Assurance Grows as You Walk in the Light | 1 John 1:5-10

Rod Gomez: 2018, KFC ran outta chicken.

Seriously, I, I don't know how a chicken company runs outta chicken, but they did.

And so they closed down within two days.

They closed down, uh, nearly 300 of their stores.

Out of the 900 that they had open.

They still had everything they needed.

They had all the staff, they had all the stores, but they didn't have the

one ingredient they needed to make the thing profitable to make it fruitful.

You might say they didn't have the chicken and they took out an ad

and they wrote a chicken restaurant without any chicken is not ideal

to, that's true.

Uh, slightly understated, which is what made it funny.

Uh, but a Christian without fruit is not ideal to say the least.

And this morning what we're gonna look at is one of the reasons that we may

not have assurance, but we're gonna look at three ingredients, if you will,

that are critical to your walk with God.

Three things that we need to look at together that are often overlooked.

Now, they may not be as obvious to you as a chicken at a chicken restaurant,

but these are three obvious things.

They're so obvious that John.

The apostle starts off with these things.

In fact, what he's gonna say is going to really help us to think

through the rest of the letter.

You'll remember the, the, the Apostle John is the one who writes this letter.

It's likely and encyclical, but primarily focused to the church at Ephesus.

His pastoral love and care for this community is what warrants the letter.

He's concerned because a group of people have recently left the church,

a large contingency of secessionists.

Have departed from this church and now left them vulnerable.

They're shaken, they're concerned.

What's next?

What is this faith thing about?

These guys are, are stagnating and they're reeling.

And so John, because he loves these people, writes this letter

to give them anchor and assurance and hope about their faith.

These three simple ingredients that we're gonna look at, uh, two

of them I'm willing to bet you're probably doing pretty good on.

But there's one that I read and I thought, I don't know that

a lot of us do this very well.

I can't think of very many men who are putting this ingredient into regular

practice into their lives without a great deal of intentionality and effort.

We'll get to that one very soon.

But these same three ingredients that we're gonna look at, uh,

some of these, because they're not put into practice, are the very

reasons that men leave the church.

In fact, they read a post recently of a man who left the church because of

the reasons that we're going to read.

It's the reasons that often people become disenchanted with the church.

Uh, people leave the church because, oh, they're just a bunch of hypocrites and

no one's real, and everyone's putting on a show and they glad hand each

other on Sunday and maybe on Wednesday 'cause of their midweek service.

But during the rest of the week, these guys are just disconnected.

They don't, they don't share, honestly, they're not truly loving one another.

And some of those charges can land.

Some of them may have the ring of authenticity.

These three ingredients speak to those needs.

These three ingredients also speak to the needs of a lot of men's stagnancy.

For some men, it's because of the lack of these things that we find ourselves either

slowing or not growing in our faith.

And for some even reversing course where it's no longer, I'm making progress.

I feel like I'm regressing in my faith.

And finally, this is one of the reasons.

Among the many that John will offer for why men don't have

assurance of their salvation.

And when I say assurance, as I mentioned in one of my prior emails

this week, what I'm talking about is that sense that you know that you know,

if God were to take your life today, that you are confident I will stand

before Jesus and be fully accepted.

The Lord will receive me not on the basis of my works, but on his.

And that kind of assurance and confidence is something that the

Apostle John wants you to have.

Lemme remind you of one John, chapter five, verse 13.

He says, I write these things to you who believe in the name

of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

John's letter has caused many Christian men to shake in their boots with

fear that they're not believers.

Because he offers three tests for your faith and he repeats

them over and over again.

The letter is cyclical in nature, and yet John's intention is not to

scare you and to discourage you from your faith, but rather to to embolden

it, to edify it, to strengthen it.

But the reality is he has to walk you through some of these tests in order

for you to get that sense of assurance.

And so these three ingredients that we're gonna look at from First

John chapter five, verses five through 10 are, are basic and yet

critical to our sense of assurance.

The blessing of assurance that God wants to give us.

First John chapter one verses five through 10.

Lemme just briefly remind you verses one through five rather one through four.

John opens a letter to testify to all of us.

This is John, the son of Zedi, to tell us.

To establish his credibility as an eyewitness of Jesus.

He tells him that he's writing so that we can have fellowship

and that we can have joy.

And the Jesus that he talks about is the one that he saw, the one he heard,

the one he felt, the one he touched, the one that he was able to testify to.

And so we talked about this last month.

The foundation of our assurance is.

Jesus, the Biblical Christ, not the one who's the, uh, the brother of the

Archangel Michael, not the one who was merely a man and died in our place

as an example and not a substitute.

We're talking about the biblical Christ.

John starts us all there.

This is the level ground for all who are Christians, and

that's verses one through four.

And now he begins to establish his argument.

Take a look at chapter one verse five.

In fact, I'll read, I'll read five through 10 just so you get the feel of it.

We're gonna camp on verse five for our first point, but

let's read through this here.

John says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed

to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

Now, if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness,

we lie and do not practice the truth.

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, cleanses us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Praise God for that.

If we say, we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

This section, John establishes one argument and then five conditionals.

He says, here's my argument, verse five.

In fact, we'll look at that together.

Here's my argument in verse five.

And then beneath that singular arguments, he does, he does five conditionals.

If this, if this, if this, if this, if this.

Those five if then statements are meant to follow from the main argument.

We'll get to that in a second, but let's just start with this argument

so we know where he's going here.

This, I think, governs the rest of the letter, and so it's critical that

we understand what he's saying here.

He says this is the message.

Remember he was leading up to this in the last four verses, but he

says, this is the message that we heard from him and proclaimed to you.

Now what is the message?

