Transcription
All right, good morning everyone, and welcome to Church Without Religion. Uh, my name is Andrew Farley. If we haven't met yet, I wanted to let you know that I, uh, right now am away at what is called Convention 220, that is in Virginia, on the East Coast. I'm at Convention 220. We've got five different keynote speakers and 12, uh, workshops that are being presented, and it's just a huge Grace Community that is coming together in a beautiful fashion to hang out for three days. Days. And so I'm out East right now, but coming to you by the, the magic of video and streaming video and all that. So, um, my thanks to JJ and Brian for making this possible.
And why don't we go ahead and open with a word of prayer together? Father, we just thank you for, uh, the fellowship opportunity that we have. We have fellowship with you, and we have fellowship with each other. We thank you for the freedom that we have to worship. Many Christians around the world, uh, you know, we can take it for granted, but they have to struggle even to gather together and worship and hide and, and, uh, and worship underground and operate in the, in the dark in order to even preserve their lives. Father, we thank you for this freedom we enjoy. We thank you for the spiritual freedom we have through your Son. We ask that you would minister to us today in a personal way. In Jesus' name, amen.
All right. So, uh, today, you know, we just finished our series in Ephesians, and I'm going to do a few individual messages here and there. And, uh, this morning, I've opted for talking about the truth concerning 1 John 1:9. The truth about one simple verse that has caused a whole lot of difficulty in the Christian world, a whole lot of division, a whole lot of controversy, and it's caused a lot of doubt in the lives of believers concerning where they exactly stand with God and what exactly is going on day-to-day as we, as we all fail. I mean, the scripture says that we stumble in many ways. So when we stumble, uh, what is God thinking? What is he up to? What is our relationship like? Is it severed? Is it broken? Is it affected negatively? Is there something that is beyond repair? Does something need to be repaired? All of these sort of questions can hit us as humans. And 1 John 1:9 has, in some people's minds, tended to be the solution, right? That, uh, if, if you have, uh, sinned a great deal or sinned in some capacity, there is a, a chasm that is between you and God. And then here comes your formula for forgiveness, and your formula for cleansing, and your formula for restoration back to God. And 1 John 1:9 would be it. It might be quoted to you that if we confess our sins, that if we would just simply admit our sins, if we would confess them to God, then he will forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
And so you can see how, uh, one verse that is, as I like to say, pulled up with a crane and laid over here on a pedestal and taken totally out of context, that this becomes the, uh, bar of soap for Christians. It becomes the formula for cleansing for many Christians. And it ultimately, uh, ends up murking the waters. The waters become murky concerning our forgiveness. We end up saying things like, well, just as the Catholic might say, you know, I thought you said Jesus took away your sins. Well, what are you doing? I'm going to the confession booth. Why? To get my sins forgiven. But I thought you just said Jesus took away your sins. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what are you doing? Well, I'm going to talk to the priest. I thought you, I thought you said Jesus took away your sins. Well, what are you doing? Well, I'm going to, uh, do my ritual on my deathbed so that I can get those sins taken care of. But wait a minute, I thought you, I thought you said. And then, you know, we Protestants, if we don't watch it, we pull out 1 John 1:9. And it's, I thought you said Jesus took away your sins. What are you doing? Well, I'm just, 1 John 1:9, and I'm confessing my sins to get him to forgive me. Do you see that?
Now, nothing wrong with admitting our wrongdoing. Nothing wrong with confessing our sins to God. Nothing wrong with confessing our sins to other people. The scripture even talks about that. It says, confess your sins one to another so that you can pray for one another. I can't pray for you, and you can't pray for me unless we have a friendship where there's trust involved, and, uh, we're talking about the struggles that we go through. And so, you know, while confession can be healthy, confession, by the way, just means to agree with. So when you confess something to God, you're basically saying, God of the universe, you're right. God of the universe, I agree with you. You are right. So that can be healthy. We confess that Jesus is Lord. We confess that God created the world. We confess that, uh, Jesus Christ died for our sins. And we confess that this is a real struggle in our lives, whatever it may be. So we are admitting our sinfulness. But the question is, does 1 John 1:9 apply to us as a daily Christian bar of soap? Because when, when I admit my wrongdoing, is that when God responds to me by swooping down out of heaven in order to at that moment forgive and cleanse me, as if I were not forgiven and not cleansed prior to that moment?
