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So we're a full-service church
here, And I feel inclined to give you
the weather report for today, OK? Because, well, I know. And I looked it up again right
before the service, and it stands. There's a decent chance of rain
this evening as we go into the evening, and maybe a little more
rain coming Tuesday, and then some nice cooler highs and lows
in the days to follow. So I'm excited about that. But
it's still a little warm in my mind. And when you have warm
all day, and really the weekend, and then it rains, what comes
up out of the ground? And they try to crawl hugely
unsuccessfully across your sidewalk and your driveway. If there's
rain tonight, there's a good chance we're going to have worms,
right, on the concrete. That's not on the Weather Channel.
That's just my expertise talking there. And I want to start our
sermon this morning talking about Worms. This is a particular worm. It's a worm that wreaked havoc.
This worm, as far as we can tell, first appeared in 2008. But in its wake and in view of
its destruction, this particular worm, this single worm and the
worms that came from it, if you will, affected 15 million computers. As a matter of fact, it even
got into government computers here in our country. And this
one worm affected, as far as I can tell in my research, 190
countries. It was first reported in 2008.
You say, well, what kind of worm are we talking about? I hope
that one doesn't show up on my driveway tonight. Now, this is
a worm that we would also call a virus, a computer virus known
as Conflicker. Conflicker. And it started and
then continued to grow outward and update itself into different
versions. And it created at least, at the
very least, 15 million what we ended up calling zombie computers. And it was interesting with worms
and viruses like this. I'm not a computer tech guy.
I don't understand this. We have professionals in our
church that do this on a very large scale. But my simple mind
understands and grasps this definition of a computer virus. It's a program
that's launched in the past, it infects the present, and eventually
controls the future when it comes to your computer. It's launched
in the past, infects the present, and controls the future. Sounds
familiar, doesn't it? Because sometimes, well, our
lives can be defined like that based on our choices. Dark chapters
in your past can throw a cold despair into your present and
eventually end up with paralysis in your future, it seems. Especially when it comes to this
issue, this topic we've been studying together in the series
Swimming Upstream. Especially when it comes to moral
failures at every level. As we've been learning how to
swim, so to speak, we've watched David, the man of God, drown. We've listened to Paul instruct
believers who were saved out of immorality there in the city
of Thessalonica. We watched them hear Paul say,
God's called you away from that and to holiness. And it's not
just well-wishing from God. He has put his 1 Thessalonians
4.8 Holy Spirit in you. We went over to Proverbs and
we met the strange woman in Proverbs 5 through 7 and listened as a
father strained with his affections and his love for his son, his
young middle-aged school son, and appealing to him to stay
clear of this woman, of this sin, of immorality. Then we went
back to Corinth where immorality was expected and was even part
of the pagan worship. We heard Paul remind them as
well as he did to those in Thessalonica that their body matters to God. We saw in 1 Corinthians 6 that
the body is the last beachhead that sin can get to you through
as a child of God. And it's this body that we are
to glorify our Lord with. And then we went to Proverbs
5 again to catch up with the father and the son and hear him
again plead and teach his son, his children, how to remain pure. And at that point in the series,
I think we might have been appreciative of scripture's clarity, of scripture's
exhaustive treatment of this topic of swimming upstream. But
for some, and probably more than we can realize, there was guilt
that descended. Guilt at our heart level, at
our conscience level, because there have been decisions in
the past to experience something, to experiment with something
morally that was out of bounds for a holy person. There has been unceasing lust,
perhaps, memorized videos and images that you can't unsee. And there may be habits that
have been developed, either public or group or solo habits. There's been new friend circles
that's based on the culture of immorality. Maybe not people
we gather with physically, but people we gather with online
or entertainment choices. And perhaps we ourselves have
done what I called last week a cultural cannonball right into
the middle of this world. And so we listen to the series,
we listen to Proverbs and Corinth and Thessalonica and all that
we've seen. And there can be a crushing guilt
of sin and shortcomings and failure on our part. And that required
an additional sermon. And that was our sermon last
Sunday morning. And it was a sermon entitled,
Come Up for Air. And it talked about the liberating
freedom of confession for the Christian. We spent time in Psalm
32 and Psalm 51 listening to the psalm writer confess sin
and experience in that moment forgiveness. We went to Proverbs
28 13 and we were reminded of these words. If we cover or if
we self forgive our transgressions, we won't prosper. But if we confess
and forsake them, we'll have mercy, we'll find help. And we
ended That sermon, where we're beginning this sermon, and it's
with 1 John chapter 1, look at verse 9 to a verse you've memorized
without even trying. If we confess our sins, written
to Christians, the we is us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. And the invitation last week
was, if you have fallen, if there's been moral failure in your life,
thank the Lord for the convicting work of His Spirit. Thank the
Lord for the clarity of His Word. And thank the Lord for the freedom
of confession. As children, as the children
of God, our good Father forgives us when we own up to our sin. But that brings us to this morning. You might have an objection in
your heart right now. And the objection is a question.