John God is light.

He asserts it positively and then.

He says in him, there is no darkness.

And then there's a double negation.

No darkness at all.

No darkness, not even a little bit.

God is light.

He's perfectly light.

And that's not to say that God is photons.

You understand he's making a theological case here about the, uh,

about the nature of God's character.

This makes perfect sense.

If we just spend a few moments thinking about it.

If you are going to assure a Christian.

About his standing with God.

You first have to be sure he understands who that God is.

In fact, as we talk about sharing the gospel with other men, uh, sometimes

people jump right into the, the data Jesus lived in your place, died for your

sin, he rose again, and if you put your trust in him, you'll be right with God.

And that's not necessarily wrong.

It's a, that's a, that's a great encapsulation of the gospel.

However, when you say God sends his son.

And you fill in the word God with all the meaning.

People think about what are they bringing to the table?

Just think about all your different kinds of neighbors, the people you

work with, the students that you teach, your kids, what do they think

about when they think about God?

Well, all sorts of things.

Everybody has kind of a cafeteria mentality about who God is, and

if you were to ask somebody, well, what do you think?

What do you think about God?

They're gonna say, well, I think God is, and I believe that God be.

God would also, and I think that my God would also do this, this and this.

John starts here with God as he's preparing to assure his congregation

of believing men and women.

He says, think about God.

God is light.

God is light.

And in him there's no darkness.

Not even a little bit.

It now, what does the light re represent then, if we're trying to

def, define and describe God lights represents, especially in the gospel

that John, but also in his letter, John thinks about life in dualistic ways,

light and darkness, life and death.

Here light is meant to reflect God's perfectly good, holy,

and life-giving nature.

He is perfectly good.

Which means there's nothing evil in God.

There's not a spot in which you might say, oh God, you're wrong

here, or God, you're mistaken there.

Everything about God is righteous, true and holy.

He is the truth.

John says, and and John 14, right?

He's the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father, except through him.

And so when we talk about God being light, we're saying that God is

the preeminent, he is the perfect.

He is established and his, his righteousness establishes everyone else's.

Who he is tells us who we are.

And in fact, if we understand who God is, that will honestly put most

of us in our place pretty quickly.

It's the same reason why in Isaiah chapter six, when God reveals His glory,

you remember what happens here, right?

God reveals his glory to Isaiah, and Isaiah says, super cool.

I love that, right?

Comical, because that's exactly the opposite of what happened.

He pronounces a curse on himself.

Woe is me.

I am undone.

I'm a man of unclean lips.

My eyes have seen the king of glory.

When Isaiah encounters God, he pronounce his cursings on himself.

Now, John's not trying to get you to curse yourself.

He is trying to get you to understand though that God that you serve is light.

He is perfectly good, holy life giving his glory, his nce of glory has no end.

And the glory that emanates from his being is bright, shining, perfect.

It also means that he, again, possesses no trace of evil.

Uh, when John says God is light and in him is no darkness at all, he's trying

to do two negatives on top of each other.

There's no darkness, none at all.

It's like saying, uh, it is like if you take a, take a number and

multiply it by an exponent, uh, you're multiplying it over and over again.

You're trying to say super, not any darkness.

If John is reaching for language to say the God that you love and serve

is perfectly good, no evil whatsoever.

He's righteous in all his ways.

As James will say in James chapter one, there's no shadow due to turning or change

because God is perfect and complete.

There's nothing for God to gain.

There's not a time where he, he needs to grow up and become more like us.

As somebody once said long ago, has it ever occurred to you that

nothing has ever occurred to God?

His knowledge is perfect and complete, and that knowledge is perfectly good.

He possesses no evil, darkness or sin.

No one can ever accuse God of wrongdoing.

He is good.

He's holy, and he is perfectly holy, which all of this then is going somewhere.

John is now just trying to give us a theology lesson.

He's actually trying to make the point here that we all need to

start with God is the standard.

He himself is our standard.

Now that's critical because that means who God is in His character.

His character, and in his perfection defines the moral

standard of every human life.

Everything God says and does is by definition, good and holy.

And I'm not saying the opposite.

I'm not saying God does what is good.

What God does is good.

You see the difference?

When I say God does what is good, I'm saying God fits under the category of

some idea of goodness that we agree to.

I'm not saying that what I am saying is whatever God does is

good by his nature and being.

So for instance, in Luke 15 where the tower fell on all those

people, the tower side alone fell.

What God did was good.

What God did is good.

Now, I don't know the inscrutable purposes of God.

There is such a thing as a dual nature.

There's dual intents.

Man intends one thing, God intends another.

That's Genesis chapter 50.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

What God, what you meant for evil.

God meant for good, but God always intends what is good and God does what is good.

Therefore, what God is and and says and does is by definition the

standard of goodness, his character, his word, he defines goodness.

This is critical.

This is the starting place, and I trust that when you track with what John is

doing here, you'll understand why this is so essential to our assurance, our

knowledge of being right with God.

It starts with saying, this is who God is.

He's perfect, he's righteous, he's good, and that matters.

Why?

Because Ephesians chapter five, verse one says, we're to be imitators of God,

which means we are to match his goodness.

This is why Tozer once said.

If you've read his famous book, the Knowledge of the Holy, he says, what

comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

I would say heartily.

Amen.

I think John would say that too, which is why again, he begins here.

He says, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim

to you that God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all.

I think in part because John is concerned that one of our temptations,

when we seek assurance from God.

We fall into one of two ditches, and the one ditch I'm gonna help

you avoid this morning is the ditch of bringing God down to our level.

One of the ways that we can seek assurance for our salvation

is by making God human size.

