CHRISTIAN GROWTH THROUGH CONFESSION
(First John 1:7-2:4 / Psalm 51 / 32 / Romans 7:14-24)
Bob Marcaurelle
homeorchurchbiblestudy.com
1 John 1:8-9
“If we (Christians 5:13) say we have no sin (Sin nature), we deceive ourselves and the truth (of the Bible) is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive (restored fellowship) us and cleanse (remove sins one by one) us from all unrighteousness.”
A lady watched a sculptor hammering out the figure of an angel. When she said, “I wish I could do that”, he replied, “It is easy. Just remove everything that doesn’t look like an angel”. Our daily task is to remove everything about us that doesn’t look like Jesus.
This is how we grow – one day at a time, one sin at a time, as we confess our individual sins to God and seek forgiveness and power to overcome that particular sin. We need to:
ADMIT THEM
The term “confess” means to “say the same thing” or to “agree”. When God, through his Word, or through His Spirit deep within tells us we are doing something wrong, we are to “agree” with God.
Sadly, around us times we have the CLAIM OF PERFECTIONISTS that they have arrived at the point where they do not sin. John says the “truth is not in him - he is liar or he does not know the truths of the Bible.
Some denominations and groups, like the Gnostics John deals with here, teach this as a theological reality. (A strange thing is, John Wesley taught it but never claimed it for himself.) What we have in our churches, however, are “practical” perfectionists, those proud souls who act like they are where they should be for God.
They are like the sleeping husband whose wife knelt beside him and prayed, “Dear God, please give Mr. Perfect one little flaw.”
When the “Spirit-filled” or “Higher Christian Life” or “The Exchanged Life” movement was thriving in American churches, many speakers gave the impression that they had arrived spiritually.
I heard one lady say, “Since I was filled with the Spirit I have not slammed one door in anger. I have not even wanted to slam a door.” That is a person the devil does not need to bother with. He has her right where he wants her.
When we commit ourselves to a higher and better walk with Christ, the first person we meet is the devil. This is what happened to Jesus when He publicly committed to go to the cross at His baptism. (Mark 1)
What is wrong with people like this is, THE AIM OF PERFECTIONISTS is too low. First John 3:15 shows us our aim.
“This is how we know what love is, He (Jesus) laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”
If our goal is to love like Jesus loved, and live like Jesus lived , we know we have to confess wrongdoing until we make it to heaven where we will have no sin in us. (I Jn. 3:3 / Rev. 21:27) As Paul put it, “Who will deliver me from this body of death. Thank God (Jesus will),” (Amplified Bible)
An old farmer was standing by his fence with a rifle leaning against a post. He was about one hundred yards away from a barn covered with “bulls-eyes” and every one had a bullet hole right in the center.
A man asked him if he shot all those bullets from a hundred yards away and he said he did. When the man said, “I wish I could do that”, the farmer replied, “Its’ easy. All you have to do is shoot a hole in the barn and go over and draw a bulls-eye around it.” Let us set the standard for Christian living and we can make it.
ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM
After the sins of adultery and murder (1 Samuel 11-12) David said, “I am conscious of MY transgressions and I acknowledge them. It is against YOU that I have done this evil thing.” (Psalm 51:3-4)
A Conservative Christian radio host I admire talked with a lady who maxed out her credit cards time and time again. And the host gave some fancy psychological label for her addiction. We all know what she had; self love; selfishness and greed.
When God asked Adam what he had done, he said, “The woman”. And then he added, “The woman YOU gave me.” He passed the blame to God. When God asked Eve was what she had done, she said, “The snake”. Blaming something or someone else for the wrongs we do is the American way of life, even in the church.
There IS such a thing as alcoholism but most of the people I know who become problem drinkers are that way by choice. We put what Wallace Hamilton calls “new labels on old evils” and people don’t take responsibility for their actions. Seeing things like this as sins is not being unkind. It is being kind. As long as a person thinks he us sick and not sinful, he will not seek forgiveness.
EXPECT THEM (Romans 7:14-25)
In us we will always have the PRESENCE of sin. A man and his wife visited a church and as they got to the sanctuary door, they heard the Pastor pray, “O Lord, those things we should not have done this week- we have done; and those things we should have done – we have not done.” The man looked at his wife and said, “Honey, this looks like our kind of church.”