And so, as we begin to look at 1 John 1:9 this morning, we're going to look at it by building the context and look at it by, you know, against the backdrop of the finished work of Jesus. Jesus Christ. This is not a fly in the ointment. This is not a worm in the apple. This is not something that somehow taints the gospel. And it's certainly not an invitation to say in double-talk fashion that, yes, Jesus took my sins away, but he still needs to take my sins away. Yes, Jesus forgave me, but he still needs to forgive me. Yes, Jesus cleansed me, but he still needs to cleanse me. And so you can see how these sort of thoughts get us off into some crazy doctrines. I mean, some people, even after looking at 1 John 1:9 as a bar of soap, they then look at Peter and the foot washing incident as some sort of foot washing fetish in today's Christian world. I mean, in other words, they, they build a doctrine of forgiveness out of the foot washing and they say, see, you're totally forgiven except for your feet, and so you need your feet washed daily, just like Peter got his feet washed by Jesus. But you know, you can very clearly see from that passage that as you go there, uh, you know, Peter's, uh, focus is one thing, and Jesus's focus is another, and they're getting their wires crossed. And Peter says, why don't you bathe all of me? And Jesus says, I'm just bathing feet. Peter, what are you talking about? And he says that this is actually an act of radical servanthood, and that's the context of that. It's not even a forgiveness passage to start with. So how do we turn a passage about radical servanthood and serving other people? How do we turn that into a theology of, well, you're mostly forgiven, but not totally forgiven, and now you need your feet washed? Well, the way we get there is through a misinterpretation of 1 John 1:9 and a misunderstanding of our total forgiveness.
So today, we need to go back to square one and look at what is the most controversial and the most often quoted verse about our forgiveness in Jesus Christ. So let's look at this first John, John 1, beginning in verse one. It says, "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life." Now, as we open the letter here to First John chapter 1 and we read this verse, we might think, okay, get to the point, John. I mean, you know, get to the meat of the matter here. This is just fluff. Well, really, what's happening is, is that he is instantly, he is immediately attacking something. He is attacking the false belief that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh. In fact, 2,000 years ago, many people were purporting that Jesus would not stoop so low, that he would not, uh, humble himself to such a degree as to really become one of us. Instead, he faked it. Instead, he just posed as a human. Instead, he just pulled the wool over our eyes and pretended to be fully human when really he was not, because that would somehow infringe upon his godhood or something. And so there was a group, and this will be very important later, there was a group called the Gnostics. Now, if you don't know what Gnosticism is, it comes from the idea of *gnosis*, which is knowledge, is where we get one of our words for knowing or knowledge from. And the Gnostics were interested in selling, or better said, they were peddling, uh, secret knowledge, secret spiritual knowledge that you could get. And so they were infiltrating the church. And some of their ideas and thoughts, an early form of Gnosticism, was infiltrating Christianity. And so you might have heard something back then like, "It's great that you're a Christian. It's great that you're acquainted with Jesus Christ, but now let me lead you into a deeper knowledge of some deep spiritual truths that will secretly unlock all kinds of meaning and purpose for you." And these were what the Gnostics were claiming that they had.
Now, there were two primary belief systems, uh, concerning Christ and Christianity. Two primary beliefs that marked a Gnostic. Number one, they did not believe, as I said, they did not believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Now, number two, and equally important, is that they did not believe that sin was real or that sin was actual. And so they were ultimately sin deniers. Now, here's why they reasoned that sin was not real: because any sort of sin, whether it be sexual or a sin of some appetite or some addiction, any sort of sin is going to occur in the physical world. But we, you know, we are Gnostics. We have a deeper knowledge. We live on a spiritual level, not on a physical level, but a spiritual level. And so because of this, anything that happens on the, on the physical, in the physical realm, is lesser, less important, even a fabrication of reality, because the real reality happens at the spirit level. So you can see then why they would believe that Jesus didn't make himself physical, because that is too low, it is too base, and the spiritual was only real to them. And so Jesus was purely spiritual. And in fact, sin to them was not real because it occurred in the physical world, and they were sin deniers.
So now, uh, you see these physical words here in verse one: "what we have heard, seen." What John is doing, he's very politely telling these Gnostics, who were wrong in many regards, he's telling them, "We heard Jesus' audible voice, physical voice. What we have seen with our eyes, we saw him with these physical eyes. We laid our eyes on him, and he was definitely physical and visibly present. He was not an illusion. He was not a ghost. He was not an apparition. He was not a beam of light. He was fully human, and we laid eyes on him." And then, as he says, "what we have touched with our hands." Perhaps this being the best argument of all. In other words, as one of the Apostles, John leaned against him, you know, in the upper room at the Last Supper. John, it says, leaned up against him. And so many people, you know, Thomas, we know that Thomas touched his hands, saw the hands with holes in them, and touched them. So whether it was Thomas or John or any of the other apostles who gave him a big hug, well, they touched him, and they knew that he was truly physical, and he was not faking it. And so this is very important to realize, because what we are seeing is that from day one, minute one, in other words, from chapter 1, verse 1, John is fighting against Gnostic belief. He is combating Gnostic heresy.