Now I'm talking about Jesus in the incarnation.

I'm saying taking his righteousness and putting it down at manageable levels,

making it more accommodating, making it more malleable to my life and my needs.

And I don't think John wants us to have any of anything to do with that, and

neither should we point number one.

Then let's establish this ground, this foundation we're to preserve the

biblical standard of righteousness.

Preserve it.

I chose that word in other, in other words, to indicate protection.

I want you to guard this truth.

I don't want you to give ground on making God something less than perfect,

righteous holy, where no darkness exists.

Even though initially what this is going to do is make you feel bad.

If you're a tender conscience and you love the Lord and you're trying to

walk as a Godly man, knowing that he is perfectly good and in him, there's no

flaw is going to make you by comparison, feel unworthy and we'll get to that.

But the challenge for us is not to bring God down.

If you're ever part of an orchestra or a worship team, one of the

things that you do first before you start playing is you tune up.

Everybody's supposed to do.

Anyone who has an instrument has to tune their instrument

to make sure that everybody's playing with the same standard.

Now, it's possible that if I am playing with David, uh, PO and I'm playing

with, uh, with Craig, I say, Hey guys, let's, let's just all tune to each

other and we all tune our E and our A.

We're all, we're all playing the same thing.

We play together.

We might sound okay because we're all tuning to one another, but the second

you bring out the external standard.

And you start playing according to something that's already

pret tuned, like a keyboard.

If I have someone play a keyboard with us, and we're, the three of

us are tuned together, but the keyboard's playing according to,

uh, bit, uh, a, uh, above middle C.

Now we sound discordance.

We're outta tune with one another because one of us is playing

according to this standard.

And three of us are pla are playing according to our standard.

And that's the same temptation of what happens in a church.

We can start looking at each other and say, well, according to how

I'm doing with this guy or that guy, I'm actually not doing so bad.

But God doesn't want us to compare ourselves to the standard that others set.

He wants us to have our standard compared to his.

But how often do we need to retune then?

Well, I mean, as often as you play, I guess your Christian life is being

played out every day, and the standard that you have to tune to is God.

God is light, and in him there's no darkness.

God is light, has has to be the standard that we build our lives upon.

It has to be the way that we view God.

Uh, it has to be the way that we view ourselves in light of who God

is, which again, if you're doing it right, will cause you to say, oh

man, I don't, I don't measure up.

Exactly, precisely.

Don't lower the standard of righteousness that God sets.

Even though it'll make you feel bad, I need you to retune

yourselves to his standard.

If we do this, this guards us against two major errors as we pursue assurance.

And the first error that you might pursue is legalism.

You might think if you lower the standard of God to fit your,

your reality, you might think to yourself, I'm fulfilling the law.

I'm doing it.

I'm walking in holiness.

I read my Bible every day.

I pray pretty regularly.

I go to church every Sunday.

I'm, I'm doing it.

I, I, I made it.

And those other schmucks who aren't doing it, you guys just need to be more like me.

I don't know why you can't get your act together.

You see what happened there?

He started judging himself against a different standard.

He started giving himself measurements of, well, I can do that, I can do that,

I can do that, and if I check the box and surely I'm fulfilling the law of

God, that kind of legalistic arrogance can sprout up in any man's heart.

If we take God and remove him from God is light in him?

Those no, no darkness to well God's okay with a little bit of,

you know, I'm progressive in my holiness, I'm making progress.

No, I gotta keep the standard up here.

And if I keep the standard up here where God is, God is light

him, there's no darkness, well then I'm not gonna excuse myself.

Well, I'm sitting even a little bit.

I'm not gonna look down at Brother Jim or Brother Bob because they

don't do it the way I do it.

They send different ways than I do.

Legalism is one thing I want to guard you against.

And of course, pride is the other.

Measured against God.

You'll never think you've arrived.

You'll never, you'll never be tempted to think of yourself

more highly than you ought.

If God is your standard, if Pastor Bob is your standard, or you know, brother

Jim is your standard, you might be tempted to think I'm doing pretty good.

I, I'm nailing it.

I am fulfilling all the Lord's commands, all of us like skunks or

among skunks, and we still stink.

Some of us stink less than others.

I'll grant that, but we all still stink, especially.

As we compare ourselves to the standard of God himself, JC Ri in his book on

Holiness, which I would commend to you says, the more light we have, the more we

see our own sinfulness, the more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness.

If you're growing in holiness, you will not think of yourself as crushing it.

You'll see yourself in light of the holiness of God and always be able to

say, I have, I'm nowhere yet arrived.

Lord, be merciful to me as sinner pounding your chest.

How does this help us gain assurance?

While it doesn't initially, it just ensures that the standard that we have

is the standard and it stays there.

This is the message we have heard from him.

Proclaimed to you, God is light, and in him there's no darkness at all.

The next two points that we're gonna look at really do help

us get in the right direction.

So ingredient number one in our chicken recipe has got to be who

is God and the, the, the standard of God being light in him.

There's no darkness is going to qualify.

Everything else we think about, he's the standard.

Okay, that's ingredient number one.

Let's continue reading in verses six and seven.

If we say we have fellowship with him.

While we walk in darkness, we lie and we do not practice the truth.

Notice there he says the word practice for John theology is not a knowledge quest.

It's a practice quest.

It's Ortho John's conception of truth is not that you have a good

systematic theology at your fingertips that you know a lot of theology.

And for a lot of us, we will sometimes confuse and conflate

maturity with knowledge.

John's word here is, is not the same thing.

You might have an MDiv behind your name.

You might have some seminary education, but John is saying, look,

if you say you have fellowship with him while you walk in darkness, you

lie, and you'll practice the truth.

