Imperfect but Faithful
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Intro:
Intro:
Good morning!
I have a verse for your encouragement this morning, particularly for those who may be struggling with various sins in their lives.
(That would be all of us, if we’re being honest, right?)
The verse is Proverbs 24:16. (Read it).
For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity.
Don’t we all need this reminder?! (I know I do!)
By the way, who hear this morning believes that you have to be PERFECT to make it to heaven?
Anybody?
You see, that’s an impossible standard (impossible for us — Jesus was perfect — but we are not!)
And if you have to be perfect to make it to heaven, then none of us are making it!
I ask that question this morning because even though I think we all know this, sometimes we get it into our minds that we have to be perfect.
We don’t give ourselves any room for growth, and room for learning the better way found in the Scriptures, etc.
And that is a dangerous mindset to have because number 1 — Sinless perfection is unattainable, and …
Number 2 — As we are going to see in the book of 1 John in a little bit, if we pridefully say we have no sin, we are in serious trouble!
But we’ll get to that in a moment.
Our sermon title this morning is “Imperfect but Faithful.”
Now, I want to offer a couple of disclaimers this morning before we begin:
This discussion does NOT mean that since we all acknowledge that we are imperfect that we should just RESIGN ourselves to our own imperfections and be OKAY with sin and lack of growth!
Nor does acknowledgment of our own imperfections allow us to treat God’s grace as a cop-out or a license to sin (Romans 6:1ff)!
Furthermore, we are INEXCUSABLE if we just resign ourselves to our imperfections, throw our hands up, and don’t study God’s Word in order to GROW unto Christian completeness!
2 Tim. 2:15 says …
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Tim. 3:16-17 further adds …
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
COMPLETE — The KJV says “perfect,” but it’s not the idea of absolute moral perfection, but COMPLETENESS!
Furthermore by way of disclaimer, acknowledging our own imperfections does NOT mean that we do away with the concept of REPENTANCE, either!
And we’re going to talk about that in 1 John as well!
In fact, acknowledging our own imperfections and comparing that with the moral PERFECTION and goodness of God should LEAD us to repentance — and I think that’s part of the picture that we need to understand from Rom. 2:4 which says that the goodness of God leads us to repentance!
With those disclaimers said, now I want us to focus our attention this morning on the encouragement for today, which is the idea of “Imperfect, but Faithful.”
Because we all need to remember this, lest when we DO stumble from time to time, we get so bogged down in our sin that we just accept it and STAY there, and don’t get back up!
(That’s where the danger lies, because then we will FALL AWAY if we refuse to repent/get back up once we’ve fallen!)
Have you ever thought about the fact that the Bible doesn’t hide or cover up the sins of its greatest heroes?
Surely, you’ve noticed that before, but have you ever asked yourself why that is?
I believe the reason is number 1 — The Bible in fact IS from God!
That’s a characteristic of its authenticity!
It speaks the TRUTH, even when that means acknowledging the imperfections of its greatest heroes …
But number 2 — I think its there for our ENCOURAGEMENT!
It gives us HOPE (Rom. 15:4), because even mean like Abraham, and Noah, and David, etc. stumbled from time to time!
If they did, so will we!
But the hope lies in the fact that those folks, imperfections and all, were still listed in the hall of fame of faith!
Because the blood of Christ TRIUMPHS over their human inadequacies!
And we need to remember that!
We won’t read the whole chapter, but I do want to talk about this, and that’s …
Hebrews 11:
Hebrews 11:
We often refer to this as the “Hall of Fame of Faith,” and for good reason!
But I’ve also heard it called “The Hall of Flaw” as well, also for good reason.
And the point is this — EVERY ONE of the individuals listed in Hebrews chapter 11 — EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM had their fair share of struggles with sin!
Read through this chapter, and here are some of the individuals you are going to come across:
A habitual liar in Abraham (who lied on more than one occasion, trying to protect himself by telling half-truths about his wife Sarah only being his sister),
A one-time drunkard in Noah (who became drunk shortly after the flood after he had planted a vineyard),
Someone who initially laughed at the promise of God in Sarah (when she was told she would have a son in her old age) (and if you read the account in Genesis 18:15, you’ll also see she lied about it after the fact!),
A supplanter in Jacob (who stole his brother’s birthright),
A guy who we might call a “work-a-holic” to an extent, in that he overworked himself to the point of utter exhaustion at one point until his father-in-law Jethro talked some sense into him — And that would be Moses!
Not only that with Moses, but Moses at first was quite reluctant to go when God told him to go back to Egypt and lead God’s people out, wasn’t he?!
A harlot (in Rahab),
A murderer and an adulterer (in David),
And on and on you can go examining the lives of the people in Faith’s hall of fame, but …
What is the point in all of this?
Were these people’s sins okay?
