[0:00] Amen. Speak to us, God, from your word tonight, we pray. Help us not only to understand it so that our minds are informed, but help us to follow it so that our lives are reformed and indeed transformed by your word so that we may walk in your light following the Lord Jesus Christ.
[0:25] Amen. Amen. It began with good intentions, an earnest desire to be holy, to be pure, to become more purified from sin.
[0:42] And so for a Christian, meeting with another Christian to encourage each other in a greater walk of holiness and purity in their Christian lives, beginning with good intentions.
[0:54] And that couple of Christians perhaps meeting with a few more and becoming a group of mutual encouragement, that they become more holy, more pure. Special prayer meetings for them.
[1:07] And as they found others who had a similar keen desire to draw them into that rather special fellowship, seeking a higher, purer Christian walk and Christian life.
[1:20] And so organizing some special meetings along with the prayer meetings, starting a convention, gradually seeing themselves more separate from the world so that their lives are less tainted by the world, becoming purer, becoming holier.
[1:39] And at the same time, a mounting frustration with the observed compromise of morality and purity that they saw within other Christians and within the Christian church at large.
[1:53] So not only a distancing from the world for the sake of becoming holier and purer, but also some separation from the church at large as well. And so the small group meeting for mutual encouragement can so easily become almost like a clique, like a little special group, gradually separating not only from the world, but also separating from the church.
[2:22] Began with good intentions. And church history is littered with those sorts of good intentions that perhaps lead too far. So I'm not actually referring to one specific example there, but there are many from church history from the first century through to the 21st century, indeed.
[2:42] Indeed, in the last decade in Melbourne, within Anglican and Presbyterian churches in particular, a holiness group called the Fellowship that has sort of cut itself off not only from the world, but from the church to an extent.
[2:56] In fact, harming family life and church life for a noble pursuit of becoming holier and purer in their living. Often right motives leading to a greater separation, not only from the world, but from the church, drifting into secessionism or breaking away from the established church in order to have a purer church here on earth.
[3:24] But what so often happens in those movements, whether it's in this fellowship group in the last decade in Melbourne, whether it's in the Wesleyan holiness movement, whether it's in the setting up of Keswick conventions a hundred or so years ago in England, whether it's holiness movements after the Reformation period in the 16th century, or whether it's holiness movements that go back hundreds and hundreds of years to early church times, so often there's a theological collapse into legalism.
[3:53] Rules about what make you holy, don't drink, don't smoke, etc., etc. Rules that are above and beyond the scriptures themselves, but holiness that sort of collapses into a list of rules, into a legalism under which such people often strive to live.
[4:11] Of course, there is this noble and right intention to live holy lives, but sometimes it's wanting too much too soon.
[4:22] It's wanting to bring forward the perfection of heaven here and now. And we find in the scriptures this great tension between the perfection of heaven that awaits us on our arrival there or on Jesus' return, and yet the signs of heaven now through the work of God's word and spirit in our lives and that tension of being in the world but not of the world, of belonging to the kingdom and yet not being, in a sense, in the fullness of the kingdom.
[4:49] And so the drift into legalism towards wanting too much too soon of heaven. And yet how easy it is to swing the other way.
[4:59] That is, you drift off in this pursuit of holiness, which cuts you more off from the church and from the world and ends up with a set of rules and an imbalance of theology.
[5:11] But on the other hand, how easy it is to swing the pendulum too far the other way as well. And so we often see, in our own day and age, close at hand in many respects, a church that has no eagerness to be pure or holy, that has no eagerness to be different from the standards of the world in which we live.
[5:36] In fact, all too often, in our modern Western world, we see a church that is in denial of sin, as though there is no such thing as sin.
[5:47] Sin has been redefined in our society and that's been adopted too often holus bolus by so many churches. So in our society, well, theft is not really theft.
[5:59] It's you needing more than someone else that justifies you taking what they've got. But so often, of course, theft is justified by the poor upbringing, the poor education, the bad government, the poor circumstances, the single parenthood, etc.
[6:12] that has led to that situation, the psychologizing of it away, the justification of it by environment. So it's no longer sin. Of course, adultery is no longer adultery.
[6:26] It's just having an affair, which is such an innocent sort of expression. Selfishness is no longer selfishness. It's claiming your own rights. It's your right. Stand up for it.
[6:37] Claim it. I used to walk past a sign every day when I used to live in Brunswick and study at theological college that said, be self-assertive. And that offered classes to be self-assertive, which I wondered whether that was an excuse for being selfish.