Verse seven.

But if we walk in the light, remember, because God is light, as he is

in the light, we have fellowship.

Notice this, it's not with God.

We have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin.

Oh, what a rich section here.

Well, let me show you what John is doing.

I told you that there's one argument John has, God is light in him.

There's no darkness followed up by five conditional statements.

The first two pairs of conditional statements work as contrasting pairs.

So if we do this, but if we do that, if we do this, but if we do that, so the

first two are verses six and seven, the contrast should be pretty clear to see.

But let me start with verse six.

If we say we have fellowship with him.

So this is the claim probably of that secessionist group.

The, the, the group of people that left this church.

If we say that we have fellowship with God, that is my, my lips

testified to a relationship with him, but I walk in darkness.

The word walk is a common one in the, in the New Testament as the word peripateo.

That's usually the word underneath it.

And what it means is travel to, to move in a certain place.

It actually does refer to walking.

It's a, it's a way of life.

A pattern, a path that you follow.

So if we say one thing, but we do and we live another, John says, well, we

lie and we do not practice the truth.

The word practice and walking give you a sense of what John's trying to do here.

He's marrying the idea of the common pattern of your life.

If we say we are this, but we live and do that, we're not practicing

what we preach as some would say.

Verse seven, I slightly rearranged for you just so that you can

see how it works together.

Verse seven.

But if we walk, if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

Now remember here on verse six, it's fellowship with him.

Verse seven is fellowship with one another, which tells us

something about the way John understands our Christian life.

We talked about this last month.

I would encourage you to listen to that sermon if you weren't here

for that, but fellowship with God.

Is intimately and inextricably connected to fellowship with the body of Christ

and John's mind, I could say fellowship with him, means fellowship with them.

To have fellowship with God is to have fellowship with the people of God.

To not have fellowship with the people of God is not to have

fellowship with God, no matter how much you might say the opposite.

This is one reason why Christians are meant to be in a local body together.

If we try to do church by ourselves in our home with just our computer screen

or just a, you know, just my, me, myself, and my wife, and my kids, the tendency

for most of us is just to get weird.

Like we just go off the rails.

We need the body of Christ, and we need as many of the body of Christ in our

lives and in our business as possible.

This is how God sharpens and sharpens us.

If you want to grow in maturity, you need to put yourself around other

godly men who are not like you.

Who will challenge you, who will love you enough to say, you

know, I don't think that's the way that that should be working.

If we have Fellowship with God, fellowship with one another, those two

things are inextricably con, connected.

And I just, I wanna point it to you.

I, I see that in verses six and seven.

And of course, uh, if we walk in the light, that is the, the contrast,

uh, light and darkness part, pardon this very silly thought.

But light and darkness are mutually exclusive.

Right.

In absolute terms, you could say, well, there's shadows, and if there's multiple

lights in the room, you got shadows here.

You could see that's not exactly true, but light and darkness are mutually

exclusive, uh, for God's light to exist in your life that will eradicate darkness.

But if there's darkness in your life, the darkness consumes a light.

The darkness can put out the light, if you will.

We know that's not true.

Biblically speaking theologically, John says, if there's light in your life,

the light will overcome the darkness.

But there is a kind of person who walks in the dark that John is saying,

oh, that's the way that you live.

Then you're, you're not walking in consistency.

And then he says, look, if you're walking in this way, you have

fellowship with one another.

The consequence of your light walking is you have fellowship

and I know you're forgiven.

There's fellowship and forgiveness for those who are walking in the light.

Now, John's not saying one.

Is the other.

That is, if you're walking in the light, well then you're forgiven.

If you're walking in the light, well then you have fellowship.

He's not trying to say that if you walk in the light that you somehow earn the

fellowship or you earn forgiveness.

He's just saying, if this is happening, that these are, these are,

I know coming along for the ride.

If the engine of your Christian life is faith in Jesus Christ walking in

the light, then I can be confident.

The sidecar caboose are going to be fellowship and forgiveness.

I know that's coming into, if you're walking in the light.

Christians live consistently.

At least that's the idea here.

You walk in the light as he's in the light,

and I know what you're thinking.

At least I think I know what you're thinking.

You, you're gonna start wondering about, okay, how much

light walking, how consistent.

We'll get to that.

We'll get to that.

But, but let me just make this point here.

Uh, walking in the light results in, or, or, uh, reveals our fellowship and

affirms the status of our salvation.

We're cleansed from all sin.

And so what I want you to see here, I think what John is doing for you, he's

setting you up for the first test.

Remember, there's three tests in the, in the epistle.

The first John.

The three tests that John's gonna hit are gonna be hit th several

times over throughout the letter.

The first test he's going to look at is the test of your obedience.

And that's the first test.

And as you read first, John, if you did, if you read it before you came here,

like I suggested you do, you'll find that John hits that test multiple times over.

So we're gonna, for the first time, look at this point.

Number two, I want you to evaluate the integrity of your obedience.

And I think that's where John's going.

His pastoral heart is concerned that your obedience, that your walk with

the Lord is consistent, not perfect.

Save those, save those responses for, for, for the next section here for 0.3.

Se several weeks ago, maybe months at this point, I, I started noticing

because of our hot summer that the, my foundation and my grass were,

were pulling apart from each other.

How?

And so I started saying, oh, what do I do with this?

This looks like a bad thing.

I, I realized you're supposed to water your foundation in Texas.

I don't know about this in California, I never even had a

lawn to own, so I just didn't care.

Now I walk around my house and I look at my foundation, and now I'm

also that guy who in the evening, I'm watering my foundation.

I'm doing that.

I have the, I have the, the sprinkler system, I guess does some of it.