And the question is this. What if I have confessed it?
What if I have confessed that one moment of weakness? Or what
if I have confessed that years-long habit? What if I have confessed
that dark chapter that I'm not in anymore? but no one knows
about except God. What if I have confessed it but
I can't believe I'm forgiven? What if I have confessed it and
I just can't let go of it? What if I have already confessed
it to the Lord but for some reason I cannot move forward? What if I'm confused? What if
I've confessed it? And yet, I'm stuck. I will answer your question with
a question. In your life, are confessed failures
dogging your conscience as much as unconfessed failures? If so,
you need help. It's not going to come in the
form of a pill or a therapy session. It's going to come in the form
of a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm assuming I'm speaking with
Christians now. If you're not a believer in Jesus
Christ, I have something for you in this sermon. Hang on.
Listen in, though, because I'm talking to those who profess
to be Christians. If you are still finding it hard
to have forward movement over confessed sin issues in your
life, you need to learn this morning to trust the life jacket. The life jacket of grace that
our Lord has thrown to you as his child. Trust the life jacket. The fresh air that you feel hitting
your lungs is for real. It might be jolting at first,
but as it continues to fill your lungs, it'll settle in. Or perhaps
you've come to the light, as John speaks in 1 John. You've
come out of your sin, that chapter, that darkness you've been in
morally, and you've come out to the light. And I tell you,
the light hurts your eyes at first. It's blinding. It's not comfortable. But stay
in the light long enough. And it'll get warm. And it'll
be familiar. And that light that hurt your
eyes initially will give you clarity and joy. So I'll stick
with that wording, trust the life jacket. If you've confessed
moral failures and you just don't seem to be able to get yourself
past the fact that you failed like that, trust the life jacket. So again, what I want to do as
we close down this series this morning with this message, This
one's going to sound a lot like last week. As a matter of fact,
it's outlined the same way, the same three gospel questions. I want you to wrestle with these
questions if this is you that I'm speaking to this morning.
And as last week, it's the same this week. We've done our expositional
work in this series in the previous messages. I'm being pastoral
with you last week and this week. Now we're not going to have a
fancy outline from just one text. You and I are having a coffee
together, we have our Bibles open, and we're going to look
at a couple passages together before we finish our coffees
and head out. The first question, as you learn to trust the life
jacket, you've confessed sin, how do you move on? The first
question is this, well, what are the common indicators that
this may be your struggle? The fact that you are not moving
on from confessed sin in your life. God has forgiven you in
1 John 1.9's sense, but you can't seem to move forward. I want
to see more about that. I want to know more about that
not moving forward thing. What are the common indicators?
