Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of 1 John. Last week, I introduced this series on the subject of sexual sin. We discussed that the turning point of this battle is to engage in a scorched earth fight to the death. It requires planting your foot, determining to hate sin, to love righteousness. And this morning we want to look at the Bible's insight further into this sin. Does it provide any help for this struggling fighter? Thankfully it does. The Bible tells us of itself that all scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished, and do all good works. And so this morning we're going to look at the subject of the doctrine of justification as it relates to sexual sin. In 1 John chapter 1, a book written about the assurance of salvation. Let me start in verse 5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him in declaring to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. We say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness. We lie and do not the truth, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. 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. We'll come back to these verses in just a minute, but in this battle and fight against sexual sin, the help that the Bible offers doesn't happen by reading a few verses, and proof texting arguments. Successfully uprooting this powerful sin requires a robust and experiential engagement with Scripture and the doctrines of justification, regeneration, mortification, and sanctification. which is what I hope to do in the next couple messages. These truths of God's word must be received with meekness and engrafted into our hearts. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is essential to the existence of Christianity. It is how a sinner is reconciled to God, cleansed from all sin. All believers are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. No other alternative exists. There are no degrees in justification. No person in this room is any more justified than any other. You cannot grow in your justification. You can't be more justified today than you were yesterday. It's a state of being declared righteous with all of your sins forgiven. That's why it's such a glorious doctrine that we just sang about. before the throne of God above and standing on the promises of God's Word that your sins and iniquities I will remember no more. It's glorious. The imputed righteousness of Christ alone justifies the sinner in the sight of God. His obedience counted to us. and our sin counted to Him. And despite the uniformity of all believers in justification, we have to experientially lean into that doctrine to provide the foundation for fighting the battle against sin. This means finding our personal identity. in union with Jesus Christ. That that is who I am. Internalizing the reality of Romans 6.11 of being dead to sin but alive to God. And so we want to look at several things this morning, three main things in this fight against sexual sin and the doctrine of justification. Number one, I want to look at gospel promises. The encouragement of gospel promises. I mentioned last week that sexual sin is in some ways unlike other sins and in other ways it has unique aspects. But certainly one way that it is like any other sin is there is only one remedy. The blood of Jesus Christ, we read in verse 7, cleanses us from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All of it. But as we look at this verse, and I don't want to get off too far on a rabbit trail, but I want to throw something out there for your consideration and for you to reflect on. But in these verses that we read from 1 John, is the primary subject that he is addressing, I'll frame it as a question, our justification or our sanctification? And the reason I say that is that the overwhelming majority of times that this verse is quoted, it is quoted from the perspective of that it relates to our sanctification and our confession of sins. And if we confess them, God will forgive them. But I want to ask a question and push on that a little bit. As I mentioned, the apostle is dealing with the subject of the assurance of salvation. Is it possible that he's primarily dealing with the doctrine of justification? And that if we acknowledge our sins and confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, has he forgiven us of all of our sins? Or, as you look at in verses 8 and 10, if we say that we don't have any sin, or that we have not sinned. I'll give you just one commentator, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, challenges this interpretation. And he says this, is John's teaching here with regard to justification only? He established that it was definitely teaching about justification, at least in part. Or does it go on to include sanctification at the same time? I suggest to you that sanctification does not enter into this phrase at all. That the whole time the apostle is concerned about our justification. That we have been cleansed from all of our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is a glorious reality. That is something that we should be vocal, I was going to say verbal, vocal about. This should fill our hearts with joy. That the basis of our assurance is that we have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ from all of our sins. as a promise to grasp. And it even says that God is just to forgive us our sins, which is maybe a hint that it's dealing with justification, because He has laid those