So I, I do most of it.

I water my foundation.

And my goal, of course is to keep the, the clay soil, uh, moist enough so that

it doesn't shift, because that shifting is what's gonna break your foundation, right?

You don't want your foundation to crumble.

So I've been doing that, but what hap what had to happen first is that

I had to go and observe the house.

I walked around, I started looking at things, and I see weeds and I

say, oh, look at my foundation.

I see things pulling away.

That evaluation is what gave me the ability to say, I need

to have an action plan, unless.

I'm okay with my foundation being uneven and consequently having

to pay some, some major cost.

I need you to look at the foundation of your life to walk around it.

I need you to observe and take a look.

Take careful stock of how things are going.

There is such a thing as being too introspective and

I, I'll warn you against that.

If, if you're looking at yourself too much, you're gonna get discouraged

and you're gonna quit the faith.

It.

I'm not trying to say they should do that, but I am saying there

should be at least some measure of your life where you're saying, I

wanna take a look at how I'm doing.

I wanna evaluate the integrity of my obedience.

I wanna see if my, my foundation is intact, or if there's any

threats to my foundation.

Are there any things in my life that are, that are threatening to undo me?

I think this is part of what John's doing here.

So lemme give you just two diagnostic questions from John's.

Polarizing idea here, darkness and light.

Just two simple questions that I just want you to write down for

you to take to the Lord later on.

Question number one really is, am I too tolerant of my sin?

And this comes from John's idea of walking and practicing.

It's a characteristic lifestyle.

Remember, he says here, if, if we say we have fellowship while we walk in darkness,

we lie and do not practice the truth.

I need you to look at your life and, and just observe.

What is the normal walk in practice of my life?

What's the characteristic lifestyle of how I'm doing?

Am I consistent in my obedience to God?

One of the dangers is that we know if you've been in faith for any

degree of time, you know, first John, one night we're gonna get to it.

And so in your mind you say, okay, if I repent of my sin, I confess it, great.

But there is such a thing as repentance that never changes

direction in someone's life.

And that would be my concern.

A a lot of people can say, I, I Lord, I, I'm, I'm sinning.

Will you please forgive me for losing my temper with my family?

Or whatever it is.

But if that's all that it is, stands to reason, whether it's actual

confession, is that real repentance or am I just providing coverage for

my soul so that I don't feel guilty?

I am not saying you have to be perfect and neither is John, but I am saying

what is the tenor and tone of your life?

Is it consistent with the profession of faith that you've made,

which underscores the need for men in your life who know you?

I mean, John, we made the point last month, but let me just quickly

remind you how critical it is to have someone hold the mirror to you and

say, here's how you're doing, brother.

You need people in your life who can see you truly and clearly.

You can't do it by yourself.

You'll look in the mirror and you'll only see one part of your body.

You don't see the back of your head, you don't see, you know,

the piece of toilet paper hanging outta the back of your trousers.

You need men who have your six.

You need people who know you enough to be able to say, look, you're, you're,

you're blowing it here, and I love you enough to tell you that you've

been really harsh with your wife.

You've been showing up late to church, what's going on?

Or, you know, we don't see you at small groups anymore.

What?

Where have you been?

What are you doing?

And not because they're trying to harass you or shame you or make you feel bad,

but you need people who love you enough to come into your life to help you

see, am I being too tallant of my sin?

Am I just giving myself over to it?

John says, if we say we have fellowship, but walk in darkness,

we lie to not practice the truth.

I mean, you gotta have people in your life, your closest family members.

They, they see it.

They know if you're bold enough.

Ask your kids, does daddy live what he says?

Do you think, dad?

I mean, you can't ask little kids, but you could.

I mean, ask your wife, sweetheart.

How am I doing?

Does my profession match my life?

Where do you see inconsistencies?

'cause they're, they're there.

They see it.

Do you see it?

Am I being too tolerant of my sin?

That's a question we all need to ask ourselves regularly.

God hates our sin because God is light and in him there's no darkness at all, fellas,

which means any bit of sin in our lives.

We need to feel as saying, okay, wait, I didn't gotta get rid of that.

Have you ever noticed, as you get older in your faith, you're never

aware of all your sin, but you're aware of a few critical categories.

Isn't that so kind of God?

He doesn't flood you with, here's all of your sin.

You're such a loser sinner.

What's wrong with you?

Get your act together.

He gives you a few areas where he puts, he puts something on your

chest to say, this is an area I need you to pay close attention to.

Like a father talking to his son.

He says, son, I need you to, I need you to give attention to this.

This is important.

Please give attention to this area of your life.

You need to pay attention to that voice.

That's the father working three, that's that's the Lord telling you.

That's the area to give attention to.

Am I too tolerant of my sin?

Number two, am I growing in grace?

This is the opposite of that.

Am I too tolerant to sin and am I making progress in my love and faith and

obedience in the Lord, growing in grace?

Peter says this in second Peter, chapter three, but grow in the grace and knowledge

of our Lord Jesus Christ grow in that.

That doesn't happen by magic.

It doesn't happen by osmosis.

It doesn't happen if you attend really great sermons.

It happens by a willing obedience done in faith in Christ.

Obedience is not not a prerequisite for salvation.

Good works are not a prerequisite for salvation.

Hear me closely though They are a post requisite.

In Christ, fruit is expected in Christ.

After sins are forgiven, good works are planned for you.

Ephesians two 12 In Christ, the Lord expects a return on his investment in you.

The spirit of God gifted to you, the son of God dying for you.

He expects a return on his investment.

You see Christians gain assurance by walking in the lights.

John clarifies for us what that means.

Part of it is walking in the light by obey God's commands.