Let me give you a couple of these quickly. First of all, this might
be you if there's constant talk If this is the constant topic
of your talk, your failure, even though it's been forgiven by
God, even though it's been forgiven by others involved, it's still
something you want to talk about. It's like when you introduce
yourself to someone, you always have to work that into the introduction,
if not out loud, in your heart. And if someone's pleased to meet
you, your thoughts are saying, if only you knew where I've been
and what I've done, though. Is it the constant topic of your
talk, what you've been forgiven? This isn't saying that we don't
remember and treasure grace and work that into our testimony,
but this is something that fills your heart and comes out of your
mouth all the time. And it's way beyond a treasuring
of grace. You're stuck. Matthew 12 verse
34 says, for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. You know what's on someone's
heart because of what they say often. I never got to, in person,
meet Pastor Mark Graham. I have a picture of him in my
office and in a book that I open up to from time to time. And
look at the guy who used to sit at the desk I'm sitting at now
and the guy I hear so much good about. But I have never met him
and didn't have a friendship with him like I did with Don
Rowe. But I can tell you some stuff about Mark Graham because
I listen to you talk, those of you who are here for his ministry.
You knew what was in Pastor Graham's heart. You knew what he treasured,
what he was thinking about when he was shaving. I mean, you just
knew what he was thinking when he was driving. Why? Because
it came out of his mouth all the time. Two things that he treasured,
and I can say this about a man I never met. Number one, he treasured
biblical counseling. He trained some of you in biblical
counseling. I'm not going to ask you to show your hands, but
if we did, I bet there would be a sea of hands that went up
that sat under his biblical counseling. He treasured the sufficiency
of scripture in helping people. And there's something else I
know that Mark Graham loved. Why? Because, according to you,
he talked about it all the time, the Detroit Tigers. So already
he's my friend. We haven't met yet. We'll meet
in heaven. He talked a lot about the Tigers, and opening day was
a big party. That's fun with biblical counseling
and Detroit Tigers, but it's not a fun thing with your struggles
morally in your past where there's been failure and you've confessed
them. But man, they're always just right here. Number two,
what is another common indicator? It's a constant topic of meditation. Number one and two are pretty
much the same. It's just number one is, and it comes out your
mouth. Number two is, whether it comes out your mouth or not,
it's always in your heart, in your thoughts. Proverbs 15, 13
says, when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. And your
spirit is broken because you're fixated on this, this failure,
even though you've confessed it. Proverbs 18, 14 says, as
for a broken spirit, who can bear it? It's a heavy load. And what you meditate on as far
as your failures in the past, either the recent past or the
distant past, what you meditate on, it's just a matter of time
before your meditation becomes a distraction. And it actually
affects how you are moving through your days. And meditation that
becomes a distraction will eventually settle into just a fixation.
It's almost like the glasses you wear to make sense out of
your days. You look at your present and
your future through the lens of your past. What's another
common indicator? that you're not getting past
confessed issues. Number three, it's a constant
topic of prayer. You say, is that bad? No. I mean,
you're praying to your good high priest who stands before your
good father on your behalf. I'm not talking about praying
that you don't enter into temptation. We're supposed to pray that in
the Lord's Prayer. I'm not praying that you don't
trust your flesh. And there's a healthy mistrust of you left
to yourself. But I'm talking about continuing
to confess the sin that God has already said He's forgiven. The
shortcoming, the failure, the revolt. There are some people that go
through their days saying, please forgive me, please forgive me,
please forgive me. Until they are mentally fatigued. Number four, what's another common
indicator? A growing coldness. A growing coldness. Number three
is talking about an act of praying that's not informed by scripture
fully. Number four, I mean, there's
a stopping of your prayer life. If you can't get past confessed
sin in your life, do you understand that this could lead to a growing
coldness, which by that I mean prayerlessness. And these are
the kind of thoughts that come to your mind. Maybe not in front
of other people, but when it's time to pray, or it's time to
get up and spend some time with the Lord, thoughts like this
come to your mind. Me? Me? Approach God? And there's a lack of an eagerness
to enter the presence of your good Heavenly Father in secret.
You never really put Psalm 130 verses 3 and 4 together. You
want to stay in verse 3. Verse 3 of Psalm 130 says this,
If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Remember
those words? Who could stand? You like that
verse. You're like, well, how do I approach
God? I mean, look what I've done.