Now, we continue. We look at verse two. He says, "the life was manifested. What we have seen again, physical words here, and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life that's Jesus, which was with the Father and was manifested to us." In other words, Jesus Christ is eternal. Jesus was with the Father, and then he was shown to us, manifested to us. He appeared on planet Earth first as a baby and grew up to be a man, the man-God. And so while some people wrongly teach that, you know, Jesus showed up and lived for 33 years and somehow became the Son of God, no, no, he always was the Son of God. He's always been the Word. He is eternal. He has no beginning and he has no end. This is our Christ. Christ is eternal life. But for a period, a sliver of time in human history, this God appeared to us in human form and lived for 33 years. And so he was manifested to us. It says. And then he says, "what we have seen and heard." And now, by verse three, you're like, "All right, already, I get it. I get it. Seen, heard, touched, manifested. Okay, okay, I get it." And to us, it is no big deal. We celebrate the humanity, the physicality of Jesus at Christmas, and we've got it solid, no question. But remember that the Apostle John is fighting something that all of his readers have toyed with, potentially been tempted with. They've definitely heard the false doctrine that Jesus was simply an illusion of physicality. And so he says, "Now, watch this. This is really a big deal because fellowship is going to come up later. Watch this, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father, Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
So, in other words, he's saying, "I, the Apostle John, am telling you now why I am writing this." And why is he writing it? Check it very carefully, Christian. Read it very carefully. The passage here says, "I proclaim this to you so that you too may have fellowship with us." Guess what? Everybody reading this letter does not have fellowship yet with other Christians. In other words, not everybody reading this letter is a saved person. These sin deniers and these Jesus-in-the-flesh deniers are certainly not saved. In fact, we find that out later in John's letter when he says, "Anyone who denies, anyone who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, not a believer." In fact, the whole thing is antichrist, against the gospel. And so this is very important because as we begin to unfold the true meaning of 1 John 1:9, we have to address: Is it written to Christians as a bar of soap? And what we've already seen in verse three is the context of John's writing here about this topic is this: that he wants the audience to have fellowship with him and other believers. In other words, "We Christians over here, me and my fellow Christians, we proclaim this to you why? So that you too, not yet, but when you believe, you too may have fellowship with us." So now we're seeing, in other words, not every verse in the Bible is addressing Christians. You know, we might think, "Oh, that is so controversial." But think about the opposite. Did John not have an evangelistic heart? Did Paul not want to talk to unbelievers as well? In other words, sometimes the Bible is written to humans. And if the shoe fits, wear it. If you've been denying Jesus' physicality, correct that. If you've been saying that sin isn't real, correct that. If you're already a believer, fantastic. In other words, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Now, you'll notice then that he says, "Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." But I'm writing you plural, there. I'm writing you so that you can join us in this awesomeness, but you don't have it yet if you're a sin denier and if you're a Jesus-in-the-flesh denier. So now we go to verse four. And again, he says, "These things we write." Why are we writing it? "So that our joy may be made complete." In other words, I'm kind of bragging on Jesus here. I'm kind of into how awesome this message is, and I'm writing you because it gives me joy to write you and it brings my joy to a completeness to see this same gospel that has affected me so deeply be in your life and change the way that you think and believe and act. And so he says, "This is the message that we have heard from him and announced to you: that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all."
Now, again, we're setting the stage for something. We're setting the stage for 1 John 1:9 because the verses that are about to come are going to talk about fellowship. They're going to say that some people are in the darkness. They're going to say that some people are in the light. Now, many Christians today, unfortunately, some Christian teachers and preachers teach that you can go from light to darkness and darkness to light and light to darkness. It just depends on what hour it is and what you've done lately. In other words, you can bounce in and out of light and darkness. You can bounce in and out and in and out of fellowship. So now, two points we want to make this morning that will be absolutely critical. Number one, anytime, anytime light and darkness is talked about in the Bible, it is always that God is light, and that the believer is a child of light, and that sin is darkness, and that the enemy is darkness. But the Christian is never in darkness. And in God, there is no darkness at all. So if you are a child of God, and you live in Christ, if you are in the Spirit in Christ, you have received him, you're a new creation, then you are in the light, light, not in the darkness. But if you are still in Adam, in the flesh, and that's the life that you have, which is really death, then you are in darkness, not light.
