That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we've 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 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. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Thus far, the reading of God's holy word. The grass withers, the flower fails, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray for God's blessing. Lord, how we thank you and how we praise you for your word. We thank you that you speak to us, Father, and we thank you, Lord, that you show us in your word our sin, that we might be drawn to your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you that there is forgiveness in him. And so, Father, teach us now. Bless he who proclaims your word and bless us each with listening ears that we might hear what you are saying to us. We do pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, many professing professing Christians today think that the very first thing that we need to tell the unbeliever is that God is love, that his very nature is one of love. And they go on to tell unbelievers that God loves everybody equally. And all you need to do is to respond to that love by inviting Jesus into your hearts. But I hope you see plenty of problems, such an approach. One, we cannot and do not invite Christ into our hearts. Apart from the work of regeneration are dead. And we are ones who invite Jesus in. It's God in his Holy Spirit who comes to us and gives us new hearts that were dead. He revives and he grants faith. taking out the good old cold heart, granting faith. You see nowhere in scripture do we see that phrase, ask Christ or ask Jesus into your hearts. What the Bible does do is it does call us to repent. It does call us to confess our sin. It does call us to believe in him. But it's not we who bring or invite Christ into our hearts. It's Christ who comes to us before we can first believe. Second thing I want to point out and second thing that is problematic with that idea of just going to somebody and saying God is love is this. Well, first, to be sure, God is love. And John is going to tell us that twice in chapter four, chapter four, verse eight and verse 16. There's no doubt that God is love. But God is not just love. God is also holy. And he's a God who does not tolerate sin. John's approach here to the people he's addressing is not first of all, God is love and nothing else matters. What he says here. His God is light. And his God is holy. There's no darkness in Him at all. He doesn't say, God is love, and you respond to that by asking Jesus into your heart. No, He begins by saying, God is light. There's no darkness in Him whatsoever at all. And then He deals with our sin, calling us to confess our sins before God. He stresses the holiness of God. This is the message. Notice how he words it here. Verse five. 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. This is not a message that John came up with. This is not a message that John invented. It's what he's heard. And it's what he proclaims. God is holy. God is light. And there is no darkness. There is no unholiness in him at all. And this is something that the world needs to hear today. God is a holy God. There is not the slightest bit of darkness in him. In fact, in that phrase, no darkness in him at all. There's what we would call a double negative there. Now, in the English, a double negative is bad grammar, and it cancels itself out, right? You know about the double negative in English, right? You get two negatives, you end up canceling each other out, and you get a positive. Well, that's not the way it is in Greek. When you have a double negative, you have it there for the sake of emphasis. In fact, you maybe could translate the phrase something like this in him. There is no darkness, none. The idea is that he is so holy that evil can have no place beside him. You might remember, of course, the reaction of Isaiah in Isaiah, chapter six of the Old Testament, Isaiah six, verse five, when Isaiah is a glimpse of the holy God, he says, woe is me. For I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. You may remember Habakkuk as well, thinking about the holiness of God and trying to grasp what God was doing in sending the Babylonians to discipline his people. Habakkuk is confused, but he's exactly right when he says, you who are of pure eyes than to see evil and cannot look on wrong. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty as we've sung already this evening. And this is a message that we need to adhere to, that we need to believe, and that we need to share with those around us And it's only when we have an understanding of the holiness of God that we will understand our sin and the great need of a Savior. We'll understand that it's not merely saying God is love and we invite Him into our heart. We have to see Him as a holy God. And then we tremble before Him when we see our sin. You cannot understand yourself. We can't understand ourselves unless we understand that God is a holy God. That's a message we need to proclaim, you see, as we think about as we go out and evangelize, we need to be evangelizing, but as we go out and evangelizing. What's the first thing you say to somebody? We're tempted perhaps at times to say God is love. And it's true, God is love. But do we neglect to tell people God is holy? And if people don't understand God is holy, they're not going to understand their sin, if they don't understand their sin, they're not going to understand their need of a savior. Today, I want to focus on two things with you. First of all, three false claims regarding sin. And then secondly, the need for confession of sin. Let's begin with the first claim, the first false claim regarding sin, verse 6. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. The heretics in John's day were claiming, you see, to have fellowship with God, but they continued to live like the world. In essence, they were saying that sin does not matter, but John clearly points out that one who claims to have fellowship with God and yet walks in the darkness, he's a liar. The truth isn't in him, no matter what he says. One who claims to know God cannot continue to walk in darkness. And if he claims to know God and he continues to walk in darkness, he is lying. He may say that he believes in Jesus. He may say, yes, I believe Jesus is Lord. But if he doesn't walk. He's not speaking the truth. In fact, I wonder. If that just rang a bell for you, another passage of scripture. Something that Jesus said. Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 to 23. Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord. Did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Now, John's point here, lest we discourage ourself or misunderstand, it is not that Christians are perfect. It's not that Christians have no sin. In fact, this very passage is very clear on that, because as we get to the other two false claims, right? Verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But you can't claim, at the same time, to know Jesus if there's been no change in your life. Now, it is not that obedience or good works save. They most certainly do not. But when God, who is light, when God, who is holy, saves a people for Himself, He's saving a people for Himself. How can we think that God would save us from the punishment of sin and yet leave us in the muck and mire of sin if he's a God who is holy and in him there's no darkness at all? Is he going to say, yes, I'll save you, let's have fellowship with you and I'll leave you right there in the midst of your sin? Of course not. When God saves somebody, when He justifies them, He gives a new heart. And He gives a new desire to serve Him. He doesn't leave them in their sin. He doesn't merely save them from the punishment that they deserve. He saves us from sin's power. He saves us from sin's dominion. He saves us from the mastery of sin. And so we who were once slaves to sin, mastered by sin, are transformed as people for God. Or that passage in Ephesians, which we all know so well, for by grace you've been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works. so that no one may boast, but it doesn't end there. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We're saved by grace, not of works, and it's not even our faith. But we are saved for works. And those whom God saves, they are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good works, not saved by good works, but saved for that purpose to do them. And so there's no such thing as a Christian whom God saves and he leaves in their sin. God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. He is holy. And in him is no unholiness. He's not going to set a people apart for himself and leave them under the mastery of sin. Now, in John's day, we talked about last time a little bit, the dose of this, that is those who believe that the body or matter was bad. Well, they say, of course, the body doesn't come from God. What do they do, or how do they then apply such things? Well, they often take the mentality of the docetists of long ago. They basically say, OK, well, the body doesn't come from God. And so the application that they often come to is, well, you can engage in immorality. You can engage in drunkenness. You can engage in any kind of sin whatsoever because the body just doesn't matter. And the spirit will stay pure. But John is saying. In this context, in regards to such a belief, you cannot say that you have fellowship with God who is light when you are still walking in darkness. Now, there are many people today, I trust you've met many people today who think in a very similar fashion, maybe for a different reason, but who think in a very similar fashion. It doesn't matter how you live because you're saved by grace. How many times have you heard somebody say that? The boast of the antinomian, that is, against the law, those who say that we don't need the law, that we're against the law. The boast of them, as I've told you in the past, is basically free from the law, oh blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still have remission. But that is not true. And John is stressing that for us here. By telling us that God is holy in him is no darkness at all. How can you think that you have fellowship with him if there is no change within you? God changes those whom he saves. Verse seven goes on. 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. Walking with God in the light leads to fellowship with others. As I pointed out last time, we who are united to God must also therefore be united to his church. And another thing we see clearly as we walk with God is that we are in need, not God, therefore, who is holy, but of a God who is rich in mercy. The more we contemplate the holiness of God, the more we ought to see, and by consequence must see. There were sinners who need a savior. And if you indeed have fellowship with God, you can know, you can know that your sins as vast as they are, are forgiven. They've been covered by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. His blood cleanses us from all our sins. We're assured of that. Those who have fellowship with God, His blood cleanses us from all our sins. Martin Luther had a dream. He had a dream that his accuser came to him and set before him afresh all of his sins. And Luther admitted them, admitted them all without seeking excuse or justifying himself in any way. But he also scrawled across the list. The blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. Praise God for his grace to us in Christ. When we come to the next false claim, false belief in verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Now, the vast majority of people today do not believe that we are born with a sinful nature. They think that man is basically good. They believe that the only thing that we inherit from Adam is a bad example. But the fact of the matter is, as we talked about this morning, that in Adam we inherit guilt and corruption. Adam's sin is imputed to us, and in Adam we have a sinful nature. That's why David, as we even said this morning, Psalm 51, verse five, would say this. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. I am simply saying from my very birth. Yeah, even from the time I was conceived, he saw he had a sinful nature. But man today and even in John's day would like to say, no, we have no sin. We have no innate corruption. But I trust you also remember from the book of Genesis, chapter six, verse five. That the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? You're born with a sinful nature. And isn't that clear to you when you look around you? Name one person you know who doesn't have a moral problem. Can you? Remember, Isaiah already quoted what was me, for I am lost. I've seen the king, sorry, skip the line, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Hosts. Isaiah looks around after seeing the holiness of God and says, I am a simple man and I dwell in the midst of a people who are sinful, who are corrupt. And actually, you know, of course I said you look around, but forget about that for a moment. Look at yourself. Is not sin deeply ingrained in your nature? Isn't it? What comes natural to you? What comes natural to you when you're offended? What comes natural to you when you're hurt? Even our best deeds as believers are tainted with sin. Think just of the sin of pride alone. There's corruption, there's sin within sin comes so natural. And so if we say. We do not have sin. That we're not tainted with it, that there's not yet a remnant, even as believers of that old man, that there's not a remnant of that old man that's yet alive in us, then we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if you have fellowship with him who is holy. I think you need to know How can you not know? But there's still sin in you. See, the greater fellowship we have with God, you see that sin. It comes out. You know, you see the corruption that yet remains. Now, the third false claim is very similar to the second, but it's not exactly the same. You can find that one in verse 10. And that says, if we have not, I'm sorry, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Now, you catch the difference between the false claim of verse eight and the false claim of verse 10. Similar, but not the same thing. Verse eight is dealing with our nature, our corruption, if you will. If we say it doesn't say if we say we have not sinned, if we say we have no sin, in other words, if we say we have no corruption, no sinful nature, if we say we have none of that, we're deceiving ourselves. Well, when you get to verse 10, You're talking about not so much that nature, you're talking about that which flows from that nature sin. If we say we have not sinned. We make him a liar, and his word is not in us. So verse 10 is talking about the actual sin that flows from that corrupt nature, where verse 8 is rebuking those who claim they have no sinful nature, no corruption. Verse 10 is rebuking those who said, no, I haven't sinned. And there are people today who claim that you can reach a stage in your Christian walk where you no longer sin. People who do that, of course, fail to understand the false claim or or the truth of what is being proclaimed as false in verse eight. Because we understood our nature, we'd never be saying, no, I haven't sinned or I haven't sinned in the past two weeks or whatever. In fact, one of the churches that teaches this Nazarenes, the Wesleyans teach, they believe that you can reach a stage where you no longer sin. And really, the only way they can get at that is by downplaying the nature of sin and the corruption of our hearts. But what do we learn here in the word of God? We are. saying that we are not corrupt, we're deceiving ourselves. If we say that we've not sinned, we're in essence calling God a liar. Why do I say that? Why does why does John say that? Because the Bible is so very clear, Romans 323, for example, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, you can't say, oh, not me. I haven't sinned in the past two months. If you're claiming that, you don't understand your sinful nature. You don't understand what sin is. You don't understand the holiness of God. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 20 says, Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. The Bible is clear. So if you say you have not sinned, you are in essence calling God a liar. Now there's a story, and I'm not sure it's a true story, it might be a fictional story, but there's a story told about Charles Spurgeon talking with a man whom claimed that he had not sinned in such and such of a time, a long time, months, I don't know how long exactly. And so Spurgeon takes this man back to his home and has a conversation with the man. And during the conversation, Charles Spurgeon gets up and he takes a glass of cold water and throws it into the man's face. And he gets up cursing and screaming, asking why he would do such a thing. To which Spurgeon responded, it seems that the old man is quite alive, and it only took a glass of cold water to wake him up. Sinful nature is there, isn't it? There's also a story of a woman, and I can't remember if this was with John Gerstner or if it was someone else, a woman who told her pastor, basically said, and the pastor responded, I suppose you're very proud about that, aren't you? And she