I confess it, but look what I've done. How can I approach God?
And I want to say to you this morning, keep reading. Because
verse 4 says, but there is forgiveness with you. But for someone who won't let
go of their confessed past, there's a growing coldness. And number
five, and this is a very dark point, there's a looking for
opportunities for auto-atonement. I want to explain that. I put
that in quotes, auto-atonement. What does that mean? Self-atonement. It can get to this point, not
just with teenagers, not just with college students, But you
can be so convinced of your badness and not even worthy of the forgiveness
God's Word said you get when you confess your sin, it's as
if you just continually think you should be punished a little
more. And if something goes on between
you and someone else, you're like, I'll take the blame. I
deserve it anyway. Or? You may start inflicting
not just emotional pain on yourself by deprivation and isolation,
but you may begin, sadly, to inflict physical pain in your
body because you think you deserve it, because you feel dirty. It's as if God's forgiveness
and your confession is incomplete. and you have to finish it off.
So you see why I'm pretty earnest about this. You look at these
five common indicators and I have a question. Are you writhing
in anguish? Is this you? Are you writhing
in anguish over something that you have already confessed? The
time to tackle this is right now, so that leads us to the
second question. What are the dangerous pitfalls? You've got to face this. If I
just described to you, you've confessed sin of any size, of a moral failure, a one-time,
a habit, a long chapter, you've confessed it as a Christian and
you won't move on. There are some dangerous pitfalls
to beware of. You know, Proverbs 14, verse
8 says that it's the prudence of a man, of a woman, to understand
their way. In other words, to look at their
life, to step outside of their life and look at how they're
thinking, look at how they're acting, look at where they're
going. It's the wisdom of a man, of
a woman, to understand their way. And it's important for you to
step outside of yourself. If this is you, I'm speaking with love
and I'm pleading with you this morning. Understand where you're
heading. Because you've got problems towards
yourself, towards the body of Christ, and towards God. Towards
self, number one, you could have a real fear of death. If you
don't take care of this, you will never allow yourself to
be certain of heaven, even though God says He saves those who come
to Him. Mark Dever has written these
words, and I find them so helpful. And he's saying these to his
own church family and to us as well, as a brother in Christ.
He says, there is the problem of people who don't think that
they're converted when they really are. They know that the scriptures
teach that Christians will not be given over to sin, and so
whenever they sin, they feel the accusation of the devil,
and they tend to agree with him that perhaps they are not truly
Christians. And he continues, but my poor doubting friend,
if this is you, if you are quick to agree with the charges of
the devil whenever you sin, let me urge you not to forget God's
goodness to you. the good work that he has done
in your heart, the work that perhaps even your friends have
seen God doing in you. Consider Joan of Arc's response
when she was asked a tricky and trapping question by some judges.
She was asked whether she knows she is in the grace of God, and
she answered with these words, if I'm not, may God put me there,
and if I am, may God keep me in it. I appreciate what Deborah has
written. It goes right along with that song we just sung.
He will hold you fast. When you and I sin, in a 1 John
1 sense, the love of God does not go on pause for you until
you fix it. He loves you just as much before
you confess that sin. He uses his word, he uses the
body of Christ, he uses his indwelling Holy Spirit, he uses his kindness
in your life to draw you to a place of acknowledging your sin, confessing
it, and having freedom and liberty again, and confidence that the
fellowship has been restored, but the relationship wasn't in
danger if you're truly saved. What are the dangerous pitfalls?
Well, towards yourself, it's a fear of death because of salvation
doubts. Number two, towards the body of Christ, it could be the
absence from ministry. You just kind of fade back. Don't attend. Attend enough to
stay in the good graces of the Constitution and bylaw. But no
intentional activity and giving towards others and attending
to pray and sing together and to study God's Word together.