Now, for someone to teach that a Christian can go from light to darkness and darkness to light based on their daily performance, basically you're saying they lose their salvation at 2:00, get it back at 3:00, lose it again at 4:00, and get it back by 5:30. And then we've got a performance-based salvation. Another word for that is works-based justification. You're getting justified by the works you did at 4:00 so that you're good again at 5:30. No, the reality is is that you're either in the light, saved, or you're in the darkness, lost. And there is no bouncing in and out and in and out. So what we're about to see now is not a Christian that has two conditions. It's not a Christian that's bouncing around. We're really about to see two identities. We're about to see sin admitters and sin deniers. We're about to see people in the light and people in the darkness. We're about to see people who say they have no sin at all, that they've never sinned a day in their life, which is false, and people that readily admit their struggles because they know that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses them. So why not just admit it?
So watch this now as we progress and talk about fellowship. Verse six: "If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Now, who is the "we" here? Well, you would have a hard time labeling the "we" as Christians. In fact, you would have a hard time labeling the "we" as purely non-Christians. You know who the "we" is again in this part of the chapter? The "we" is humans. And if the shoe fits, wear it. Because verse six says, "If we're saying this," and then verse seven says, "If we're doing this," and then if verse eight says, "If we're doing the opposite," and then if verse nine says, "Well, if we're doing the opposite of verse eight," and then verse 10 says, "If we're doing the opposite of verse nine." In other words, the "we," you can't even pin it down because it's not about saying this is purely a saved person or this is purely a lost person. This is about humans who believe all kinds of stuff, good or bad.
So watch now. Verse six is indeed describing someone who says they have fellowship. They're claiming to have fellowship, but actually, where are they located? And where do they walk? They are in the darkness. They're not in God, because there's no darkness in God, right? There's no darkness in God. And they are not in God. They are not in Christ. They are not in the Spirit. But they are claiming to be. So they're liars, and they're not practicing the truth, because they're simply claiming to have fellowship with God when actually they don't. They're in darkness. So then, what's the opposite of that? Well, the opposite of that would be the believer. Verse seven: "The believer is located where? In the light. Not in the darkness, but in the light." How much of the time? All, all the time. So that's why we are walking around in the light. I can walk after the flesh, I could walk after the Spirit, but it doesn't change my location. Did you know your location doesn't change? Your spiritual geography is not altered. Sure, your decisions matter. I mean, when we walk after the flesh, we're miserable, but we're still in God. We're still in the light. We're still in Christ. We're still in the Spirit. And that's why sin just doesn't jive anymore. Have you ever noticed sin doesn't really work for you? It doesn't come out right. You're not going, "Yay, God, I can't wait to do that again" after you sin, because you're in the light. And so he says, "If we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, what does he say? We have fellowship with one another." Which was his hope earlier, right? "Hey guys, the reason I'm writing this letter is so that you'll have fellowship with us, but you don't yet." Okay. So he says, "Now, if you're in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from how much sin? All sin." Not some sin, not merely remembered sins, not just remembered or maybe not just forgotten sins, but all sins. Big sins, small sins, sins of repetition, sins of omission, as we like to say, sins of commission, as we like to call them. Boy, we love to categorize our sins, don't we? We obsess over our sins. We like to think of how big they are and how frequently they are and how disgusting they must be to God. And God's saying, "Why are you thinking about your sins instead of thinking about your Savior? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sins." So what do you, what are you worried about stuff that you're cleansed from? I mean, why worry? Why fixate on that stuff? How about fix your eyes on Jesus Christ?
