Seeking Forgiveness
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Sermon Scripture
Sermon Scripture
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The first question to answer in our text is the “we”
Given the context of John’s letter and what is being said by the Holy Spirit I interpret it as...
We = testifiers to the person and work of Christ
We = literary (including us) vs 6 on
I do have to tell you that there are those who take the interpretation...
We = not for you (this is popular in the dispensational view)
This morning I want to highlight something for you from scripture in various text that will show us what is meant by “forgive us our sins” or rather what cannot be meant by it for the Christian (the context of this text).
To do that we have to look at history, for I fear that the church (and I say this not to be critical…I love the church of Christ) but it in many ways in the mainstreme has gotten highly unbiblical. Now this is not the first time, and history reveals this to us.
There was/is something in History called Romanism or Roman Catholicism.
It held a philosiphy of church a “doctrine” and/or understanding of Christianity that was far from biblical. It was built upon...
Faith
Scripture
Tradition
Works
Sacraments
There came a time and people of protest: Protestants
They looked seriously at the word of God and found that “tradition” should not play any part in our understanding of what Christianity is.
This was called the Reformation or Protest of Romanism
This led us to scripture only and faith only or faith alone and scripture alone and the remaining “sola’s” as they are called.
In the study of this, the reformers immediately saw that:
*Spiritual life precedes faith
Now, what has happened in the years following?
Catch this, because it is important.
The church has almost totally has returned to pre-refermation. It is a church of:
Faith
Scripture
Tradition
Works
Sacraments
Why has this happened?
Well in the words of Scripture: O you people your leaders cause you to error. ()
It is very difficult to find a sermon in main stream Christianity that is scripturally true.
As one of my “dwelling with the Lord mentors” has stated:
“Christianity is not practice, Christianity is doctrine, the gospel is not a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the gospel is not realizing that you are a sinner and need a savior. The gospel isn’t any of the 100 cliches that you hear. The gospel is a statement of historical fact. It is that simple. The good news is simply a statement of a fact of history. Jesus Christ died for your sins, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day. That’s the gospel.”
Now everybody ask: what do I do about that?
What do you do about any good news?
What if I don’t believe it? That is between you and the Lord. Don’t take this wrong, but your belief is not my problem. Simply meaning...
I can’t tell you how to believe. I only state the fact of who Jesus is and what He did.
I only tell you that Jesus Christ died for your sins, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day.
Do you believe it? If you do, then it is because you are His sheep.
And that my friends is what the reformers found out.
2 Corinthians we are told
17 For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.
Don’t let us handle this book deceitfully to manipulate the masses. I don’t care what people write about the book. I care what the book says.
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
John 5
“he who hears my word, and believes Him who sent me, has”…These are, participles meaning they are concurrent or precede the action of the main verb.
The reason that you hear or believe is not because you made some kind of decision.
One of the great discoveries of the reformers, if I can put it so bluntly without you turning me off, is that man has no “free will”.
(now please don’t take my word for it. Search the scriptures for such a phrase or even an idea of it)
Even still saying that today in many Bible touting churches will get you thrown out of a majority of churches. You have to hear this church.
Immediately in the theology of “free will” you become Roman (Catholic) in your theology. You are no longer Protestant. You no longer recognize that it is scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone. You become grace + which = no grace at all but is works dependent or “will” dependent.
And what happens in the majority of churches is that there is a large amount of time explaining how you doing something as an act of your own “free will” is actually God’s grace but your doing. And thus the logic goes on and on…to .... “you must now do more”...
He that hears, he that believes does so because he has everlasting life.
He that hears, he that believes does so because he has everlasting life. He has passed out of death and into life and thus, He hears and he believes because he is alive!
He has passed out of death and into life and thus, He hears and he believes because he is alive!
Christiansity is doctrine. Meaning it is propositional.
Here is the proposition:
“He (the believer) will not (absolutely will not) come into judgment/condemnation, but has already come out of death into life.
Now anytime you or anyone departs from that statement spoken by our Lord, then you have departed from the scriptures and your doctrine, your theology, your consistancy of biblical interpretation will be lacking at best.
Now think for a moment. We are in the gospel of John reading this statement.
John 1:9
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
John 1:
9 There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Now answer me this from the text, whose will is the believer, the enlightened man not born of?
Not of blood or of the will of the flesh
Not of the will of man
Now answer from the same text whose will the believer is born of:
The will of God
So then, what gives birth to the believer, the so called freed will of man or the perfect will of God?
It is the will of God and thus let all glory be His.