Oh, you may come so that the right people see that you showed
up, or you may come and stay in a silo of just a few friends, but the broader body of Christ
is missing your presence and your investment in them. And eventually, if you don't
think that God's forgiving you like he promised, guess who's
going to start being slow in how they forgive others? You. But towards God, what's another
dangerous pitfall? A blindness to his presence. A blindness to his presence in
your days. I'm not saying God leaves you. It's just that it's
just not real obvious to you how close he is. When you sing songs like we've
sung this morning, even though we have here in Revelation chapter
one that the Lord is in our midst as we worship him, you're not aware of it. Oh, you'll
sing the songs because you've got a catchy tune or they're
popular, but you just don't get into it. As a matter of fact,
you live off of other people's faith and experience. I'm not
saying this to condemn you. I'm not laying these two heavy
questions on your shoulders to crush you. I am so full of joy
and love for you that I want you to get out from under these.
You don't have to stay there. You can trust the life jacket.
If you've confessed failure, you've been forgiven. And that
brings us to our third and final question, It's a question that
reminds you and it reminds Jim Newcomer, too, that none of us
ever stray far from the cross. We don't stray far from the cross
ever when it comes to the restoration of fellowship as well as the
preservation of our fellowship with our Father. And the question
is, what is the gospel answer? What is the gospel answer? The
gospel, listen, the gospel, the good news of Christ that you've
embraced as a born-again Christian insists that you conduct a nine-point
heart inventory. We're going to do about two minutes
each one. You ready? I'm going to give you some verses.
I'll read some of them. What is this nine-point heart
inventory if we've described you as not being able to move
forward from confessed sin? Number one, observe the sincerity
of your repentance. Observe the sincerity of your
repentance. We've already looked at Proverbs 28, 13 last week.
He who covers his transgression will not prosper, but he that
confesses and forsakes it will find mercy. It is true that when
we come to Jesus to confess our sins, we have to mean it. In Matthew 3, verse 8, remember
these words during the ministry of John the Baptist? Bear fruit
in keeping with repentance. Acts 26 verse 20 performing deeds
appropriate to repentance or even in Revelation chapter 2
verse 5 when dealing with the church at Ephesus we read these
words from the Lord to his church. Remember from where you have
fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first." Written
to believers. We need to start here to observe
the sincerity of our repentance. Was it merely our feeling we
bumped into Jesus and we said, please excuse me, excuse me.
I did it again, excuse me. Pastor Kevin DeYoung has a statement
I came across just a few days ago, and it has gripped me since
then, and it's this. Repentance is more than repeated
apology. Repentance is more than repeated
apology. See, true repentance, when the
child of God confesses and turns from sin, It's going to be a
battle, yes, but there is a new discernible trajectory for that
battle towards holiness. It doesn't deny the gravity of
that sin calling back and even grabbing the ankles and tripping
her or him up every once in a while, but there's a new trajectory,
a new fight. Observe the sincerity of your
repentance. Were you merely saying, oops, sorry, Jesus, I know you're
holy and I shouldn't have done that. I apologize. Or was there
more? Was there a brokenness? Saying,
Lord, Father, I sin. And you know it already. I need
you to know I know and that there's gonna be changes by your grace. Number two, meditate on the mercy
of God. Meditate on the mercy of God.
Now, I want you to hold your finger here in 1st John chapter
1 and go with me to 1st Timothy chapter 1. A few books to the
left in your Bibles. You say, what do we find in 1st
Timothy chapter 1? Well, we're going to be in there for over
a year coming up starting next Sunday, Lord willing, as we come
to this new series. And we'll get to these verses,
but you know what's really cool about this chapter? There's a
lot that's cool, but in verses 12 to 17, watch this, we get
to read Paul's diary. He left it out, he left it open,
he's not in the room, we get to read it. Paul never got over,
listen, what he was forgiven. what he had done prior to coming
to Christ. You say, well, that's kind of
going against what we're saying this morning. Look how he remembered it, though.
That's key. If anyone had a right, so to
speak, to wonder if he really could be forgiven that much,
it was Paul. But whenever his conscience or
the deceiver pointed out what he was before, what he's done
before, he would come back and read this out of his journal.
