CTWCCOFGW #4 - The Guarantee of Forgiveness

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

In last week’s message I gave a definition of sin that went sort of like this: the deliberate disobeying of a known law of God. You know what God’s Word says about something and you go against it, either doing something you know you shouldn’t do or not doing something you know you should do, according to God’s Word.

And I said that if a person is living a life that is marked by being full of the Spirit, we can go for long lengths of time without deliberate sin.

Today I want to expand that definition a bit.

Basically I want to include not just the known disobedience, but also the unknown disobediences.

In other words, it is possible to break God’s laws and not know it. And when we become aware of it, we need to deal with it.

In the Old Testament laws God said that if a person unknowingly commits a sin, he is still guilty. And when he found out, he needed to offer the sacrifice or the make the right restitution.

There are times when I have sinned against someone and I didn’t know it at the time. But I was still guilty. And when it came to my attention, I had an obligation to do all I could to make it right.

So my definition of sin for today can be boiled down to this: whatever goes against the Word of God, whether we know it or not at the time. Got it?

The point of this passage here is that we have access to God’s continued forgiving work in our lives as we continue to grow in our relationship with Christ.

Let’s look a bit more closely at a couple concepts in this verse: confession and forgiveness.

Confession simply means that you’re agreeing with God that what you’ve done is sin.

He already knows you’ve done it. So it’s not like you’re coming to God saying, “Okay God, here’s what I did,” and God’s like, “No way! I had no idea! Say it isn’t so!”

He knows. But He wants to hear from you that YOU know it’s sin.

And He wants you to confess it to Him. I grew up Catholic, and I was told that if I confessed to the priest, then the priest would forgive me on God’s behalf.

But God says we need to confess it to Him directly.

See, I can tell you about God’s forgiveness, but I can’t forgive you for God. He does that Himself.

And He does! Isn’t that great?

Now God forgiving doesn’t mean that you don’t need to ask forgiveness of someone else if you’ve hurt or sinned against them. You still need to do that.

That’s another message for another time. But as far as God’s concerned, it’s gone.

Forgiveness means that your sin is stricken from the record. It carries the idea of canceling a debt or dismissing the charges against you.

It’s a legal idea that whatever you had against you – whether you owed money or had done something to land you in court or jail – is now gone.

And folks, we’ll never fully understand the power of that idea until we meet Jesus face to face and learn just what forgiveness is and what it cost Him.

The truth of God’s forgiveness is throughout all of Scripture, but let me just read you two passages from the Old Testament:

Psalm 103:8-13 –

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or