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Reading 1 John 1:8-10 where John says that if we say we have no sin, then we make God a liar and His word isn't in us. Visit wwutt.com for all of our videos!
When we came to Christ, we were completely justified, but we were not yet fully sanctified. Sanctification is that process of growing in holiness, of being made more like Christ when we understand the text.
You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of 1 John chapter 1. We'll actually conclude our study of chapter 1 today. And once again, I'm going to read all 10 verses. To read this again is no trouble for me and it is safe for you, the way Paul put it in Philippians 3 .1.
John writes, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us, that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.
And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message that we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
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. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
So, verses 8, 9, and 10 are primarily what we're going to be focusing on today. Yesterday, verse 7, but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. That's kind of as far as we got yesterday, I didn't address as much what was on the other side of the comma, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.
Now when we come to Christ, we are immediately justified, but we are not yet fully sanctified. Justification is the event, sanctification is the process, but sanctification is a continuation of justification.
Is that enough Asians for you there? So when we came to Christ, we stood before God declared innocent. The sins that we were guilty of, the rebellion that we had committed against God, that separated us from God, had been cleansed, had been forgiven, we now had right standing with God.
Where previously there was a curtain that separated us from the holy of holies, Jesus Christ is our fellowship with God. And so we are immediately justified. But we've not yet gone through that process of sanctification, of being made holy, of being remade in the image of God, which is what Ephesians 2 .10 means when it says we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared for us in advance.
So this being created in Christ Jesus, that's who we are when we become believers, as it talks about in verse four. But God in His mercy didn't leave us dead in our sins, but made us alive together with Christ.
Talks about us being dead in our sins and our trespasses in verses one through three, then alive together with Christ and being made in the image of Christ. This is being remade in Christ is what is being talked about there in Ephesians 2 .10.
So this is the process that we are all going through now from the moment of justification to the moment of our death. We're going through this process called sanctification of growing in holiness. It is aspiring to attain perfection, as Paul talks about in Philippians 3.
So I mentioned Philippians 3 already. I'll go ahead and read that particular passage. Paul says, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own.
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Oftentimes when we read that verse, verse 14, sorry, verse 13, one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.
Oftentimes when we read those two verses, we think of that as being, I forget my sins. I don't let my sins weigh me down. And instead, I look forward to the future, the brighter tomorrow that Jesus has in store for me.
But that's not exactly the context. Specifically, what Paul is talking about there is that we don't rest on what it is that we've accomplished. We don't kick back and go, hey, I'm a Christian. I'm done.
What else is there for me to do? And he's talking about his accomplishments as an apostle, which are way more than anything that you or I have accomplished. And yet Paul is saying that I don't I don't rest on that.
I don't stop on that, on what I've accomplished so far, which is far more than than any other Christian has accomplished. Straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul, knowing that there's still breath in his lungs, there's still mission work for him to do. God is calling him onward so that he would be found a faithful servant on the day of the Lord, continuing to his dying breath to proclaim God and share the gospel.
So we don't rest on what it is that we have accomplished. Rather, we press on toward the goal, which is Christ. It is attaining to Christ Jesus. Let those who are mature think this way. You may not have this understanding when you first become a Christian, but the more that you grow in the faith, the more you're going to come to this understanding, this realization of being made more like Christ.
And then you are able to say with Paul, as he wrote to Timothy in First Timothy, Chapter one, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.
Paul didn't say I was the foremost sinner. I used to persecute Christians and put them to death. I mean, not even the other apostles can say that. Paul didn't say that. He doesn't say I was the worst sinner.
He says the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. One of the things we're going to understand as we continue to grow in sanctification and holiness is just how undeserving we really are of the gift of mercy that God has given us through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
The more mature you get in this faith, the more you're going to come to that realization, the more you're going to see the filthiness, the depravity of your soul, the wretch that you are, the sin that separates you from God.
And the more appreciative you are of God, the more worshipful you are. You're maturing in your worship, realizing the graciousness of this gift that God has given you in his son, Jesus Christ. We are not deserving.
