

last one is we harm. We don't just harm our ministry,

but we harm our Witness. Because sin affects everyone

else around us, not just you. I love how selfish we are,

sometimes. Well, we think like what we do

is only going to impact us. But in all honesty sent impacts

everyone that we're connected to, we don't realize that You

know, growing up I went through a phase where I would wear

shoes. I would wear everything chanclas

with no socks. Anybody else here?

No, just me. I'm on an island by myself.

All right, great. And in the early 2000 I had

these like leather Doc Martin sandals.

Remember those. First of all, the problem was

their leather, and if they get a little bit wet and then your

feet happened to be on them over time, it smells Terrible.

But I loved it though. So so I kept doing it.

So I would wear shoes with no socks out where my chanclas with

no socks. And after a couple of weeks.

Yeah, right. Even knows, right.

And after she's like sleep, my son and I stopped that way.

I wear socks. Now, you know I changed

sanctification, right? But I remember we were taking a

car ride. We were, we were driving and I

decided to move my sandals. And the smell just permeated the

cart like slowly, it was like a stink bomb.

Went off like, umm, and I'm hit first, so I'm and I start

laughing cause I know it's coming.

Like, this is wonderful. I'm not gonna say a word to

anybody. I'm not even going to do the

silent. Like let me lower my window

low-key. Like now we're going to all

going to get it. And then all of a sudden people

like start making comments like Mario starts yelling Martinez.

So like and I can't breathe. I'm laughing so hard because I

like, oh my God. So is it the Trinity?

Like if we passed the trinity, Like is it like we had a dog

named shimmy there? Like the shimmy P?

Like what is it? But you see like that, that

stench, that smell like it in just impact me.

It impacted every single person I was around and whenever we sin

in our lives, that's exactly what it does.

That stink impacts everyone around us, and we don't realize

it for some of us. We think it's funny.

But it's not so sin doesn't just piyo guilt and shame on top of

you. It also piles selfishness on top

of us as well because we think it's all about us and that's not

Freedom at all. So, so John he's like, I write

this to you so that you won't sin because he understands the

effects of sin in our lives. Now, John's about to go and

explain a little bit of what this looks like.

So he goes and he says, but if anyone does sin, which you are,

we have an advocate With the father, Jesus Christ, the

righteous son. This is so cool.

The more you study them like wow this is awesome.

Why does John use the term advocate?

a lot of us read this here, like with the Holy Spirits are

Advocate and The word advocate here is a it's like a legal

term. It's like a term that you use in

a courtroom like a like a like like there's something going on

with law. We see the same word in John

John 16:7

16:7 so it's translated as like a helper like someone that's

going to help you to get free. So what what John is saying here

is that Jesus is our Advocate. He's like our defense attorney.

So it's almost like a courtroom here, it's like God, holy and

righteous. God is the judge, right?

He's the one that his wrath toward sin is the Judgment.

The devil is like the prosecutor.

He's the one that's always pointing.

Like look what Ricky did, look what he did. like look what you

did last week, look, so he's trying to point you to God and

then you have Jesus that I were advocate Who's kind of like our

defense now? Ricky, where do you get that

from? Because if you look through

scripture, like if you look at the Book of Job, The Book of Job

begins with Satan coming into the presence of God says, I bet

you, I get anybody to turn against you.

And then God, says, look at my servant job and then God gives

him permission do anything. He wants to, but you don't kill

them and I promise you, he will still not turn against me.

I also see this in Zechariah Chapter 3 Verse 1.

Zechariah 3:1

It says, then he showed me Joshua, the high priest standing

before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing on his right side

to what accuse him, he Satan is our accuser.

He's the one that's trying to disprove God's faith.

I mean, his faithfulness and his Justice, he's trying to say,

look, look what, look what your people are doing to you.

They're sinners. Like, what you're claiming is

wrong. Wrong.

But then Jesus standing at the right hand of the father, being

the defense attorney and then look what it look.

What it adds though. In verse 2, he says not just we

have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ, but they look what

he adds. The what the righteous one?

You got to throw that in there. Why?

Because Jesus Christ is the only one that has right standing with

the father because he's the only one that lived a perfect in It's

in this life and he's the only one that's able to take God's

Wrath do sin and satisfies and appease the father.

So, we have Christ who's like that defense attorney.

So whenever the Satan the accuser comes and he's trying to

point like, look at all this in you've done, Jesus gets in the

way and says, hold on. He belongs to me.

I got him, he's mine. And he takes it, and I just want

to say this one time, Jesus has never lost a case.

Ever and will never lose a case. Why?

Because he's the righteous one. So what the word says, So we

have this advocate in Jesus, that if you surrendered your

life to him, he steps in for us to appease God's Wrath towards

sin. So whenever we feel like I'm and

we messed up, if we don't confess, we have this Advocate

that's going to take it for us how wonderful.