[6:53] You see, so many of the declining moral standards of our society actually infiltrate and are adopted by so many of our churches. There is no desire for holiness.
[7:05] Let's just be like the world. We're more accessible to the world. We'll win more converts for God if we're just like the world's standards. And church history is dotted with those movements as well, from the first century to the 21st century.
[7:18] And all through church history, you can see the pendulum swings one way or the other, or both even at the same time. And the desire for holiness that leads to a legalism, an imbalance of theology, a separation from church and world, and the pendulum swing to being liberal or libertarian, adopting the world standards, redefining sin, denying its existence.
[7:39] And on both swings, whether it's the holiness swing or the liberal swing, the theology that surrounds such a swing, collapses away from the doctrine of grace into legalism or into what's called antinomianism, the opposite of legalism, where there's no rules, anything goes, anything's all right, by a sort of God who's little more than a benign Santa Claus type figure.
[8:07] The gospel of Jesus Christ is finally balanced. It's profoundly balanced, in fact. It's neither legalistic nor libertarian.
[8:21] It treats sin absolutely seriously, but yet it has a method or system for a holy, a perfectly holy God relating to sinners.
[8:34] And what weaves together the gospel so that it hangs together and sits profoundly and finely balanced is the doctrine of the grace or mercy of God.
[8:50] God is light. God is light. Not a statement that you might expect if actually grace is the underpinning doctrine of the gospel.
[9:01] God is light could well lead us to a view that nobody could have any relations with God, because if he's pure light, we're surely falling short like Isaiah, the prophet, who throws himself down in his vision of the temple.
[9:14] Woe is me, a man of unclean lips. How can I have anything in effect to do with such a holy God? God is light. It's a striking way for John to start his exposition of the gospel in this letter in chapter 1, verse 5.
[9:29] No room for sin if God is pure light. As verse 5 says, And of course, if we stop there, we could well say, well, there's nothing to do between God and humanity, surely.
[9:57] But as we'll see, that's not quite the case. And what happens in this passage tonight is that John gives three wrong or three errors that he then refutes.
[10:09] Three errors that were current in the thinking of his readers. It seems probably in this letter under the influence of some false teachers. God is light is the starting point.
[10:23] And John then refutes this trilogy of errors with three counter statements to show their falsehood and the correct way of thinking and living.
[10:37] Each of the three errors begins if we claim or if we say such and such. That's the error. And then it is followed in a subsequent verse by, but if this happens, then that's the truth that follows.
[10:50] The errors we find in verses 6, 8 and 10 and the corrections we find in verses 7, 9 and the beginning of chapter 2. That's the structure of the passage we're looking at tonight.
[11:03] The context is John is wanting to urge his readers not to be sucked in by the false teaching that they've been hearing, but to get the gospel right in its profound and fine balance.
[11:15] The first wrong claim, the beginning of verse 6, is if we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness.
[11:26] Walking is a metaphor, if you like, for living. The ongoing, normal, regular practice of life. And John is refuting here the idea that people can live a life of darkness, of moral darkness in effect, and yet still claim to be in fellowship with a God who is light.
[11:49] That is, there is no place for dark and light to meet. In God, if God is light, there is no darkness in him at all. If you're walking in the darkness, you cannot at the same time have fellowship with a God who is a God of light.
[12:04] That's the error that John is referring to here. He's not referring to the view that somebody might have an occasional moral lapse. He's referring to those who consistently, blindly, and blithely continue in darkness of sin in their general practice of life.
[12:23] Now this is the libertine sort of gospel, the liberal gospel, if you like, that fellowship of God comes without any moral demands at all. God is so benign and so loving, whoever you are, it doesn't matter what you are, who you are, what you do, you're in fellowship with God.
[12:42] There is no moral demand in the gospel. And this is our society in a nutshell, isn't it? It's our society both outside the church and sadly so often within the church as well.
[12:54] Spirituality without morality. That's our world. There is a spiritual smorgasbord out there, whether it's in those festivals of New Age or in the books you find in bookshops.
[13:07] There's a spiritual smorgasbord, but you'll find the pages on ethics or morality in them absent, unless you come to the Christian gospel in the end.
[13:20] You see, for such a view, sin is no barrier to God. He turns a blind eye to it, sin's redefined. It doesn't matter, you're in fellowship with God, whoever you are, whatever you think, whatever you do.
[13:32] It's no gospel. It's the liberal view. God's like an absorbent sponge or a cuddly teddy, absolutely without demand on our lives.