It is “everybody’s” kind of church. We don’t WANT to do wrong. Paul said his “desire” was to do right and he “hated” what he did. The Christian life may be compared to a man who put a sign on his cash register, “This is a non-profit business. We didn’t plan it that way but that’s the way it turned out.”
In us we have the PAIN of growth. Christian growth is painful. The truth is, when we are first converted we don’t realize how sinful we really are. We are working on, and hopefully have defeated things like angry outbursts, drinking too much, telling lies, profanity etc. But as we grow in our Christian life, we see more things about us that are not right. These are harder to give up. They are things like pride, prejudice, greed, laziness and most of all, selfishness.
Warren Wiersbie says, “a growing Christian sins less and less and confesses more and more”. J.C. Ryle, in his book, “Holiness” says a growing Christian usually thinks he is NOT growing because as he grows the more bad things he sees in himself.
FORGET THEM
After the horrible sins of adultery and murder, David said, “When I refused to confess my sins I was weak and miserable / but I confessed all my sins to you / and You forgave me, All MY GUILT IS GONE.”(Psalm 32:3,5).
We are not to forget the lessons we should learn from our failures, but we should accept God’s forgiveness and go forward, believing “today is the first day of the rest of my Christian life”.
If we continue feeling ashamed and guilty, we are little good to ourselves or others. David’s sins were truly bad enough to be ashamed of but with joy over God’s grace, shouted, “all my guilt is gone!”
LEARN FROM THEM
Psalm 51:10,13
“Create in me a pure heart and build a faithful spirit in me / I will teach transgressors your ways / so they will turn back to You.”
Our acts of wrongdoing can teach us many good lessons. God uses them to grow us. We can learn WHY WE GIVE IN. The Bible lets us know that David’s sins were committed when Kings usually go to war. (2 Samuel 11:1). The implication is - David was somewhere he was not supposed to be when he was tempted.
My most prevalent sin as a new Christian was anger. After studying what the Bible says about anger, praying about anger and reading many books and sermons on anger, I learned that people with anger issues, need to learn where their “anger buttons” are.
To deal with stress at age 45 I started playing golf and trying to hit that ball that lays still and says, hit me, I learned what stress it. I tried and tried and tried and improved a tiny bit. I joined a Golf Club and would go there every day for free, so I went every day.
I neglected church and family responsibilities. I just couldn’t quit, so I cancelled my membership. That way I had to pay every time I played and that meant once a week was all I could play.
We learn HOW TO AVOID TEMPTATION. A friend of mine was grouchy and rude to his wife too much of the time. He hated that in himself and begged God to take it away. One day he told his wife, “Honey, every time I am rude to you, let me know by holding your hand out and I will give you a dollar. He told me, “Bob, I had to stop being rude. That woman was getting all of my spending money.”
On the positive side, we can use our failures to HELP OTHERS in their struggles against sin. David said he wanted to teach transgressors so they would turn back to God. (Ps. 51:13).
A person who has been through a divorce can help others not make the same mistakes he or she did. And he can warn them of the tragic cost to the husband and wife and to the children.
Most of all we need to learn HUMILITY, and more empathy for those who fail. It is so easy for Pastors and faithful church members to look down on people who do not come to church regularly, or who drink socially, etc. while their own lives are filled with things like jealousy, pride, selfishness, etc.
The Pharisees who had Jesus killed were experts at this. Jesus told them they could see a tiny spec in other people’s eye but didn’t see the 2 x 4 in theirs. (Matthew 7:3)
When Jimmy Swaggart’s transgression was all over the news, a TV reporter interviewed his father in Louisiana. He asked him what he thought about it and he said, “Maybe now he won’t be so hard on the rest of us.” I wonder if Jimmy had come down hard on things like chewing Tobacco or not going to church enough.
A Christian lady was rude to a clerk. When she went back and told her she was a Christian and apologized, the clerk said, “you Christians are nothing but hypocrites, you sin just like the rest of us.” The Christian lady answered, “I’m afraid you are right about us doing things we should not do, but there is a difference –
“Before I let Christ into my life I ran TO sin, but now I run FROM it. So, I hope you will forgive me and get to know my Savior who forgives me daily and helps me become a better person daily. Sadly, I am not what I OUGHT to be. But I am also not what I USED to be. And thank God, I am not what I am GOING to be.”