So now, again, I want you to notice that the "we" could be anybody. In verse six, as we go back, verse six says, "we are in darkness." Well, that's an unbeliever, then. Verse seven says, "we are in the light." Well, that's a believer. So you've got two different kinds of people on planet Earth here: believers and unbelievers, darkness and light. Now, now we've built the true background and context for 1 John 1:9, haven't we? Here comes the 1 John 1:9 sandwich, as I like to call it. 1 John 1:9 is in the middle, and what surrounds it is verse eight and verse 10. So let's look at the, the 1 John 1:9 sandwich here. What is sandwiching this verse? Here we go. "If we say that we have no no sin." Now, remember that "we" is anybody, right? We, as humans, we don't even know who "we" is yet till we read the verse. Now, think about in context. Now, who is the group of people that say they have no sin? Who is the group of people that say they've never sinned a day in their lives? Who is it? Well, it's that group of Gnostics. It's that early form of Gnosticism. They were sin deniers, remember that? They were Jesus-in-the-flesh deniers, and they were sin deniers. So now John is politely, you could say politely, but he's pretty firm. He's politely yet firmly trying to correct this issue. And he's saying, "If we, any one of us, say that we have no sin, no sin at all, we're crazy. We're deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not, not in us." Hey, Christian, is the truth in you? Well, you'd say, "Yeah, the truth's in me. I mean, I don't always live by the truth, but the truth is in me." Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, the Life. He is in me. In fact, in Second John, guess what we find? If you go over there to the Epistle of Second John, you find the same author, the same Apostle, and he says that the truth is in us, us Christians, that it is in us who believe, and he says it will be with us forever. So the truth is in Christians, and the truth will be with Christians forever. So who in the world is John talking about here in verse eight when he says, "The truth is not in us"? Any of us who are saying we have no sin. He's talking about unbelievers, man. He's talking about sin deniers.
And so then he says, "Now, what's the, what's the answer? I mean, what's the solution?" The solution comes in the next verse, the infamous 1 John 1:9. The focal point of this entire message here. It is, "Hey, sin denier! Hey, you who've said you have no sin! Hey, you who say that Jesus didn't come in the flesh and that sin is just an illusion and that you haven't sinned a day in your life! Hey, you, listen! Here's the answer: If we, any one of us, have been believing that J, confess our sins. Admit them. Admit our sinfulness. Just agree with God about this sin issue. It's not a big deal. He knows you've sinned. You know deep down you've sinned. Just admit it. Don't be a sin denier. Be a sin admitter. And then what? God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from how much? From all unrighteousness." Do you know that this means that this verse is not about one by one by one by one? In other words, it's not Old Testament style cleansing. Old Testament style cleansing was again and again and again and again, and one by one by one, year after year, over and over and over and over. And if we don't watch it, what we're doing is saying, "Oh, I don't live under the Old Testament. I don't need repeat sacrifices. I've got Jesus." And we say that to a big amen of applause. And then we turn right around and we use 1 John 1:9 to try to get cleansed again and again and again and again. And little by little, that is worse. That is that is saying that Jesus' blood is less powerful than the blood of bulls and goats. You know that? Because they only had to go once a year in the Old Testament. The Day of Atonement took care of everything for all of Israel with the sacrifices and the scapegoat who goes out into the desert as far as a, a symbol for for how far away the sins would be and all that shadow, a picture of Christ, but not Christ, just a shadow, just a picture. But they, they did that once a year. And here we come along. Here we come along after the death of Christ, after the final sacrifice for sins, and then we're going to say that we need to get forgiven and cleansed little by little, day by day, sin by sin. Not year by year, but sin by sin by sin. That is neurotic. That is crazy talk. That is saying that the blood of Jesus Christ accomplished less than the blood of bulls and goats. So we need to think about what we're doing. 1 John 1:9 is actually an evangelistic verse. It is aimed at the sin denier. It is the solution to 1 John 8. 1 John 8 says, "You've been claiming you have no sin." 1 John 1:9 is saying, "Stop claiming you have no sin." 1 John 1:8 says, "The truth is not in you." 1 John 1:9 says, "Basically, start acknowledging the truth, and you'll get him in you." So what we see then is an appeal to the sin denier to come to their senses. And what kind of forgiveness do they get? They get forgiveness of all sins. They get cleansing of all unrighteousness. That is what is found in Jesus Christ.
Now, we go to verse 10. Again, remember I told you it was the 1 John 1:9 sandwich, right? Here we are in verse, verse 10 to finish up. And he says, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." Hey, is his word in you? You know, the Bible talks about Jesus Christ being the Word. In fact, that's how John started this chapter. He talked about the Word, and the Word made flesh. And even in the Gospel of John, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory that, you know, glory that came from God, manifested in physical form, Jesus Christ." The Word is the Word in you? Well, you bet it is. The Word is in you if Jesus Christ, who is the Word, is in you. So again, you go back to who is it, you know, that doesn't have the truth in them? Who is it that doesn't have God's word in them? Who is it that says they've never sinned? Who is it that says they have no sin at all? Who is it that denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh? Who is it that denies that sin is even a real thing to deal with? These are unbelievers. And the answer is quite simple: Come to your senses, admit your sinfulness, believe that Jesus came in the flesh, and you will move away from being an antichrist person to being in Christ and forgiven and cleansed forever.