Verse 12, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened
me, because he considered me faithful, putting me into service,
even though I was formerly a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and a violent
aggressor, yet I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in
unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant. with the faith and love which
are found in Christ Jesus." It's a trustworthy statement, I'm
telling you. And it deserves full acceptance
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among
whom I am. He didn't say I was foremost
of all. He says, left to myself, I would
go right back to what I've always been. But grace found me. And he says, I am the foremost
of all, but I have found, verse 16, mercy. So that in me as the
foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience
as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.
So how do you end this? How do you tie this off? And
Paul would say, enough talking about me. I gotta talk about
my forgiver, verse 17. To the king eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. That's
all I can say. Meditate on the mercy of God. Let me tell you something about
your sin, and I'm saying it about my sin right now too. Listen,
as a believer, you and I are supposed to be overwhelmed with
the gravity of our sin and our failures. But we're also to be
overwhelmed with the immensity and the supply of mercy from
our Heavenly Father towards us. I know I say it all the time
around here, and you've heard it, you've read it before, but
the Puritans used to say, until sin becomes bitter, grace doesn't
become sweet. It is heavy. And I promised I'd
talk to you who are here who don't know Jesus Christ as your
Savior and your Lord. Can I just have a little sidebar
with you right now? We're talking about those who
are Christians. You're listening to us talk here
of Christians who already have been reconciled with the Heavenly
Father through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We're
talking about Christians who still struggle with sin. We're
not perfect. No one makes that claim. But when we sin, it grieves
us. And because we have His life
in us and His Spirit indwelling in us, we run back to our Father
and we confess our sin. And we've never stopped calling
Him Father the whole time. As a matter of fact, we go to
Him with this confession because He is our Father. And then we
go on with our journey, treasuring grace and mercy. But if you haven't
accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior yet, you still
can't even call Him Father. There's a name that you have
for God, whether you would like to face it or not. I say this
with all the kindness I can. You can't call him father in
a saving sense. You have to call him judge. And
you will meet him. And it'll be your sin. Not just
that, not merely every act, but the fact that you are born a
sinner. The Bible says all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. That's what the judge is
going to look at. And he'll condemn those who don't
repent of their sins and come to Christ in faith. Here's the really good news.
You can do that, like, in the next four seconds. Right now. Where you say to the Lord in
prayer, in your hearts, right there in your seat, Lord, I know
I'm a sinner. I didn't need the sermon this
morning to know that. left to myself and by myself. This is
what haunts me. I might be enjoying life. I might
even be seen as others as a success. But I know I'm not ready to face
my judge. And I'm tired of being crushed
with that guilt. And I say to you, that's a loving
father who's drawing you to himself. Come to him. Confess your faith
in Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross and his victory
over the grave. Confess your sin and enjoy eternal
life. You'll be born again. Well, we must push through this
nine-point heart inventory. Number one, observe the sincerity
of your repentance. Number two, meditate on the mercy
of God. Number three, reject the mindset of legalism. reject
the mindset of legalism. Legalism is not, listen, it's
not the presence of guidelines and barriers and standards of
any sort. If you define legalism as that,
your definition is shallow and wrong and unbiblical. Legalism
is any time I do do something or I don't do something in order
to make God owe me something. That's legalism, either by an
organization or an individual. I won't do these things. Or,
I will do these things, so God, you must pay up now. That's legalism. And I'm saying reject the mindset
of legalism. You say, what do you mean by
that? This is someone that says, okay, look, I checked off all
the boxes on this confession thing, man. I've memorized Proverbs
28, 13. I've confessed, and I've done
my best to make sure I'm not a self-forgiver, and I'm trying
to chart a new course, and I'm checking these boxes at least
one time, but there's no joy in my heart. I don't feel any
better. I don't feel any different. When we're talking that way,
we've gone into legalism. If you and I confess our sin
because we're broken over it, it's like Jesus said in the Sermon
on the Mount, I mourn my spiritual poverty, and I am hungry and
thirsty for righteousness, not just a positional righteousness,
a practical righteousness that's sourced outside of myself. Until that defines us, we stay
in this legalistic mindset of, okay, I said I'm sorry, To God
and to the other person, I said I'm sorry and I just don't feel
any better. You say, what about that list
in 2 Corinthians 7.11 that I'm angry at sin, and I want to be
identified more with Jesus like I wasn't before. I want to be
more aware of his presence. And there's seven boxes, Lord, and
I checked them all. And you have to understand that
Paul himself says that his list is not prescriptive. It's descriptive
of a heart that's already truly repented. Because Paul finishes
2 Corinthians 7 verse 11 with these words after the seven little
boxes, if you will. He says, and in all of this you've
shown yourself to be innocent. You don't work these things out.