[13:46] Come as you are and stay as you are, is the slogan of such a message. Cheap grace, if there is any grace at all. But John replies in the end of verse 6, if this is our claim, that is, we have fellowship with God, but we still walk in darkness, we lie.
[14:09] And we do not do what is true. It's a fairly blunt rebuttal to those who make such a claim. You lie. It's a falsehood.
[14:20] He's not saying, well, that might be your opinion, but my opinion's a bit different. He's saying this is not a matter of opinion. It's not true, that claim. It's falsehood.
[14:30] It's a lie. Someone may not realise it's a lie, but it is. They may have been deceived into thinking it's true, but it's wrong. It's not just a matter of opinion, you see.
[14:42] It's a matter of truth and falsehood. And to claim that you're in fellowship with God while you walk in darkness is lying. Because you're not in fellowship with God. That's what John's saying.
[14:52] If you're walking in darkness, you're not in fellowship with God. You might think you are. You might claim that you are, but you're not. For all the spiritual experience that you might have had, you're not in fellowship with God if you're walking in darkness of sin.
[15:09] That is, the ongoing practice of sin prevents fellowship with God because God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. But the correct way of thinking and living, John then gives in verse 7.
[15:24] The correct life in the beginning of verse 7 is to walk in the light as God himself is in the light. And then there are two benefits that flow from that.
[15:35] Firstly, we have fellowship with one another. That's a surprising thing for John to say, given that the wrong claim was we have fellowship with God, but we walk in darkness.
[15:46] Why doesn't John say if you walk in light, you've got fellowship with God? Why does he say you've got fellowship with one another? Well, the two go together. Fellowship with God will lead to Christian fellowship with one another.
[15:58] John made that clear back in verse 3. If you were here on Christmas morning, I preached on that passage. We declare to you what we've seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
[16:11] That is, fellowship between Christians occurs when there is fellowship with God. And so for John to say, if you walk in the light, then you've got fellowship with each other implies already fellowship with God.
[16:25] But he's taking it one step further in his argument. Christian fellowship flows from fellowship with God. And if somebody then is walking in darkness, that is in sin, they're not in fellowship with God, nor are they in fact in fellowship with other Christians.
[16:46] They might sit on a pew. They might sing the hymns. They might even put the money in the plate. They might serve supper. They might be on church committees, in Bible study groups.
[16:59] They might help look after children or youth or play music. But if they're walking in sin or darkness, they're actually not in fellowship with other Christians. For all that they do and all that they contribute, there is no fellowship with such people.
[17:15] In addition, John here is correcting the tendency of some of his readers under the influence of false teachers to secede away from the church, to break away from the true teaching of the gospel.
[17:31] On this case, for the liberal cause. John is saying, if you go down that path, you don't have fellowship with us. You're completely cut off from us and from the truth of the gospel and fellowship with God.
[17:47] There's a warning here, I think. Beware those who boast fellowship with God have no concern about morality in such a boast and show little value or honour.
[18:02] In fact, show disdain for church fellowship. Such people we must beware of and not follow. For the package all goes together when it's true and right.
[18:15] Fellowship with God, fellowship with other Christians, walking in the light. They all go together. It's not one or two of those three. It's all of them.
[18:25] Fellowship with God, fellowship with Christians and walking in the light. If you have one, you've got them all. But if you miss one, you miss them all. And that's John's warning here.
[18:39] And beware those, or notice here too, the high view of Christian fellowship that John has. See, it's not simply a matter of you in your personal relationship and fellowship with God.
[18:51] When you're in fellowship with God, you are essentially and necessarily in fellowship with other Christians who hold also to the truth of the gospel. Don't sit light to church fellowship is the implication of this.
[19:06] If you're in fellowship with God, then you must be in fellowship with other Christians as part of church and your contribution and your life and commitment. The second benefit that walking in the light brings at the end of verse 7 is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
[19:25] Here is John describing someone who walks in the light and yet they need the blood of Jesus to cleanse them from all sin. That is, walking in the light in John's terminology does not mean a perfect person.
[19:36] It means a person who is not continuing happily and blithely a way of sin. But nonetheless, they're still sinners. And the blood of Jesus, he says, cleanses you from all sin.
[19:51] Someone whose intention and desire is to live a holy life, living or rather walking in the light, that is the person for whom the blood of Jesus cleanses them from all sin.
[20:03] Notice here that God may be pure light, but the blood of Jesus brings sinners into fellowship with the pure light.