But this next part, this is the third ingredient, and this is the one that

I'm like, oh the, the guys need this.

We need this.

The Lord, thank you for putting this on our plate.

'cause the Lord knows we need this.

We're walking in the lights from the darkness.

We need to have people who know us enough to help us with this.

How consistent do I have to be?

How obedience, how much disobedience should I tolerate before I

say I'm, I'm not a Christian.

Clearly I'm not.

Otherwise, I would be doing more.

This next section is what clarifies and consoles every anxious heart.

Take a look with the at verses seven through 10,

I saved the last part of verse seven for this section, so

bear with me in verse seven.

Let's finish it off.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the lights.

We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus,

his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Does that make your heart palpitate at all?

That is, that is exciting.

The blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

Verse eight.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful.

He's just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us.

There's the word cleanse again.

Cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, at least by implication.

Right?

The Lord sent his son Jesus to die for our sins.

And so if we say we have no sin, oh Lord, thank you.

I, I don't need it though.

I'm doing quite all right.

If we say we've not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Another way to say his truth is not in us.

And again, I have another chart for you.

What we have here is a next pair of contrasting conditions.

So verse eight, if we say verses uh, verse nine.

If we confess verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive

ourselves, the truth is not in us.

Alright, so this is again, our, the, the, our mouth profession.

We have no sin, we, we deceive ourselves.

Verse nine.

Then if we confess our sins, there we go again.

We're owning it.

We're acknowledging it.

We're saying, yes, I agree with the Lord on these things.

God is faithful.

And just those two words are so precious, guys faithful and just

he's faithful to his covenant.

He made a promise to forgive your sins through Christ, but he's

also just in letting go your sins.

Not to just look the other way, like an unjust judge,

but as the just judge to say.

Your sin has been fully dealt with in Christ.

The the judgment has been paid, your debt has been, has been resolved.

Jesus has fulfilled it all.

So when you go to Jesus, your confession and the quality of what

you say to God is not the point.

It is Jesus on the cross.

It is his death on the cross that secures your salvation and

your your perpetual forgiveness.

And when we do that.

He forgives us and cleanses us.

You'll notice the word cleanse is in both verse seven, the blood of Jesus.

His son cleanses us.

We have it here as well in verse nine.

He cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

We now see the vehicle or the medium by which the Lord applies, that cleansing.

Um, you, you, you're probably saying the song as a young one.

Uh, how precious is the flow?

Um, how precious is the, that makes me white ass.

No, no other.

Yeah, that song,

it's the cleansing blood of Christ.

There's nothing magical about the actual fluid.

It's the atonement of Jesus on the cross that's being referred to here.

He forgives us.

He cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

Just think about that word there, all How much of your unrighteousness, fellas?

All, all of it.

Thank you, all of it.

If we confess, if we confess, verse nine is critical.

One of the most important pieces of walking in the light

is confessing our darkness.

I think this is the linchpin to understanding this section, right?

'cause the temptation is that you think walking in the light means

I just gotta get my act together.

I gotta do better.

I should sin less.

And I should do righteousness more.

And that's, that's, that's true.

But John acknowledges and even agrees with us, look, what about

the Christians who perpetually sin?

What about Christians that fall and stumble in a sin?

He's saying, great.

I have a solution for you confess if you confess your sins.

He's faithful and he's just to forgive us of our sins.

Which means here that by definition a Christian is one who lives

by the truth, that Jesus died to cleanse us from all sin.

I still have sin.

You still have sin.

You're not gonna do this the way that you should.

You're not gonna make it.

So the first test of obedience is not only am I walking in the light to the

extent that I have the ability, but am I confessing the darkness that is clutch.

Anyone here can say, I, I, I put my faith in Jesus.

A lot of us do that pretty regularly and pretty, I think, I think ingredients

one and two, you're probably okay.

God is light in him.

There's no darkness and we walk in the light.

That means that we're not walking with duplicity.

I'm trying to walk with integrity.

But the third one, confession.

This is the one I want to spend some time on here.

'cause what John is explaining for us is, is really helpful,

uh, is really helpful to us.

And in fact, when you go to the mall, when I first came to Stonebriar.

Mall was so large, I didn't know where I was.

Uh, so I went to the thing that everyone does.

You go to that big old display, you see, you look for the, you are here.

Um, and then I looked at where I was and where I wanted to be.

See his candies over there, first floor, next to the builder bear.

Perfect.

I know how to get there.

Dark pecan buds.

So delicious.

Confession is your way of saying you.

I, I am here.

In fact, the word confess means to, to say the same thing, the the word hamma,

leg hamma or ho homo, the word homo, you know, because of it's pop culture usage.

Homo, same leg to say the same, to say the same.

To say the same thing.

Who am I saying the same thing with?

Well, I'm saying the same thing as God.

God knows where you are.

God knows what your condition is.

Your job is to say, I am here, Lord.

I recognize I can't get to where I wanna go until I recognize where I am.

And where you are is your present state of progressive sanctification.

You have to confess and agree with God where you are.

And so when I, when we look at confession, we're gonna look at it.

In fact, lemme give you point number three here.

I need you to readily confess your sins.

And we're gonna do this in three dimensions.

Three overlapping, but different dimensions where

confession has to take place.

This is the way that we say we are here.

Recognize where you are.

My grandma never said this, but maybe yours did.

Clean behind your ears between your toes and, and up your nose.

She didn't tell me up my nose, uh, belly button.

Um, those three areas.

Are some of the most neglected parts of your body apparently.

Uh, I don't know what your showering, showering situation is, but these

researchers watched, not watched

me that back.