We are deserving of death and hell and eternal separation from God. But what he gave us in his mercy is fellowship with him through his son, Jesus Christ, who died for us. So great a sin had we committed against God in our rebellion that it required the death of the perfect son of God, Jesus Christ, for our sins in order for us to have right fellowship with God.
As D .A. Carson has said, if you ever want to understand the love of God, look at the cross. If you ever want to understand the wrath of God, look at the cross where the love and the wrath of God meet poured out upon his son, Jesus Christ, the wrath of God, which Christ absorbed for our sin.
He became sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God, as it says in 2nd Corinthians, chapter five, double imputation. Our sin was imputed upon him. His righteousness imputed upon us.
So now when God looks at us, he sees not the sinful wretch that we were deserving of the wrath of God, but he sees the righteousness and holiness of his own son. And we stand before him as justified. The blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
1st John 1, 7, verse 8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And this is not saying if we say that we've never sinned, saying if we say we have no sin, the same as the way Paul put it in 1st Timothy, chapter one, Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.
And so we're talking about something very present tense here in verse eight. Yes, we just read that the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. We stand before God justified, but we still, as long as we inhabit these fleshly bodies, have a heart that is inclined towards sin and it is constantly disciplining ourselves.
Well, God is disciplining us to have a heart that is for the things of God rather than the things of this world. Doing what the apostle Paul said to the Corinthians, taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ.
This is part of that sanctification process, growing in the habit and the discipline of doing that. If we say that we have no sin, if we say that there is not a need for us to have to wake up every day and take every thought captive and turn our eyes away from worthless things, as it says in the Psalms, preserve my life according to your will.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. God, I need you today. The Lord's prayer, give us this day our daily bread and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
I need the things of God today to rescue me from my sinful, wretched heart. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Because remember, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with God.
We have fellowship with one another. The people of God, if we say that we don't have sin, we deceive ourselves and we're not walking in the light. We're not walking in the truth. We are liars. So we know that we're sinful.
We know that we need God, the grace and mercy of God every day. His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness, as it says in Lamentations chapter three. You only know that you only understand that if you realize the sinful, depraved wretch you are in need of God every single day.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And what a great mercy that verse is.
You are going to sin. You are going to be tempted. Your thoughts will betray God and will go back to the things of this world. You did it today when you were driving in your car and getting upset at the person in front of you, cursing somebody who was made in the image of God.
When you got angry at your kids, though, they don't know any better. When you get frustrated about your situation, your life and your scenario as though God had made a mistake and I shouldn't be here.
Anytime that your mind gravitates toward those things, you have sinned against God. Your thoughts betray you, betray God every single day. No one is a better liar to you than you are. And so it is in this that we need to understand a regular confession.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. His mercies are new every morning. And then verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his truth is not in us.
If you read my blog or if you've been following the what Facebook page, you'll have seen my blog was posted on there on Monday. I wrote a review of the new William Paul Young book entitled Lies that I can't remember the name of it, Lies We Believe About God.
I was going to say lies we Christians believe. But anyway, yeah, Lies We Believe About God, 28 lies that William Paul Young addresses in this book. But the whole book is full of lies. The chapter titles aren't the lies necessarily.
Some of them are, but it's the content that is contained within those chapters that are the lies. William Paul Young is a heretic and he should not be listened to. This is the guy that wrote the shack, by the way.
I didn't I didn't mention that. And I knew he was a heretic when I wrote the shack. I didn't have to read this book to understand that. But he leaves no mystery about where he stands theologically. In the chapter that is entitled Sin Separates Us From God, William Paul Young believes that is a lie.
He believes it is a lie to believe that sin separates us from God. Here's what he says about sin in this chapter. The Greek word often translated into the English as sin is hamartia. That much is true.
A moralist will tell you that the word means missing the mark and then go on to explain that the mark is moral perfection or right behavior. And once again, we are back on the performance hamster wheel.
But if the essence of God's nature is relationship, then sin must be defined and understood as missing a relational reality, a distortion of the image of God in us. Hamartia is made up of two parts. Ha, an aspirated alpha, which is a negation like un or dis, and martia from the Greek root meros, which means form, origin or being.