Now, let me tell you, when we really recognize the true context of 1 John 1:9, we no longer get beat up by the error of that double talk, the idea that I'm forgiven, but I'm not forgiven. I'm cleansed, but I'm not cleansed. I need to do my 1 John 1:9 ritual in order to get okay with God again. Now, again, I want to reiterate, what is confession? Confession, the word *homologeo*, the same word. In other words, it is saying the same thing as God says. So to admit our sins is one thing, but it's very different to think that admitting our sins one by one by one by one is going to get God to swoop down out of heaven and die on a cross again and issue forgiveness again, or or that God is going to sprinkle us somehow from the Pearly Gates with some new portion of cleansing that has nothing to do with the cross. Now, the cross is the means to forgiveness. It happened once for all, and it needs no repeat. It is finished.
And so, what does this do for us? Is it just merely, oh, a bunch of theology, a bunch of context about one verse that's caused a lot of trouble? What it does is it allows us to realize how rooted we are, how rooted we are in Christ, and how safe and secure and stable. You know, when the Bible talks about fellowship, it never, not one single time, talks about us bouncing in and out and in and out of fellowship. Any passages you'll find in the New Testament with this word fellowship in them, it is saying that you are either in the fellowship and saved, or you are out of fellowship and lost. But there is no going back and forth based on some sort of cleansing ritual that you might do for yourself.
So we here at Church Without Religion, we hate sin. We believe that sin gets us nowhere. We want nothing to do with sin. We want to run far away from sin. We want to flee temptation. We resist the devil. We stand against his schemes. We hate, we detest sin. But we also hate when people denigrate the work of Jesus Christ and act as if it is less powerful than the bulls and goats that were sacrificed in the Old Testament. In other words, let's call sin sin, but let's call the sacrifice of Jesus what it truly deserves to be called: a completed, finished work that resulted in a miraculous, once-for-all cleansing for every single person that is in Christ Jesus. And so this is precisely why you will not find a single verse that is a formula for cleansing in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, you name it. You journey through every epistle in the New Testament, and you will not find a formula for daily cleansing for Christians. This 1 John 1:9 has been a standalone that has been misinterpreted, misunderstood over the years, and has been twisted and warped, and unfortunately, it has disfigured the Father's face for many of us.
What we need to be doing is realizing that there is a reason why we won't find a formula for forgiveness and cleansing. I mean, if it were there, don't you think, uh, the Philippians needed to hear about it? Don't you think Paul would have uttered one word about it to the Galatians or the Colossians? If there were a formula for you and me to stay in fellowship with God through talking about our sins and then him sort of putting us back in, then how in the world did the Corinthians miss that one? And what in the world did the Ephesians do for themselves if they didn't have those verses? The reality is that 1 John 1:9 is a standalone verse that has a context and has a true meaning, and it is evangelistic at heart, written to the sin denier so that they could get what we already have in Jesus Christ. Now, that's something we can confess. Are you willing to confess that you're a forgiven person? Are you willing to confess that the work of Jesus Christ actually worked? Are you willing to confess, admit, say the same thing that God says about Jesus' blood? You know what he says? No repeat needed. Much, much better than bulls and goats. A better ministry, a better sacrifice, a better High Priest, a better covenant founded on better promises. And this is why, because it's not little by little by little. It's one time and forever.
So let's, uh, let's pray and celebrate and thank our God. Father, we are, we are grateful. We just want to say thank you. It's all we can say. We're those of us who are in Christ, we're in the light. Those of us who are in Christ, we are in fellowship with you. We're also in fellowship with one another. That's why we don't want to lie to each other. We want to find trusted friends, trusted believers, and share our struggles, but not to get you to forgive us, just to be honest and open and find help and find prayer. Father, at the same time, we thank you. Your Son's sacrifice is sufficient. It is sufficient forever. So that by one offering, you tell us, by one offering, we have been made perfect forever. Not perfectly behaved, but perfectly cleansed forever. We thank you, Father, that when Jesus Christ returns, he returns not to bear sin, not to bear sin, but to bring us this salvation that is so, wow, wow, so great, so powerful, so miraculous, better than anything that anyone experienced before us, before the cross. And now we sit on this side of the cross, relishing it, cherishing it, celebrating it, and thanking you for all you've done. In your Son, in his name, we pray. Amen.