sins upon His Son. And there is a great significance to embracing gospel promises of the forgiveness of all of our sins. Oswald Chambers said it this way, if Jesus Christ cannot deliver from sin, if he cannot adjust as perfectly to God as he says he can, If He cannot fill us with the Holy Ghost until there's nothing that can ever appeal again in sin or the world or the flesh, then He has misled us. This guarantee of the forgiveness of all of our sins does not only apply to us in the glorified state, that we are under grace And if we're going to successfully fight against sin, even sexual sin, it demands that by faith we embrace these gospel promises. J.C. Ryle mentions the necessity of embracing gospel promises to produce holiness. He says it this way, the only way to make men holy is to teach and preach free and full forgiveness through Jesus Christ. The secret of being holy ourselves is to know, experientially know and feel that Christ has pardoned our sins. Peace with God is the only root that will bear the fruit of holiness. We have to drink deeply from that well of the promises of God to forgive our sins, all of them. Why? One example or reason is that otherwise, if we don't stand on the promises of that full forgiveness, shame and guilt can sever the believer from seeking God's help. I can't go to him. He's offended. I can't ask for his help. Right? Because I have this shame and guilt. Where he's saying, come! Come to the throne of grace boldly. Not when you clean up your act. to find mercy, to find grace, to find help in time of need. But if you don't stand on those promises, you're thinking, I can't go there. He knows all about it. And so we have to lean into these gospel promises that God has given, that He has forgiven us all of our sins. And I want to lay that foundation clearly. I'll temper that in a minute with other scriptures, but we don't want to let that sink in deeply, let that saturate into our minds and hearts. That Christ has offered his life to provide the necessary access for help in time of need. Prayer enlists the power of God in the fight. and keeps it from becoming merely a battle of willpower. Like David before Goliath, if we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. Drinking deeply from the promises that Christ died for sin, even sexual sin. He bore the shame for sexual sin on the cross so that we would not have to. I like how the New Hampshire Confession states it under the paragraph of Gospel Grace. Nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth. Do you believe that? Nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth. It goes on to say, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel. Which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation that pardon was offered and it was rejected. Do we believe that? that the greatest sinner on earth could come to Christ and be forgiven for all of their sins. Do you believe that Christ can save the chief of sinners? The Apostle Paul literally persecuted and killed Christians. and was forgiven, and wrote the New Testament. Christ did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. And nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth. Do you realize how freely we can offer that? Have you ever made the mistake of seeing somebody who you thought was a great sinner and you thought, nah, Christ couldn't, the gospel doesn't go to work there. That's a trophy of grace, that it can save the great. How many in the early church do you think thought Saul was a prime candidate for the gospel? They would have thought if anybody is outside, is past forgiveness, surely Him. The woman taken in adultery in the very act. I don't condemn you, go and sin no more. The harlot, the publican, the greatest sinner on earth. There is pardon offered through the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said it this way, wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. Don't do that. The gospel is an embarrassment of riches. pardoned, cleansed from all sin. That means to be held up, exalted, and extolled that there is forgiveness in the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. So why don't we end the message there? We want to be clear there. We don't want to qualify except for certain types of sinners. We have to have that deeply into our soul. But to guard against a spirit of continuing in sin that grace may abound, the Bible tempers these gospel promises with gospel warnings. Scripture gives explicit warnings about habitual sin. We'll talk a little bit more about this this evening. So number two, gospel warnings. The scriptures provide the most earnest warnings against the toleration of any habitual sin. And we'll talk about this tonight with the doctrine of regeneration and mortification and how that plays into it. These warnings are direct. and call for sober reflection because eternity is at stake. Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. In Ephesians 5, the first two verses, we are called to be imitators of God. I mentioned last week from 1 Thessalonians, God has not called us to uncleanness but to holiness. We are called to imitate as God's dear children our Father. But then in verse three, there's a contrast. But in that high calling, but, verse three, fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. For this you know, that no whoremonger nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." That sounds like, Pastor John, an absolute contradiction of everything you just said. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Do you feel that tension? There's a tension there. It's similar to the tension that we feel between the doctrine of eternal security and the doctrine of perseverance. Right? That if you are saved, you cannot lose your salvation. But those that are saved will persevere, and if you don't persevere, you will perish. Sense that tension? So how do you resolve that tension? Paul gave this warning to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6, if you want to turn back there. I'm sure it's familiar to you. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, almost the same list here, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. I hope you feel that tension that it seems like a contradiction. And such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. These warnings carry the solemnity of eternal consequence. No professing Christian should cling to gospel promises while ignoring inspired gospel warnings. Habitual sin carries eternal consequences. So the only appropriate response is to take radical action to deal with habitual sin. And that's precisely what Christ prescribes for these sins. He said that one of your body parts should be cut off rather than your whole body be cast into hell. Matthew 5.30. J.C. Ryle says, surely a Christian should be willing to give up anything which stands between him and heaven. A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity without a cross will prove in the end a useless Christianity without a crown. So how do we navigate this tension between gospel promises and gospel warnings? God offers a full and free forgiveness for all sin, and yet God warns that habitual sin will lead to hell and you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. It's similar to the tension between faith and works. Right? You're saved by faith alone. But a faith that is not without works, right? A saving faith is not alone. There's a tension there. Faith without works is dead, being alone. And so the way to resolve the tension between gospel promises and gospel warnings, thirdly and lastly, is gospel repentance. Gospel repentance. Building on the foundation of gospel promises, heeding gospel warnings, requires the spade work of gospel repentance. It is a difficult work. Begins with confession. One man said, because sexual sin lingers in the shadows, one powerful strategy is confession and accountability. It has to get beyond confessing, well, I've had another fall. Why is confession necessary? One man said, it's powerful to speak our sexual temptations into reality in front of other men. Doesn't sound pleasant. Why? When our fantasies remain in our heads, they make sense to us. When we speak them out loud to another person, their distortion and destruction become real as we see them for what they truly are. This isn't just true with sexual sin. Have you ever had an idea in your head that just really seemed to make sense? And then you run that out to your wife and bust it out to her, and she looks at you like you fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch. And then even as you're saying it, you're thinking, yeah, never mind, that was a bad idea. Because sometimes we can, it's a power of deception in our own mind as we think that maybe this is a good thing or maybe this will, no it's not. And so sometimes just saying it to other people has a way of saying, yeah, that's not good, is it? The work of confession is getting into the specific thought processes, listen, leading up to the sin. This is key. Because it identifies the roots and access points that lead to the moral failure. It's following, it's like a crime scene where you're investigating in the light of day, with the lights on, what led to this breakdown? Let's follow the evidence. Let me give you an example. If I told you I was having a conversation with a friend, things were going well, and I'm describing this conversation, we'll say it's Phil here, just to put a name on it. Phil and I are talking, we had a good conversation, and then I picked up a knife and stabbed him in the chest a few dozen times. Anybody see a problem with that? We didn't get from here to there without some intermediate steps, right? We weren't just casually going about rejoicing in God, rejoicing in the Scriptures full of the Holy Ghost, and then neck deep into our sin. There's some steps there. And so if we're just ambiguous, and, well, it was a fall. Yeah, sorry, Phil. You would want to know, where did the conversation turn? Where did it go from you guys having a pleasant conversation? There was a turn in that conversation. If we review the transcript, we're going to know, well, right there is where it turned. That's the issue. And so as we do the autopsy, as we do the crime scene, and we evaluate the progression, okay, here's the problem where it started. This is the seed of it. And then Phil said this, and then it escalated. And then you said this, and then you're looking for a knife. There are several common pathways that counselors identify that lead to sexual sin. Self-pity, entitlement, boredom, Reward, as sick as it sounds, it's been a long day or week. Seeking comfort is a way to ease discouragement or depression. There are issues that are feeding this that have to be exposed and brought to the light. They're often not things we want to talk about. We would rather nobody know about. This demonstrates a principle in biblical counseling where it is a