[20:14] Not our perfect life, brings us into fellowship with the pure light. The blood of Jesus brings us into fellowship with God who is pure light.
[20:26] That's grace. Not our own perfection, but God's grace. And the blood of Jesus is the way of speaking of the cross, the death of Christ on the cross to take away our sins, to forgive us and cleanse us from sin.
[20:41] It was a sacrificial death, powerful death to deal with sin and its penalty and its power. And in this verse, it's not only to forgive but to cleanse, to purify from sin.
[20:55] Not that we no longer sin, but that sin's power is broken by the death of Jesus and his blood shed for us. The sense of the verb when it says to cleanse us from all sin by the blood of Jesus is a continuous sense.
[21:13] Not just that once the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and that's it, but that the blood of Jesus keeps on cleansing us from all sin. That is, it's an ongoing act or process even in the Christian life.
[21:28] So what you see here in getting the correct view from John against the tendency to holiness or liberalness is that grace holds it all together.
[21:39] God is light. In him there is no darkness in all. But the grace that makes it work is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
[21:51] A high view of sin matched by a high view of mercy or grace. the second error comes at the beginning of verse 8.
[22:02] If we say we have no sin that is that there is no sinful nature in us is the sense of what's being said there. In a sense that's a view of our society our humanist world we have no sinful nature we're basically good people.
[22:21] And oddly enough you sort of see that portrayed by so many about the late great Kerry Packer in the last few days. As though somehow he wasn't a sinner he was a normal bloke because he liked eating at Maccas.
[22:35] I mean really how pathetic. Well John has no time for this sort of humanist heresy that we have no sinful nature within us. Verse 8 goes on to say if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
[22:52] He's just said the first wrong view is lying in effect he's saying the same thing you deceive yourself you've fallen for falsehood the truth is not in you. And again the sense is you keep on deceiving yourself as though almost it's a deliberate thing your refusal to face up to the truth and reality a deliberate delusion a fantasy even that there is no sin in you.
[23:21] John's in effect saying it's self-evident that there is sin in you. Look at your life. How many of you have made New Year's resolutions today and you know that in one month let alone 12 you won't have kept them.
[23:32] That is you and I can't meet our own standards how hard it will be for us to meet God's. If we summarise God's standards as loving our neighbour as ourself and God with all our heart soul mind and strength I'm not going to get many days into 2006 before it's very clear to me when I look in a spiritual mirror that I've fallen far short of the standards of God even if it might take me a few more days before I fail my own standards.
[23:59] It's a lie to claim we have no sin in us and again the correct view comes in verse 9 if we confess our sins he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[24:18] The correct view is to confess our sins and again there are two benefits that flow from that in the second half of verse 9. To confess our sins firstly here in this context is to admit them and own up to them to take responsibility for our sins.
[24:35] we might think oh yes that's fairly clear but how rare do we do that? How often do we fail and we brush it off or excuse it as though something's caused it that's not me?
[24:49] I'm running late so I blame it on the traffic or on something else rather than my own disorganisation or if I forget to do something that I was going to do I excuse it in some ways being too busy or I've got a cold or something rather than my own failure to do what I promised to do.
[25:07] How often when we fail do we blame our parents or our government or our education or the pressure of our brother or our sister or whatever it is? That is it's so easy for us not to own up and confess our own sins and when John here says we confess our sins he's not meaning that we say to God God I'm a sinner I've done lots of things bad he's saying in effect confess the specifics of the sin I've lied today I've lusted today I've been proud today I've been lazy today or whatever it is that's what John has in mind indeed some would argue that actually the context is public confession of specific sin because every time the word confess is used in the New Testament it's not that often four times I think it's in a public context well the closest we get in our Anglican service is sometimes saying together a general confession prayer together the danger of that is that it never forces us or we're never forced to confess individual specific sins in our own life as we ought again the context is a present sense of or a continuous sense so it's to keep on confessing our sins
[26:22] John doesn't have in mind here that somebody can confess their sins and all of a sudden now be perfect he's got a very clear view that a Christian no matter how holy no matter how mature as a Christian still is a sinner doesn't mean they're walking in darkness that is it's the direction and the intention and the desire of your life that matters and along the way you keep on confessing your sins and God keeps on cleansing and forgiving and they're the two benefits of verse 9 forgive and cleanse and here the sense of the verb is a one-off because as you confess one sin God will once forgive and cleanse that sin and he's done with it that is God doesn't have to keep on coming back to forgive that one specific sin know that it's forgiven if you say I lied on the 4th of January 2003 in a particular context God's forgiven you if you've confessed that sin he's not going to need to forgive you again for it but he will need to forgive you again if you lie again in a different situation all day or context or whatever and that's the sense of what's being said at the end of verse 9 but verse 9 is also quite profound if we confess our sins