Absolutely not! Not at all!
They were shameful, they were wicked, and these people would have stood condemned because of it!
… But they OVERCAME them!
They REPENTED!
And we can and must do the same!
So this wonderful chapter in Hebrews chapter 11 not only is great for showing true faithfulness characterized by obedience, but also deeper study of the people in the chapter reveals the sinful backgrounds that these people came out of!
1 John 1:5-10:
1 John 1:5-10:
1 John 1:5-6
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
The meaning of the word “walk” here is to “walk or LIVE” in such a situation …
So to WALK in darkness is to LIVE in darkness!
This has to do with manner of life, and Christians are NOT to have a manner of life characterized by darkness.
We’re going to look at Ephesians 6 tonight, and in that section, we’re going to see that we as Christians are at WAR with the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places!
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
This walking in the light is to be our continuous action.
When we stumble, when we get out of step, walking in the light means that we are going to allow the light of God’s Word to shine on our lives and SHOW us that, and that we must repent!
And the blood of Christ will continue to cleanse us from our sins.
1 John 1:8-10
If we say that 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 that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
This is where we say what we said earlier:
We must ACKNOWLEDGE our imperfections, we must ADMIT our sins, and not let PRIDE keep us from doing so!
We saw recently in our Wednesday night study how God cannot lie!
But if we claim to have no sin (that is, if we claim to be perfect), then we make God out to be a liar (and none of us want to answer for doing that on Judgment Day!)
Well, let’s go right on reading into the next chapter of 1 John, and then we’ve got one more place we want to go to in 1 John as well.
1 John 2:1-6:
1 John 2:1-6:
1 John 2:1-2
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
This is, again, evidence of our imperfections, but it is also evidence of the atoning work of Christ in our lives that can TRIUMPH over where we lack, if we let Him!
He is the PROPITIATION for our sins — the atoning sacrifice made in our stead!
And He is the Advocate — our defense Attorney — pleading our case before the Father in Heaven!
(The Devil on the other hand is the ADVERSARY, the chief prosecutor who wants to take us down!)
1 John 2:3-4
Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Too many Christians sheepishly say, “I just don’t know if I’m saved!”
The Bible says we can KNOW that we know Him, and it will be evident by the way we are living our lives!
Are we keeping His commandments, walking in His light, or not?!
1 John 2:5-6
But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
Finally, we want to look at …
1 John 3:4-10:
1 John 3:4-10:
1 John 3:4-6
Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
One of the shortest, most concise definitions of sin is found here in v. 4 - “Sin is lawlessness!’
Now a lot of people today take Paul’s words in Romans — “we are not under law but under grace” — COMPLETELY out of context and they say we are not under any law at all!
To which this is one of my favorite passages to go to in order to easily refute that!
Paul isn’t saying we’re not under any law whatsoever — Humanity has ALWAYS been under a moral code (law) of God!
Otherwise, there would be no such thing as sin!
And Paul talks about THAT in Romans as well!
But John talks about it here as well when he writes that “SIN IS LAWLESSNESS!” (Flat-out refusal to obey God’s law!)
Now the question in these verses becomes — Is John talking about complete moral perfection, never once stumbling at all?
OR, is he talking about habitual practice?
We’ve already stated — John’s talking about habitual practice.
And a Christian who habitually walks in the light, when the light shines and exposes sin in his life, by very nature of walking in the light, he will repent!
(If he refuses to repent, then he’s no longer walking in the light — and he is no longer of the saved!)
1 John 3:7
Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
PRACTICES righteousness!
That’s not to say PERFECTION, but a LIFESTYLE that practices righteousness!
1 John 3:8-9
He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
Is John saying a Christian never sins whatsoever — never stumbles?
No!
He’s already flatly said in chapter 1 that “if we say we have no sin, we make God a liar!”
Clearly, we must see that John is talking about a HABITUAL PRACTICE/LIFESTYLE of sin!
1 John 3:10
In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
“You shall know them by their fruits!” (Jesus said, Matt. 7:16).
Same concept as what John is saying here!
So …
What Can We Gather?
What Can We Gather?
We need to remember that we all sin:
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
“There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10).
We must readily admit that, readily admit our faults.
Confess them, as we’ve shown from 1 John chapter 1.
But in the words of a good song we sing, “There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no, not one, no not one!”
(You ever wondered if the writer of that hymn had Rom. 3:10 in mind when writing that song?)
Contrasting the fact that there’s none righteous (among us), no, not one, with the fact that there’s no better friend than Jesus, no, not one!
Anyways, Jesus makes up for what we couldn’t do!
He WAS completely perfect, and because of that, we can be complete in Him!
Will we stumble from time to time? Of course!
But like we read in Proverbs 24:16 at the beginning!
For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity.
When we fall, we’ve got to get back up again!
Repent, and keep walking in the light!