common thing for people to want to feel right before I do right. But God didn't design our soul that way. God designed us to think right, do right, and then feel right in our conscience. That's the way God made your conscience. So you can't wait until you feel right to do right. A primary element of deception is to be convinced to wait until you feel right. Right? I'll do this when I feel right. Honey, I'll do the dishes when I feel like it. Well, you may never feel like it. Mom, Dad, I'm just not feeling it right now. Would you take that? I hope not. I'm not feeling it today. Well, let me help you feel it. So confession and biblical accountability is tracing these clues back to unbiblical thinking that rationalizes sinful behavior of how I deserve this or how this is right. This is what makes accountability difficult. It's not merely asking, how are you doing? It asks specific questions, and if there's been a failure, it calls for intense scrutiny. It requires the one being held accountable to demonstrate what additional measures will be taken to prevent history from repeating itself. Habitual sin is not random. Let me give you another example. You maybe have heard the term retail therapy. I think this may be why scripture mentions covetousness in the list of these sins. I'm gonna pick on ladies, but no specific lady. What prompts a woman to buy a hundred pair of shoes when she hasn't worn 50 of them? I hope that doesn't hit anybody. Just illustrating the principle. Retail therapy begins when they don't feel right. They're discouraged, they're depressed, they're unhappy, and they're going to attempt to quench that thirst by another 10 pairs of shoes. Which is like a dog trying to quench its thirst by sticking its head out the window of the car going down the road. It doesn't satisfy. We'll talk about this in coming messages, but the expulsive power of a new affection to fill that void. How do you deal with that void? That I'm unhappy. When I was in college, I particularly remember this acutely. is my brother and I, when we would have a bad day or bomb a test or whatever, you know, first world problems we had, we would say, hey, let's go to Jay's Sporting Goods. A new fishing rod could go a long way in easing a bomb upon that bad day. But you understand it's not seeing Christ as sufficient To go to Him to find mercy and grace and help and to say, wait, how am I not thinking right? What am I not doing right that's causing me to not feel this way? Let's just forget all of that and let's just get a new rifle. Right? That just has a way. But you realize that once the veneer of that runs off, it doesn't fill it. It doesn't deal with it. The person receiving accountability must retrace their steps and especially their thoughts. This is why it's hard. Confession is telling on yourself. It gives up the information about where the excuses, justifications, and where the defenses have been penetrated. It evaluates the fortifications to tighten the measures to prevent another breach in security. Now, think about it this way. If Caleb came to me and said, man, I've been robbed again. They keep robbing my house. This is like the fourth robbery. And I said, well, where are they getting, I mean, what's the first question? When is it happening? In case we need to be there to meet with them and encourage them. And how are they getting in? And he said, well, they're coming in the back door. What's the next question? Do you have a lock on the back door? No. The inconvenience of that, I mean, I use that door. That's the door I go out in the morning to go to the car and go to work. At some point you'd say, like, are you serious? Are you ready to deal with this? Do you want this problem to go away? I had an animal digging holes under the foundation of my house. And I saw it, and as soon as I saw it, the big dirt pile where they're, I'm thinking, I'm gonna kill that thing. I don't even know what it is, but whatever it is, it's gonna die. And then I walk around the house, and would you believe, he had a second one. I don't know if he had a tunnel going from one to the other. And so, get a shovel and fill his hole back in. put stakes and fence and then a nice little snare for him in case he just wanted to push through. I'd have him. And so every time I come out hoping that somebody is just suffocated, dead, laying in that pile. Sorry for the graphic nature. Because I don't want that thing digging out under my house and destroying my foundation. We went to, one more example. We went to my in-laws for Thanksgiving. Jess stayed over the weekend, through the weekend with the kids, and she texted me to let me know that while she was preparing for Thanksgiving, she found mouse droppings before she left. And I was instructed to set traps and that when there were confirmed kills she would be returning. I said, well last time when the mouse came out you just screamed, freaked the mouse out so bad that both of you in the frenzy darted and you stepped on it and crushed the mouse, so that's a viable strategy. And seeing all that, I was such a good husband. She wasn't real excited about it. Jesus' call to gospel repentance was for cutting off the hand and plucking out your eye. Measures that grasp the nature of eternal life and eternal death consequences, failure's not an option. And then lastly, before I'm done, I want to talk just briefly about evaluating repentance. If there's supposed to be gospel repentance, what does that look like? I'm going