It's so many times, man, we fall into this trap of thinking,

we've ejected up so bad, that there ain't no way God can

forgive us. And what Jesus is saying now, I

have to send don't fit it. Must have quit Johnnie Cochran.

Okay, he steps in and he throws that he's like, no.

Like your sin doesn't work here because I've taken it for you.

He's the, he steps in between. And then we had with verse 2.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

I love that term. He is in other translations.

It translates to he himself is the atoning sacrifice.

There's a word for that atoning sacrifice more of the accurate

translations is the propitiation.

It's a big word, I've had to practice it a lot.

So I could actually say it the propitiation of sin.

The propitiation pretty much means that he's able to satisfy

the price. God looks at him says, like, I'm

satisfied with your with the cost.

So I'll take that he himself. This is important because Jesus

doesn't need anybody else to help him.

He doesn't need anyone. He's a committee of one.

He doesn't need any guidance. He doesn't need any help.

He doesn't need help from his mom.

Just throwing that out there. He's the only righteous one.

He's the only one that is righteous enough.

For propitiation, he's the only one righteous enough to atone

the sacrifice of our sins. And not just for hours but also

for the sins of the whole entire world.

So everyone who comes to Christ everyone who gives their life to

Christ, he's able to cover them. You see, this is a kind of a

complicated thing because it is that he redeemed us This in the

present tense, it's not in the future tense that he's going to

be redeeming. No, he redeemed us at the cross,

right then and there it is done. It is finished.

It's over so because he's the righteous one because he

redeemed, us, anyone who comes to him, he's able to atone their

sin because of his sacrifice, and God looks at that payment

and says, I'm satisfied. Now, the sacrifice had to be a

death on the cross, for the wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.

Our lord that's Romans 6:23. It had to be a death, it not

Romans 6:23

just blood if Jesus was in The Garden of Gethsemane and he

starts bleeding through his pores, if it was just blood,

that would have sufficed it right there.

He bled, it would have been done but no, the wages of sin is

death. There had to be a death.

There has something had to die a life for a life.

And God looks at Christ and says, I'm satisfied with that

sacrifice right there. There's nothing else that's

needed, that's it, that's, that's appeases me.

Because that's a big deal because it is finished.

It's done. so as we close, and I'm just going to go ahead and

just as I think about this, I look at this text and I'm like,

man, like my mind is blown right now, because it's like, I've

jacked it up so many times, but yet Christ steps in and says, he

belongs to me, like, man. Ricky, like, he messed it.

No, but he's mine. So I'm going to take it.

So Jesus is our Advocate, he's faithful.

And he's just, he cleanses us of our guilt and shame and

selfishness and And he's the only one that could satisfy this

payment and knowing that he's the only one he still goes

through with it. Like there's no hustle.

Like there's no like, strings attached.

And all I have to do is surrender my life to him.

And I hear this and I think to myself, why are we still under

the control of sin? For some of us we're still under

that that that grip of sin in our lives.

How is that possible? You see, we're going to sin.

We're Sinners. That's what the Bible says.

John even says it. But Christ through his

sacrifice, says you no longer have to live as a slave to your

sin because we are more than conquerors.

There's no condemnation. That's Romans 8:1.

Romans 8:1

So he gives us his freedom to beat our sin.

He gives us this freedom to be free from it, and he gives us

this freedom to continue to walk in the light.

And I started thinking like why like why to some even myself

like why do we continue to walk unrepentant?

Why do we continue to go back to the same junk that he freed us

from and I started thinking and what came to my mind was

Taekwondo. I know.

So who when I was younger in South Florida, my parents

actually had us in Taekwondo classes for you guys.

That don't know what that is. Like, it's not like a, like a

restaurant. Taekwondo is like martial arts.

You know, like karate like like, yeah.

And I remember my, when we were kids, my dad had me and my

brother in Taekwondo. It wasn't for me.

It was like, too boring for me, but before we were going to go

to class at in Pompano we were at our friends house.

I think was like Pastor bones his house or something and me

and my brother were outside playing with her pet dog and we

were running and as I was dog, was chasing me and it was like

small, so it wasn't crazy. It like bit my He'll like it

just caught my heel. And it bugged me out.

I was like, oh my God, he's got bit by a dog.

It is like bleeding a little bit.

I'm dramatic. I think I cut my foot off and

and I'm scared because like we're about to go to karate or

Taekwondo. I don't wanna get in trouble.

We're about to go to karate, but yet my I'm bleeding, I'm cut.

So I take like some tissue paper, just hold it there.

Try to hide it and I remember like my dad sees an alien was

there as And I was like, just trying to play it off because

I'm like man if he sees that I'm bleeding and I'm hurt we're not

going to be able to go to practice.