The fundamental meeting is negation of origin or being or formlessness. Yes, it is about missing the mark, but the mark is not moral perfection. It's not perfect moral behavior. The mark is the truth of your being.
So he's redefining this word to fit his own hermeneutic. Here's what here's what hamartia really means. It means missing the truth of your being, which he can't ground that in anything solid. The mark is the holiness of God.
That's the mark that we are missing, not the not the truth of your being. We cannot aspire to or attain to the holiness of God. That's what sin is. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Romans 323. There's your definition of sin. Sin is lawlessness, which John gives the definition of here in this particular letter. So anyway, young goes on. There is a truth about who you are. God's proclamation about a very good creation is the truest about you.
That very good creation is the former origin of you, the truth of who you are in your being. Sin, then, is anything that negates or diminishes or misrepresents the truth of who you are. You got that? I'm going to read that again.
This this is false, by the way. Young saying sin, then, is anything that negates or diminishes or misrepresents the truth of who you are, no matter how pretty or ugly that is. No, sin is rebellion against God, it is anything that is against the moral right, perfection, holiness, righteousness of God.
That is what sin is, not being untrue to yourself, but rebelling against God. Young goes on. Behavior becomes either an authentic way of expressing the truth of your good creation or an effort to cover up performance behavior.
The shame of what you think of yourself, which is worthlessness. And what does the truth of your being look like? God, if you are true to yourself, you will look like God. That's what young is saying.
You are made in the image of God and the truth of your being looks like God. You are patient. You are kind. You are good. You are humble. You are forgiving. You are a truth teller. You are trustworthy.
You have integrity. You are long suffering. You are loving. You don't keep a record of wrongs. You desire the best. You treat others the way in which you would want to be treated. You are furious at everything that is wrong.
You are pure of heart, which sounds totally like Joel Osteen. OK, and so on. Young says these are all expressions of the truth of our being. Difficult to believe, right? I think that is the point. And this brings us to separation.
Does sin separate us from God? To give you the short answer of where he goes from there. No, basically, young says sin does not separate us from God. So even though young uses the word sin, he defines it in a completely different way.
And as long as you are positive about yourself, as long as you think the right things about yourself, according to what God created you to be, then you would therefore be a sinless person. You are being true to yourself.
And so therefore you are not a sinner. So what first John one ten says is true about Paul Young, William Paul Young. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. William Paul Young is basically saying to God, what you have said sin is in your word, the Bible is not what I think sin is.
I say that sin is this. And so young is calling God a liar. He's a heretic. Every everything that he posits about God in that book is heresy. He has made up his own God and he wrote about that God in the shack.
That book was heresy. So is this new book that William Paul Young has just released. Sin is not making mistakes. That's not what sin is. Yes, sure, it's a mistake. But that is way underselling what sin actually is.
It is rebellion against God. And for it, we deserve death. Roman six, twenty three. The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. If we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
He's just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness because Jesus paid for the debt that we owed because of our sin, a debt that we could not possibly have been able to pay. But Christ paid it with his perfect sacrifice on the cross.
And because that sacrifice was paid or because that price was paid, God is just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is both just and the justifier, as Paul talks about in the book of Romans. Let me conclude here by reading something else that John wrote in John, chapter 13, where Jesus washes the disciples feet now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end during supper when the devil had already put it in the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.
Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a base and it began to wash the disciples feet to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not yet understand, but afterward you will understand.
Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. And Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
And Jesus said to him, the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you, for he knew who was to betray him. And that was why he said, not all of you are clean.
This is sanctification that Jesus is explaining right here. Justification and sanctification. The one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean.
When we are justified by God, we are completely clean. It is going through this process of sanctification that we need daily to have our feet washed because as we continue in this world, we're kicking up dirt.
We're still getting dirty. We're still being tempted. Our mind will still betray God and want to go toward the things of this world. But when we ask for forgiveness, God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Lord, we thank you so much for this word, for the sacrifice of your son, Jesus Christ, and help us to understand how great a price was paid for us as we continue to grow in righteousness and holiness.
So we might become better worshipers of God day by day. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.