to give a couple definitions, cite our confession in a couple places that are very helpful, and I'll be done. Webster's helpful in how he defines it between legal repentance and evangelical repentance. The basis of it is the gospel repentance produces godly sorrow. Like Joseph, if you remember, and I'll come back to this in future messages, in Genesis 39 when Potiphar's wife was tempting him, what was his response? How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? Gospel repentance views sin as a sin against God. So Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, distinguishes between legal repentance and evangelical repentance. Legal repentance, he says, is the pain, regret, or affliction which a person feels on account of his past conduct because it exposes him to punishment. This sorrow proceeding merely from the fear of punishment is called legal repentance as being excited by the terrors of legal penalties and may exist without a change of life. It's just the fear of punishment. Evangelical repentance is real penitence, sorrow, or deep contrition for sin as an offense and dishonor to God, a violation of His holy law and the basis in gratitude toward a being of infinite benevolence. This is called evangelical repentance and is accompanied and followed by a change of life. You see the difference? Heath Lambert, a popular biblical counselor, picks up this distinction and said, worldly sorrow is sad over losing the things of the world, while the focus of godly sorrow is God himself. Godly sorrow is pained over the break in relationship with God. It is heartbroken that God has been grieved and offended. And this is where our confession is helpful. If you read our confession on repentance, it says, God does continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified. Amen. And although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may, by their sins, fall under God's fatherly displeasure. And in that condition, they have not usually the light of his countenance restored unto them. What is that? They don't feel right. They don't feel the light of God's countenance encouraging them. Until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance. A couple more, three more and I'll be done. This saving repentance, this is the confession, is an evangelical grace whereby a person being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin does by faith in Christ humble himself for it with godly sorrow. Detestation of it and self-abhorrency praying for pardon and strength of grace, there's prayer, with a purpose and endeavor by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God unto all pleasing, well-pleasing in all things. Repentance, it goes on to say, is to be continued through the whole course of our lives. So it is every man's duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. One more, maybe the best one. Such is the provision which God has made through Christ in the preservation of believers unto salvation, that although there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation, yet there is no sin so great that it shall bring damnation on them that repent. You see how it brought those two together? There's no sin so great if they repent, which makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary. Spurgeon, repentance is to leave the sins we loved before and show that we in earnest grieve. by doing so no more. Let me close. There is a foundation of gospel promises for the believer to stand on, that Christ will justly forgive and cleanse you from all of your sins. Our past sins should not cut us off from access in prayer to the throne of grace, to find mercy in time of need. We have the promise that sin will no longer reign and have dominion over the believer, Romans 6.14. But these promises are tempered with gospel warnings about the eternal significance of this fight against sin. And this calls for gospel repentance that views sin as primarily a sin against God. Feel the tension between those truths. Gospel promises. Gospel warnings. And so we are to live, called to live in gospel repentance. Appreciating what Christ has done. Fleeing the warnings that scripture gives us to persevere to the end. Amen. Let's pray. God, we're thankful for the spectrum that your scripture gives us to understand the gospel, to understand sin, to understand repentance, to understand how they apply in our lives. I pray that the gospel promises that you give us would rejoice our soul of being reconciled to you by the death of your son. That we would stand on every promise of your word. That we can come to you and receive forgiveness. I pray for an individual who maybe thinks that their sin is too great. I pray that you would make them a trophy of your grace. that you would cleanse them from all sin. I pray that you would help us to hear your gospel warnings about the danger of continuing in a lifestyle of habitual sin. God, we acknowledge our sinfulness. Help us to walk in repentance and to continuously preach the necessity of repentance. As we long for the day when repentance will not be necessary because there will be no more presence of sin. God, we long for that day. Help us in this fight to come to your throne to find mercy and help in time of need. Help us to have a sensitive conscience to not offend you. Help us. Help us not to in our own strength confide, lest our striving be losing, but to have the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask this in His name, amen.