[27:38] John doesn't just say God will forgive us and cleanse us he says God who is faithful and just will forgive and cleanse us now in a sense the faithful bit's easy God is faithful because he promises in the scriptures to forgive us because of Jesus dying for us on the cross so God is faithful to the promise to forgive if we confess our sins know that God is faithful and he's really forgiven you you may not feel any different but you are forgiven and for example we find promises in the Old Testament that under the New Covenant through the saving death of the Messiah forgiveness is real but he also says he that God is just and we may well think well if I'm a sinner what is the just thing but for God to punish my sin so why does John here encourage his readers by saying God is both faithful and just to forgive how can God be just to forgive and cleanse my sin when surely my sin deserves punishment not forgiveness and the answer is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin when Jesus died on the cross in an act motivated by God the father to pay the penalty for my sin my sins been paid for and so because God is just he's not going to demand double payment my pain the payment for my sin has been made by Jesus death on the cross God is just and so he forgives my sin if I was to use a trivial analogy imagine that you've incurred some form of fine parking fine or whatever and so you need to pay a hundred dollars now imagine that somebody has paid that hundred dollars for you but you come up and you say well I'm guilty because I've got this parking fine and and if if I let's say as the judge was unjust
[29:43] I'd say well give me the hundred dollars then knowing that I've already pocketed the hundred dollars from someone else who's paid it for you that's unjust it's double payment for sin but God is just and the payment for my sins been made by Jesus and I don't need to make it and that's why John is encouraging his readers by saying God is both faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us our sin so God's justice means that we're acquitted from our sin and therefore we can have fellowship with God who is pure light again you see it's grace that holds it all together what keeps people and God who is pure light in fellowship with each other is not our effort at being holy but is God's grace to forgive us and cleanse us through the death of Jesus the third error in verse 10 is similar to the first to the second one if we say that we have not sinned verse 8 began if we say that we have no sin that is by way of sinful nature this one now is more the sinful act I've not sinned
[30:52] I've not done anything wrong some say that perhaps the claim being made here is that someone who's converted to be a Christian now is claiming that since they've been a Christian they have not sinned they've become perfect when they became a Christian possibly that's the case it may just be a more general denial of being committing any sort of sin and again we see the serious consequence of such an error remember back in verse 6 that error led John to say you lie in verse 8 that error led him to say you deceive yourself the truth's not in you and now in verse 10 even worse if you claim this mistake you make God out to be a liar how is it that God is made out to be a liar if you claim not to be a sinner not to have sinned well because God makes it very clear in the scriptures that we have sinned we do sin we are sinners if you claim not to have sinned you're saying no God God's lying all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God God tells us in Romans chapter 3 based on a whole series of quotes from the Old Testament making the point very clear from very many places in scripture God's view is that you and I sin God's view is that all humanity sins if you claim not to have sinned you're claiming that God's a liar and notice that the next part of that at the end of verse 10 is and his word is not in us because God's word is truth we're denying what
[32:31] God has told us in his word we're making God out to be a liar and therefore his word in the scripture has no part of us that is we're rejecting God's authority if we say that we are not sinners if we claim not to have sin and in effect we're setting ourselves up as God we've thrown God out of our life and thrown his word out before God John gives us the correction now he inserts this little tender note at the beginning of chapter 2 my little children I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin that's why this is all here it's very practical he doesn't want his readers to sin he doesn't want them to keep on living lives in darkness he doesn't want them to keep on sinning in fact he doesn't want them just to sin on those occasional times he wants them to be pure and holy that's why he's writing this and there's real affection in the way he says my little children he loves them he cares for them he's trying to protect them from the false teaching and the errors that we've already seen John quote notice here what we could see as a dilemma
[33:39] I want you not to sin but if you say that you don't sin you're actually making God out to be a liar it's almost a dilemma isn't it I don't want you to sin but if you say that you're not sinning you're actually lying how's the dilemma resolved well the glue that holds it all together again is grace we've seen it twice already we see it again at the end of in John's refutation of this third error the end of verse 1 and into verse 2 if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the toning sacrifice for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world the answer to sin is grace found in Jesus Christ we've seen it in his cleansing blood going back to our verse 7 we've seen it in God's forgiveness and cleansing in verse 9 we see it again here in chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 the answer to sin is grace and now rather than Jesus death on the cross it is Jesus post ascension that is after he rose from the dead and he ascended to heaven Jesus at