This is what comes, you don't work these things out by pushing
them out coldly and mechanically. This is something that works
its way out of a heart that is grieving over sin. Number four,
evaluate your reconciliation with man. If you can't let go
of failure in the past, maybe you haven't taken care of it
with also others that were involved or that it would impact. Acts
24, 16 and 2 Corinthians 1, 12 talk about having a conscience
void of offense, not just towards God, but towards men. We can't just leave it with God
and say, I want to talk to Jesus. Did it affect other people? Involve other people?
You've got to take care of that too. If not, you're not going
to be able to move past it yet. You still have work to do. Have
you followed through completely? Number five, guard Scripture's
theology of God. And with this, I'm thinking of
Psalm 103, verses 8 through 14, where we read of how far our
iniquity is removed from us. When God says, listen, when he
says he forgives, he forgives. He provides a restoration of
that fellowship. And when God makes a promise
regarding forgiveness and restoration, he means it. He means it. Biblical counselor John Butler
wrote these words, when you move from your experience to God,
you always distort God. You catch that? When you move
from your experience to God, you always distort God. And he
says this. Notice, I'm not saying that you shouldn't take your
experiences to God. Of course you should. Anybody
who reads the Bible, even casually, knows that you bring your experiences
to God. But when you see God only through
those experiences, you distort God. The Bible turns this upside
down. He says, start from God and then
work down to your experiences, whether past or present. Define
who God is and then bring that to bear on what's happening in
your life." That's what I mean by guard Scripture's theology
of God. In Psalm 103, in Psalm 40, in Psalm 51, in 1 John 1,
when he says he forgives, he forgives. Number six, identify
the presence of idolatry. You say, what? You could be struggling
with heart idolatry because you're not letting go of something that
you've confessed to God because you don't think you were perfect
and pristine and every noun and verb was in the perfect place
to get by with it. Your joy is sourced only in perfect
performance, even your perfect performance of sin, and you grade
yourself violently that you haven't said the right words when you
confess the sin, and then you're looking for joy. Well, now you're,
I would be so careful to say you've shifted your worship now
from the God that you're confessing to to yourself and how perfect
your confession can be. Just come running to him. Learn
from the man at the temple that says, God, be merciful to me,
a sinner. Don't try to be the model prayer.