said, yes, I am, and didn't see the problem with what she just said. Those who think they have not sinned fail to see the corruption within, and thus they're ultimately calling God a liar because the Bible tells us that we do sin. So, brothers and sisters, once we realize our sinful nature and the actual sin that flows from it. Clearly, we need to confess our sins. For God has given us a sure and a certain promise. Verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We ought not to falsely defend ourself, making excuses, shifting the blame. And we know that we can come up with all kinds of excuses. Those excuses sometimes come natural too, don't they? I couldn't help it. The serpent deceived me and I ate. The woman you gave me gave me some fruit and I ate. Nor should we have a complacent attitude, oh well, nobody's perfect. We need to confess our sins as that which is cosmic treason, rebellion against he who is holy, who has no darkness in him whatsoever. We need to confess our sins. Proverbs 28, verse 13, says whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Or we know when David concealed his sin, he felt as if the very bones of his body were being crushed. When I kept silent, Psalm 32, three and four, when I kept silent. My bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up by as by the heat of summer. He learned to confess it took time, but he learned to confess. What is it to confess our sins? To sum it up, to admit them to God, to fail, I mean, to not cover them up, to make no excuses, no but, simply agreeing with God, we are sinners, I have done this, I have done that. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, I often like to emphasize 1 Corinthians 11, verse 31, which says, but if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. What does it mean to judge yourselves truly? Comment yourself with the same judgment God has. What's that? We've sinned. We're guilty. We need to admit and confess our sin, not cover it up, not make excuses. And we ought to name our sins before God. I like what the Confession says, chapter 15, paragraph 5, men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance But it is every man's duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins particularly. I like that phrase. We are to strive, right, to repent of our sins, our particular sins particularly. Now, surely we will fall short in our confession. But we ought not to be satisfied with a general confession that says, Lord, I'm a sinner, forgive all those sins. We ought to aim at, Lord, I've done this. I've blown up at my wife today. I was impatient with my children. I was I did I. We ought to aim at confessing our particular sins, particularly. We'll never get them all. But that's the aim. And yet we do see here that God is faithful and just to the confessing sinner. God is faithful. He's faithful to his covenant promises of forgiveness. God will and God does forgive those who are his. Those confess their sins and come to him. Yet it also says that God is just, and that's an interesting word there, isn't it? I mean, we understand that God is faithful, but in this context of forgiveness, it says that God is just. That makes sense to you. I mean, that God is just forgive. Some, of course, think that if God is just, he must punish us for our sins. But the fact of the matter is, God is just and he forgives us in a way that is just. Talk this morning again about our sin being imputed to Jesus Christ. Christ takes our sin upon himself. He pays for it on the cross, and God is just, therefore, in forgiving our sin, because Christ has met that punishment. But also, we have to look at it this way. If you are in Christ, Christ has paid for your sins, and God is not, therefore, going to be unjust and say, OK, Christ paid for your sins, but I'm going to make you pay for them as well. Kind of maybe think of it this way. If you go out to eat with another family and they pick up the tab. And you go out after them. Would the waiter ever say to you, Oh, no, no, no. Yes, so and so already paid for you, but you need to pay to. God is just. And if you're one of his children who has confessed your sin, Christ has paid that penalty for you in full. And God will not be unjust to say, OK, now you have to pay for it. Christ has paid for it in full. The wages of sin is death, and Christ took that punishment in our place. And God will not ask of it from you. And notice for those who have confessed their sin, it says God does two things for us. One, he forgives. And he cleanses. He forgives us. And that he cancels out a huge debt that we owe to him because Christ pays for it. He wipes it out completely so that we can appear before him as if we have never sinned. And it doesn't matter what that sin was. If you're resting in Christ as he's offered in the gospel, you have been forgiven. Sometimes perhaps we can tend to think that we're too bad. Too bad to be forgiven. And the truth of the matter is probably worse than we think. But God's graciousness is greater than we think. And if you've confessed your sin, it is not beyond God's grace to forgive. The gospel is amazing. But not only does he forgive, it also says he cleanses. But as God purifies us, he makes us holy in his sight, not just wiping out the debt, but the righteousness of Christ being charged to us so that we are seen as perfectly clean, perfectly righteous in his sight. Well, how does God do this? How can a holy God? Who has no darkness in him, how can he forgive our sin? Brothers and sisters, that's verses one and two of chapter two. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. Christ has come into the world, and we'll be digging into verses one and two in greater depth next time. Brothers and sisters, your sin is great, but your Savior is greater. Let's pray.