These researchers measured the skin microbiome on 130 college

age students, and they looked at.

Control parts of the body where they took a swab and tried to look at the skin

bacteria, and then they looked at the, the bacteria behind the ears in the navel.

And what was the other one I said?

Uh, between the toes, you're not gonna be surprised that the, the skin behind the,

the ears and the navel and between the toes, uh, was not as healthy as the other

parts that received regular cleansing.

The regular, the regularly washed parts of the body, uh, had more

diverse and healthier skin bacteria.

Okay?

No one's surprised by that, right?

The skin that's clean is healthier.

The soul that is regularly confessing sins is healthier too.

This is crazy because this is such a, this is such a big part of, of our, our bio.

It's actually comparatively small, but it's such a big part of what John is

saying here that I'm surprised that we don't talk about this more so level one.

Three dimensions, confessing sin first and foremost to yourself,

being honest with God where you are.

In fact, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about God second, but let's talk about you.

John says, if we confess our sins, then all these conditional realities

that are related to our, our, our faith that comes to those people.

Here's what ends up happening though, for a lot of us, when we encounter some

kind of sin category in our lives, one of the things we might do is, excuse it.

I didn't mean to say that.

Um, she made me angry or I've heard this one before.

This is how I am.

That's how I'm wired.

That's how God made me.

God made me a hothead and I'm Italian, and you know, Italians, and we just do.

Were upset and passionate people.

One of the things that we might do with our sin is, excuse

it, and remember God is light.

When the light giving God looks at our life, does he say, you know what, son?

That, that, that makes perfect sense.

You're right.

I did make you Italian.

No problem.

I'm gonna look the other way.

Yeah, it's no big deal.

No, we can't excuse it.

We might compare it.

We grate on the curve.

I look at myself and say, well, you know, based on how

Pete's doing, I'm doing great.

You know, if I'm looking at, you know, I'm Pete Older and I'm

doing a lot better for my age.

Can't do that.

God doesn't, not that I have anything in mind.

Pete, sorry, I just saw you there.

I'm doing better than most of them.

You wouldn't say that, but you might think it.

You should hear how other dads talk to their kids.

Might make you feel better when you think that you should

see how lazy my coworkers are.

Well, I mean, these other kids, man, they're, they're cussing up a storm

and, you know, they're cheating with ai.

And I, I, I go to class and I, I don't do half of that.

Don't excuse it.

Don't compare it, don't justify it.

And I was just so tired.

I had such a bad week.

I mean, I, you gotta understand.

I was, I, I was frustrated with this situation.

So when you came at me with this information, I was just so mad.

You understand why I said what?

I said.

He had it coming.

He was provoking me.

What was I supposed to do?

Don't excuse it.

Don't compare it.

Don't justify it.

Don't minimize it.

It was only one time.

Never happen again.

I raise my.

Voice,

but I didn't yell is there's a difference.

I was just loud.

I wasn't yelling at you.

I was just, I was just passionate about it.

Nobody got hurt.

It's not like anyone.

I mean, I sure I threw the, I threw the thing, but man, it hit the wall.

It was just some, it's some drywall damage.

It's not that bad.

Don't excuse it.

Don't compare it.

Don't justify it.

Don't minimize its, here's a sneaky one.

Don't rename it as a virtue.

It's not rage.

It's, it's just passion.

It's not greed.

It's providing for my family, we, we need six bedrooms.

It's not cowardice.

I'm just keeping the peace.

Right.

Doesn't the scripture say blessed are the peacemakers for they

shall be called sons of God?

Huh?

Huh?

This is like, this is a godly behavior.

I'm just, I'm, I'm letting things be.

I need we, God wants you to tell yourself the truth, to

not pull punches on yourself.

If, if you're not gonna be honest with yourself, it's gonna be

much harder for you to be honest with anyone else around you.

And that includes the second dimension, the second D.

So the first one's you.

Second one is the Lord.

The Lord.

The Lord knows where you are.

You're lost in them all.

But he knows exactly where you are agreeing with God is to say, Lord, I

know what, I know where my heart is.

I'm angry.

I'm impatience.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm full of lust.

Which Jesus says is adultery in the heart.

I know it's just a few steps.

Before I get to the end game of that, Lord, guard me.

And in fact, one verse I have for you, uh, one passage, Psalm 1 39 verses

23 and 24, I have this down for you.

I, I would love for you to go to the Lord of this with this.

Search me oh God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts and see if there'd be any grievous way in me

and lead me in the way everlasting.

I need you to go to the Lord with these things.

This is probably the easiest part for you.

I, I trust that for many of you, you know this, this is the easy one.

You go to the Lord, you talk to the Lord about the things.

But this third one, the third D, in fact, let me just,

the third D

is where I need you to confess to those you sin against.

I don't know why.

I have several guesses, and I'm gonna let you figure this out in

your small groups, it is so much harder to confess this into people.

Especially people that you love, people that you trust, people whose

relationship you value so much, you would hate to lose them in your life.

And yet they were some of the hardest people to confess to.

But scripture says, Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, if you're offering your

gift at the altar, you're, you're at, you're at Sunday morning worship and

you're ready to sing praises to the Lord.

And, uh, you're, you're gonna crown him the Lord of love as

scripture, uh, as the song says.

And Jesus says, but if you remember that your brother has something

against you 'cause you sinned against them in some way, you said something,

you did something, you hurt their feelings, you sinned against them.

Jesus says, leave your gifts at the altar.

You pull out of the Compass Bible Church parking lot and

you go drive to that friend.

And he said, man, I'm so sorry.

Can we rectify this first go and be reconciled to your brother and then

come and offer your gift to the Lord?

That's how critical this is to Jesus.