In case you haven’t picked it up yet…this modern “evangelism” of being born again by your will is absolutely unscriptural.
The reformers new it and fought hard to escape the dangers of it. And there is a danger in it my friends.
It is teaching a lie, it is leading people to err.
Nobody convicts but by the will of God. God is behind belief not man.
Now if we jump forward to chapter three, we see the Lord saying that if this isn’t true, if one isn’t born of God, then they cant see the kingdom of God.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
So what do we do? We leave doctrine and immediately say,
“I must have to do something to be born again. And whatever it is that I have to do, I must want to do it, because I want to see the kingdom of God”
But wait: you were already (believer) and were told in chapter one that you were born from above by the will of God.
Thus this isn’t a dreadful type of “have to do something statement” but is actually a glorious gospel truth, that you will see the Kingdom of God.
Put your frantics of big evangelical meetings behind you.
This concept where 1000’s of people accept Christ with a year later maybe one of them going to church, the majority are now more bitter towards the church and some are seeking rededication at the next emotional ceremony. There’s something wrong. More than philosophy it is...Doctrine.
says, if is not true then you can not see the will of God.
Unless you are born of God’s will and not of mans will then you cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Well, go to John the 5th chapter
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.
If you hear and believe then you are born by the will of God and have eternal life (already) and absolutely will not come into judgment. You can not have it and loose it. You believe because you have it, and if you have it, then you have it.
47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
John 5:24
He who believes has or already has eternal life. Belief does not precede life.
That is the teaching of the reformers.
It was the fundamental basis of the “protest” of the reformation.
It is not of works, so that no one can boast
47 He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”
26 But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.
This is the truth of God, and we must be cautious not to depart from it.
The reformers would say, “Im righteous because of Christ, not because of anything that I do. For by one mans disobedience the elect were made sinners and by the same way, by the obedience of Christ, the elect were made righteous.”
Our righteousness is because of God:
30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
So now you put off the Old man and put on the New man not in effort to obtain the new man but because you are a new man created in righteousness.
1 Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ:
Now 1 John:
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Forgive - apheami
Would you suggest or accept that if you do not confess your sins then He is not faithful and just/righteous?
Would you say that if you don’t confess your sins, then that is a sin that Christ didn’t die for?
You have clear testimony in scripture as we covered last week that He has already forgiven you all trespasses and sin.
Maybe the question is what is all?
Many Christians say or believe that all is all of the sins up until you receive Christ…boy does that put a damper on receiving Christ.
No friends, you are judicially forgiven.
Think on King David. Many say that God forgave him because he confessed his sin. Yet you have an issue because long before David confessed his sin, he was told by the prophet Naman that God had put away his sin. God had already done it. God put away David’s sin, not because of a song but because of God.
Do you realize that God has left many sins behind which many Christians still carry?
Sin burdens, not God’s lack of forgiveness.
Practice comes out of doctrine, practice does not make doctrine.
When you sin, then you have to ask, how does God handle that? He laid it on Christ.
Sin burdens, not God’s lack of forgiveness. Sin breads a type of seperation, but God has not abandoned or forsaken you. Your sin has damaged your fellowship with God, but not your standing as a child of God. Thus you need to renew your mind, and remember who you are and whose you are.
This is where we come to the word forgiveness (apheami) that we are speaking of.
This form of the word is one of acknowledgment and renewed fellowship. It is a relationional forgiveness. It is a sending away or a yielding.
It is one where confession is met with great rejoicing, not condemnation. Rather confession moves to fellowship because of what God has already done and who you already are in Him.
Legally you are forgiven, prefectly and completley…past present and future. Yet you sin. How can you go before God? How can God forget your sin? He looks upon Christ.
If you have a sin that is burdening you, ensnaring you and you bring it to God, then God remains as He is, faithful and righteous in the putting off of those sins from you, the un-burdening of those sins.
And so we pray “forgive us our trespasses” not in a attempt to re-crucify Christ, but in acknowledgment of who we are. And so when others come to us confessing a wrong that has damaged relations, we forgive others their trespasses, not base upon the offence but upon how God sees them and how He has dealt kindly with us.
Your not getting salvation back…you never lost it. You are remembering who you are, confessing what is not true of who you are in Christ and thus experiencing God’s cleansing of your conscience and renewed fellowship with His errand child.
It is important that you know this believers. As believers we get dirty, we stumble, we do what believers don’t do and if we missread we may think that we are forever a less than believer or worst yet that we are not a child of God. Believer, confess your sin and God will direct your path even still and forever.