[34:57] God's right hand in heaven now John says Jesus in heaven is our advocate the word is the same word used in John's gospel for the Holy Spirit the paraclete the helper the one who comes alongside a legal sense perhaps as advocate but also in a sense as a patron somebody who speaks up for your defense somebody personally committed to your cause is the idea behind the word Jesus is that person the Holy Spirit is another such person as John's gospel makes clear in John 14 and 15 as well and the idea is that Jesus now in heaven at God's right hand is pleading our case speaking up for us as sinners down on earth what does he plead well he doesn't plead to God come on give this guy another go I mean he's basically okay that man down there nor does he plead let God let that guy off don't punish him for that sin because
[35:57] I'm sure he'll do better next time that's not what he pleads he doesn't say God have mercy on that guy down there because he had a really difficult upbringing he came to the western suburbs and his his parents were a bit dysfunctional and his school wasn't very good that's not what he pleads Jesus doesn't plead God overlook his sin because his sins not really that serious it's not really that bad I mean there are much worse things to concentrate that's not what he pleads at all either what does Jesus plead he pleads his own work on the cross he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins yes you see Jesus when he pleads for our case says to God yeah look at that guy down there who's confessing his sins he is as guilty as sin he deserves punishment he deserves hell and eternal death but don't give it to him because my death was an atoning sacrifice for him I've paid the penalty already for his sin and God you're faithful and just and therefore you're bound to forgive him his sin because my death has paid it now in my little analogy it looks as though
[37:10] Jesus and God the father almost pitted against each other bargain not at all they're one mind in this so please don't push my little analogy too far but I'm trying to help you see the case that's being argued at the end of verse 1 and into verse 2 Jesus pleads for us as our advocate as our patron as our our helper the one who speaks to our defense to God the father and what does he plead nothing to do with us he pleads his own death as an atoning sacrifice my death pays the penalty for their sin and my death deals with your anger at their sin is the full sense of the word behind atoning sacrifice and notice then we've got nothing to plead when we confess our sins to God we're not saying to God please have mercy on me God because I'm trying hard please have mercy on me God because I'm a minister please have mercy on me God because I really didn't mean to do it please have mercy on me God because my friends pushed me into it please have mercy on me God because my parents didn't teach me the right way nothing have we got in our hands to plead we've got no justification no mitigating circumstances Jesus alone can and does plead our case we confess our sins and say to God God here am I a sinner all I can plead is Jesus death for me and what
[38:42] Jesus pleads for me is his death for me but know that that's sufficient for your sins your small sins and your great sins your lusts and your prides your laziness your murders your hatreds your adulteries whatever small and large large and larger Jesus death is sufficient for our sins and not only for our sins as the end of verse 2 says but for the sins of the whole world and no matter how bad you are there's a lot more bad sins out in the world too and if Jesus death is sufficient for the sins of the whole world then who are you to say my sins are too great for his cross the gospel you see takes sin absolutely seriously honestly and realistically God is light in him there is no darkness and all and yet we sinners can enjoy fellowship with
[39:44] God not because we're lying to ourselves not because we're deceiving ourselves but because of grace extended to us through Jesus dying on a cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins his blood cleansing us and forgiving us a propitiation and expiation for our sin indeed only via the blood of Jesus is there any fellowship with God who is pure light see the answer to sin is not denial I'm not a sinner I don't have sin in me that's a libertine lie spirituality without morality but it's a spiritual cul-de-sac or delusion nor is the answer to sin a self-exerting holiness a cutting oneself off from the world and from the church in a pure holy huddle or a little spiritual ghetto that's not the answer to sin either in the end you end up with self-reliance and legalism still lives a lie the answer to sin is grace it's grace that holds the gospel together so that God who is pure light can have fellowship with you and me because the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sin when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within upward I look and see him there who made an end of all my sin because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me or as another hymn writer said Jesus your blood and righteousness my beauty are my glorious dress bold shall I stand in that great day and none condemn me try who may fully absolve through Christ I am for from sin and fear from guilt and shame so when from the dust of death I rise to claim my home beyond the skies then this shall be my only plea that Jesus died and lives for me who was alone I start to call him to define my house so after I command the husband has answered that for me we smile again finally I will이죠 my
[42:24] Thank you.