Number seven, flee from the trap of pride. Perhaps this is part of your
story that something you've been involved in in the past or the
recent present or the distant past, morally speaking, you look
at it now and you've confessed it as sin, but you are like,
How did I get into that? I shouldn't have done that. I'm
above that. The first Corinthians 10 12 says
let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Many
of us this week in the last four days have watched the fall and
I would say of a man that is in my top five top influencers
in my discipleship for decades. I saw him drop this week to moral
failure of some sort. I can't look at that and say,
wow, how could he do that? Even though I don't know all
the details. How could someone with that type
of a reach and decades and impact in my own life, how could he
do that? 1 Corinthians 10, 12 says, Jim,
take heed, you could fall. Jim, Galatians 6.1, if a brother
is overtaken in a sin, you who are spiritual, go to them and
restore them in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you
also be tempted. There's no place for pride, even
pride over forgiven sin in your past. We all can do any sin. Period. Number eight, what will
move you forward? Treasure the intercession of
Christ. And it's here I think of Romans 8 verses 26, 27, and
34, our series on Sunday nights we're going through. You have
a high priest that's interceding for you when you're awake and
when you're asleep every moment. Let that be a soothing of your
soul. Treasuring the intercession of
Christ on your behalf delivers you finally, finally, from the
quest for the perfect faith, the perfect repentance, the perfect
confession prayer. This frees you of it, because
there's no such thing. But your high priest intercedes
for you perfectly. What you can't do perfectly,
he does perfectly on your behalf. as your High Priest. He's interceding
for you. Why? Because you are His. You are a gift from the Father
to the Son. Number nine, enjoy the freedom
of moving forward. Enjoy the freedom of moving forward
Remember Philippians 3, whatever things were gained to me, those
I've counted as loss for the sake of Christ, I count all things
to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus
my Lord. Yeah, that. You've gained Christ. You move forward. Our time is gone, so I must ask
the question. Are confessed failures dogging
your conscience as much as unconfessed failures? Then my simple challenge to you
pastorally over our coffee as we take the last sip, fold up
our napkins, get ready to go out to our cars, it's simply
this. Trust the life jacket. If Christ says he's forgiven
you, and all the whole thing. He never stopped loving you as
a father. If he says that you're forgiven, trust the life jacket. You are. You say, well, I don't see the
life jacket. Well, I ask you to hold your
finger in a place. Go back there, 1 John 1, as we close. Here's
the life jacket. You say, oh, verse 9? More than
that. This is an amazing life jacket
written to Christians who struggle with sin, like me and like you. And as you look at this life
jacket, you notice real quick there's a tag hanging off the
side of it with the small print, you know, the stuff we don't
usually read. Verses 8 of chapter 1 down through chapter 2 verse
2 is the small print on this life jacket that you can trust. Verse 8, if we say that we have
no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. In
other words, you need this life jacket. If we confess our sins,
he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness, not just some. And just in case you missed verse
8, verse 10 says if we say that we have not sinned, we make him
a liar. And his word is not in us. I'm not speaking his heart,
his truth. My little children, I'm writing
these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins,
that's verse 8 and 10 again from chapter 1. If anyone sins, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Watch
this. And he himself is the propitiation
for our sins. Too bad that this verse usually
is popular because the second half of the verse. We want to
debate what it means when it says, and not for ours only,
but also for those of the whole world. And that's a wonderful
truth there. But I want to push you back to
the front end. If everyone in the world were to repent of their
sins and come to faith in God, there would be sufficient covering
for them. Every sinner, every sin. That's what the verse is
saying. at the end. But did you miss
the first part? We were talking about your sin.
If he could, should, every person repent and place their faith
in Jesus, there would be sufficient covering. Not all of them will,
but even if they could, he's big enough of a God to be
able to do that, to forgive. So why do you doubt that he could
forgive what you've done in your past? You're just one. If he could do everyone's stuff,
he can take care of your past, confess it, and enjoy the freedom
of moving forward. Swim hard upstream every day,
not shocked by the current, but buoyed by the grace of your Redeemer. Father, thank you for this time
to be in your word as we have taken the approach of a coffee
and a pastoral talk that stands on the shoulders of the expository
work we've done in your word and the clarity of your word.
Lord, I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ who are
walking with a limp still because of past failures, past moral
failures, perhaps. I pray that today they will walk
without a limp, treasuring grace, keeping this nine-point inventory
handy so that they can help others, too, because they're going to
be able to spot others who still need to make this change, too. Thank you for your grace. Thank
you for your church. Keep us pure. Our bodies are
yours.
Trusting the Life Jacket of Grace
Series Swimming Upstream
| Sermon ID | 922241711222501 |
| Duration | 52:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 John 1:8-2:1; Proverbs 14:8 |
| Language | English |
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