Which I think you could assume this means, this suggests that you're confessing.

I, I sinned against you.

I agree with God that what I said to you was ungodly unhelpful.

Will you please forgive me?

I need you to confess your sins to those you sinned against, man, woman, or child.

One of the best things you can do for your kids is to own when you sin against

your kids, no matter how young they are.

What a beautiful display of the gospel.

It says, mom and dad need Jesus as much as you do.

You need to see from me that I, I mean this, and I'm gonna ask for your

forgiveness because it's sin against you.

I need you to confess your sins also to those who can help you sin less.

The word for confession only appears a few times in the New Testament,

believe it or not, but where it does appear, most of those contexts.

At least point to public confession.

Now, it doesn't mean you're airing your dirty laundry, but it does mean that,

that the tone of your life is one of open, transparent honesty that I, I am,

I don't have it all together, and it's more than that, James says in five 16.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one

another that you may be healed.

Confess your sins to one another.

Means I'm choosing some godly men in my life.

Who I can say this is, this is really where I'm at, and I'm not

going to give you platitudes.

I'm not gonna say, well, look, I'm not gonna minimize it.

I'm not going to justify it.

I'm not going to validate it or make it virtuous.

I'm just gonna say, man, I am, I'm struggling with with sin,

or I'm struggling with greed.

I, I'm not giving anything to the church because I, I feel like I need more money.

Sorry.

I, I feel, I feel for that.

It's not, I just, you know, I was, I was maybe a bit harsh with my wife.

It's man, I, I said things to her that I regret.

Here's, here's what I said.

Let me tell you what I did.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another.

Purpose is not just to give you the gossip, obviously purpose is to enlist

one another's help in prayer and also in practice to walk in the light.

But James five points us to prayer.

Pray for one another.

Confession might be one of the things, one of the ingredients that's often

missing in a godly man's life because we think about confessing to God.

We might think about confessing to other, you know, people that we sin against, and

we, maybe we get there, maybe we don't.

But I wonder how many of your relationships contain genuine, honest

confession about where you're at, the things that you're really wrestling with.

The, the reality is, man and I, I alluded this beginning of, of my sermon here.

People are frustrated with churches, in part because they're happy factories.

You know, there, there's production and the songs are all upbeat

and uplifting, and everything's amazing and life's wonderful.

And maybe for some people that is the case.

But for many of us, we know what it's like to live in a fallen world.

We know what it's like to have family members diagnosed with cancer, and

maybe in front of people you're smiling and happy about that.

You, I trust the Lord, God bless.

You know, God bless us.

He's been so kind, but maybe behind closed doors, maybe you're on the verge of tears.

Maybe you are crying to the Lord.

Is anyone carrying that burden with you?

Is there anyone that you can confess to and say, I'm weak right now.

Will you please, uh, I'm like, Moses, I, I can't even hold my hands up.

I just, I'm losing hope.

I'm losing trust.

I'm wrestling with the sin and I'm losing in that area.

I just need help.

Will you please pray for me.

Will you please?

Will you help me go to the Lord with this?

The beautiful thing about confession is that it taps into Jesus cleansing.

It reminds you that your sins have in fact been forgiven, and that's one of

the roles that we play with each other.

We, we remind each other, you have been forgiven of sin.

Your sins have been washed by Jesus, and you don't have to fear pride.

You don't have to fear shame.

Your sins have been dealt with,

and the kind of assurance that man derives is not an assurance from

hiding, but from sharing and being honest about his heart and his mind.

This is one of the areas that often doesn't get talked about with regard

to our assurance, is that transparent, vulnerable, honest relationship

with other godly men that we could say, oh, this is where I'm at.

This is where I'm at.

Please help me.

KFC's recipe might be a heavily guarded secret, but the recipe

for assurance is wide open.

John wants us to, to realize that the recipe for assurance is preserving a

biblical standard of righteousness.

God is light in him.

There's no darkness at all.

Let's not lower that standard.

Let's keep the, let's keep that standard high.

One of our distinctives is we maintain a high view of God.

The word maintenance is important because the tendency for most of us is to bring

God down, to make him more comfortable.

Secondly, we want to evaluate the integrity of our obedience.

We have to be men who understand that good works and fruit is not a prerequisite of

salvation, but it is a post requisite.

This is what God expects of us.

But knowing that we will never fully walk or rights, we'll never

fully walk perfectly, we can number three readily confess our sins.

Because our sins have been forgiven.

We've been freed, the chains have been broken.

Your sin has been nailed to the cross, and now you can walk in the lights.

And walking in light, as we just learned critically, is not just perfection.

Walking in the light means confessing our darkness.

And when we do that, assurance grows your love for the Lord.

Your knowledge of him, your even your intimacy with the body of Christ grows

and assurance grows where that happens.

Let's pray together.

God help us.

Please

help us to apply this Lord.

No one in this room ever says.

We never say that we're without sin.

No one, no one among this room would've would've ever verbalize it out loud.

It's how we live that often communicates that when we justify our

sin or downplay it, we minimize it.

We make it a virtue.

We, we, we explain away our sin in order to, to say to others, I have no sin.

And Lord, your word exposes us.

Let it be true of this church Lord, that our men.

Are acutely aware that we are sinners who desperately need regular

forgiveness and cleansing from Christ.

We trust that all of us here have put our faith in Christ once and for

all, and that has given us security and assurance that will never expire.

That doesn't change the fact that we still sin while we're in the flesh.

Help us Lord to walk in humble contract, confession, even as

we seek to grow in obedience.

We pray for great small groups, Lord, where we can be honest.

Prudently, honest and authentic and helpful to one another's faith.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.