We're going to go home and it's going to be bad and and then

also like to clean the wound, they use hydrogen peroxide, you

remember that and it just starts fizzing and like there was a

thing as a kid. You're like, it's gonna sting so

bad. So I didn't want to use that as

well. That all these like these

thoughts going through my mind on, why?

I don't want to I show like the bite that the cut I have.

And of course, I fought it. They were like we got to get

that clean. So they held me down and I'm

like fighting and I'm like using my Taekwondo.

I do not like they're holding me down and my dad, he takes it, he

cleans it, he wipes off the blood, he puts the hydrogen

peroxide on it. He puts a bandaid on it and I'm

like, you know you know and then you're like that didn't even

hurt. Like, what am I tripping?

Like that makes no sense. It is.

I'm thinking about this. I'm like, I think for many of us

We don't like to go through pain.

We don't like to go through like not just physical but like a

painful thought like something that pains us. and I felt like

the holy spirit said, you know, Ricky like the pain is not in

the healing, the pain is in the revealing The hard part was not

fixing my bite. The hard part was showing my

dad. Ripping it open saying, look,

what happened to me. That's the hard part because I

think cleaning it's going to hurt.

I think putting the hydrogen peroxide is really going to hurt

like I started thinking about this.

I was like man that's the hardest.

Part is like we don't want to reveal our sin because we're

scared of what dad's going to say.

We think that he's going to take us out, he think that he's not

going to let us keep going, you're not put like three

things. I was like, you know why, we

don't want to reveal our wound or our sin Because we know

what's actually there and it's one of those things like if I

ignore it it'll go away type situation.

I don't we do that. We ignore it or we're scared to

see what we're going to find. I don't want to look at it

because it's going to freak me out if I see it.

We're number three. We're scared of what dad's going

to say? And I'm just thinking like, God

is like man, I am an advocate for you.

I want to heal you. I want to fix you.

But you got to get through the hard part.

The hard part is exposing your sin?

Yeah. But if we confess our sin to

him, He is faithful. And he is just not just to

forgive us, but to purify us of all unrighteousness.

So that way, we could live a life without guilt and shame and

selfishness. And we could be free.

It's a beautiful thing. But you got to get through the

pain of revealing it. You got to reveal it.

Well, Ricky like I if I revealed it what are what are people

going to say? What if what if I can't do this?

Like how do I fight? And I'm like, listen it.

That's why you have a church family.

So that way, they're there with you.

When you rip that sucker off and you're in, you're terrified and

like now I'm be there with you. So that way you're not going

through this alone. Love this.

So Ricky, how do we fight this then?

Like okay how do I fight this sin that I can't seem to get

away from. Yeah, he's just he's he's

faithful. He's gonna hook.

He's going to help me out. Well, I think of ice skating.

Out of all things yesterday, I took Livy and Elena to go ice

skating, me and Rachel like, we had to some as a family, and I

was like, all right. Cool.

Let's go ice skating. That's that's random but let's

go. Now, Elena is more methodical in

light ice skating. She wants to learn to dancing

and she slower Livi. Is YOLO.

She had ice skate song. As soon as she stepped on a

night. She thought she could be a

sprinter. She's like, well, I'm like a

broken arm. Here we go.

Concussion. Yeah.

But Levi thinks she could ice skate.

Really good. You know why?

Because she was holding her dad's hands the whole time.

So the whole time I am grabbing her hands and she's like,

Trucking it. She's like whoa!

She's like doing jumps. She thinks she's a figure

skater. She's confident because she

knows who's holding her, you see.

So how do I fight sin? You go to Christ with a reckless

abandonment, Faith like a child. You grab on.

You don't overthink it and you say, god, let's go.

The more that you rely on Christ.

The more that your confidence is in Christ, the more that your

faith is in Christ, the more that you trust him, the less

you're going to fall, you got to believe it, you got to trust

him. And when you do fall, he is,

he's more than faithful to step in and forgive us.

But you got to confess it, you got to trust him.

In the way you fight, it is that you grab on with Reckless,

abandonment. And you just say, let's go.

Just let him hold you, you're going to be surprised how fast

and smooth your life goes. Well, pray for us father, we

love you and we thank you so much.

God, we thank you for being the advocate.

Father, we thank you for taking it for a sky Lord we're so

grateful. That regardless of our sin,

regardless of them, how much time we fail?

You You are faithful and you continue to forgive us.

Father Lord, you are the holy and the righteous one.

You are the only one that could take sin and Lord we worship you

for that. So Lord, if there's anyone in

this room God that is that is fighting this.

This guilt and is fighting the shame is fighting this.

Just like mad. I feel dirty right now.

Lord, that is not from you. And in the name of Jesus I pray

that the Holy Spirit convict so that way we could confess.

And that way, we could be healed.

So Jesus, we love you and we praise you for what you're

doing? You made me probably stinks.

Amen. And that way, we could be

healed. So Jesus, we love you and we

praise you for what you're doing?

You made me probably stinks. Amen.