1 John 1:9
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God's Not Dead, a movie bearing that title came out right about the time I became a Christian. The premise was about a publicly professing Christian being opposed by his atheist college professor. As the drama of the story builds, you find out that the reason that the professor is an atheist is not because he has a watertight proof for denying God's existence. It is simply because he hates God. That movie exposed me to a form of atheism that I had yet to encounter at that time in my life but that I now see all over the college campus. The atheist who declares I wouldn't want to follow God even if he did exist. That kind of atheism comes from a rejection of who God is or a rejection of who they perceive God to be. They don't want to deal with a holy God because of their sin. As we will see in our verse tonight, what we think about God will impact our willingness
to bring our sin to him. Our verse tonight is 1 John 1.9. It's on page 1021 in the Pew Bible, or you can find it on the front of your bulletin. Let's read it. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Have you ever thought about why you would be okay with confessing your sins to God? Why would you be comfortable bringing the darkest parts of your life to the one who judges sin?
Tonight we'll be looking at and considering the character of God and why we can trust him with something like our sin. What I want to convince you of today is this. God is faithful to forgive, therefore we must confess our sin to him. That's the main idea. God is faithful to forgive, therefore we must confess our sin to him. We'll be looking at that in two points. Point one, remember God's character. And point two, confess your sin to him.
Point one, remember God's character. Before turning to confession and what it looks like, we first need to meditate on the character of God. In order to trust God to deal with our sin, we first have to trust him. We have to trust his character. My hope is that in seeing that God is good, we can confidently come to him to confess our sin. When you think of God, what comes to mind? Your perspective of God will impact your desire to confess your sin. Imagine a friend or a co-worker or maybe even one of the evangelistic prayer requests tonight asks you, could you tell me what God is like?
I want to know what he's like. How would you answer that question? What words would come to mind? Maybe loving, powerful, merciful, gracious. Maybe if you're honest, words like these come to mind. Distant, harsh, cold. Our text describes God with two characteristics, that God is faithful and just. We will focus on understanding these two characteristics of God. Let's look into the faithfulness of God.
What does it mean that God is faithful? God always keeps his promises. When he says that he will do something, he will do it. Some promises that we are given in Scripture from God are awaiting fulfillment. But in this verse, there is an immediate promise that we can experience right now. Whenever we confess our sin, we can know that the Lord has given us full forgiveness. We can know this because God is faithful to act on his promises.
But maybe you've had this thought before. I know God will forgive my sins, but does he really want to? Maybe you struggle with confession because you think God is tired of forgiving you time after time. you think that you've brought the same problem to him one too many times maybe this time god won't want me to come to ask for forgiveness it's just too much one comfort to help with these doubts would be to meditate on the mystery of god being just to forgive us our sins in this verse today look at how the text describes us the text assumes that we have sin to be forgiven of and unrighteousness to be cleansed of. And not just a little sin and a little unrighteousness. In the verse, there are plural sins and all unrighteousness. We need a deep cleansing. If you read quickly through our verse, you might think there is a typo. You might expect
the verse to read like this. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to condemn us for our sins and to judge us for all our unrighteousness. Coming on the hills of Ezekiel, you might expect something like that. You might be expecting judgment to follow sin. That's because we normally expect the punishment to fit the crime. Imagine a police officer pulls someone over for speeding and the offender's response is, officer, I have a confession to make. I know I was going 17 over and a 35, and I know you know that.
I also want you to know that I didn't stop at a red light half a mile back. And also, I stole this car. Am I good to go with a warning? You would not expect the cop to let that person go. You would expect justice to be done. But our verse today shows how shocking God's forgiveness should be to us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The surprising message of Christianity is that despite our sin, God works to save us. The gospel message should be shocking to us. God is holy and perfect.
We are unrighteous sinners. That is a frightening mismatch. Our sin justly deserves punishment, but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ takes that punishment upon himself at the cross. God can justly forgive us our sin only because he has already paid for it by the blood of Jesus on the cross. This verse goes so far as to paint the hypothetical picture that God would be unjust to not forgive a confessing sinner. That is because Jesus was already punished for our sin on the cross, and therefore there remains no just punishment left for the Christian.
Justice has been settled. There is only left full forgiveness and cleansing for the Christian. God really and truly forgives. He does not hold our sin against us. That is where a believer can find comfort. God is faithful and just to keep his promises to forgive sin for those who believe in the resurrected Jesus. These characteristics of God's faithfulness and justice counter two common misconceptions of God today. First, some people might see God as a cold and distant authority who is always bitter towards us.
Maybe you think God has saved you, but still keeps you at an arm's distance from him. Close, but not too close. Maybe that even God regrets saving you. A second misconception that someone might have of God is that he is only a God of love. A God who sweeps sin under the rug without ever doing anything about it. An aloof deity unaware of how to solve the suffering of this world. But the Bible paints a very different picture of God. We have a faithful and just God.
Through the work of Jesus Christ, God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith. Meditating on this verse and other examples in scripture help us correct false views of God. But is this forgiveness for everyone? Our verse shows that not all people will respond the same way to God. Let's shift to examine the proper response to God's character, the confession of our sin. Point two, confess your sin to God.
Let's be clear about what confession is. It's not simply to know that your sin is bad. Confession is to admit to God your wrongdoing without staying on the same side as your sin. Confession means to change teams. is to align yourself with God in his judgment of your sin that was laid on Jesus. Confession doesn't make excuses or justifications for sin. Confession is to see our sin as God sees it. We must consider the urgency of confession.
The simple reason is that the promise of forgiveness in 1 John is only for those who confess their sins. The first word of our verse is a warning. If. If is a key word that affects the entire verse. There are two possibilities. If you confess, there's a promise of forgiveness. If you don't confess, this promise is not for you. If you're here tonight and are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, this has a clear implication for you. If you remain in rejecting the Lord, you will not be forgiven of your sins.
I urge you to turn to God and confess your sins to him. The Bible is clear that you do have sin. You are unrighteous before God, but Jesus is better than your sin. He has conquered sin and promises you forgiveness if you confess your sins and trust in him. God does the cleansing. You don't have to clean yourself up before coming to him. It's a simple if. What will you decide? If you have experienced salvation and consider yourself a Christian, remember, though, that confession isn't just for becoming a Christian.
It is ongoing for the believer. Christians are people who recognize and confess their sin. Therefore, persistent and unrepentant sin is not a mark of a believer. A Christian is someone who is thankful for their sin being forgiven. A Christian is someone who grows in confessing their sins as their view of God gets higher and their own view of their own sin gets deeper. A Christian is continuously cleansed from the power of sin in their life. Maybe you've grown comfortable in your Christian life.
The fight for holiness seems like a thing of the past. Right now, you may feel like autopilot is going fine for you. Going with the flow hasn't gotten you into much trouble at this point in your Christian walk. We all can easily drift into foolishness instead of running the race well. We think we can settle for a life without confession. We can get comfortable and slowly allow pet sins or respectable sins to creep into our life, sins that we hope other people won't notice or make a big deal about.
Maybe it looks like laziness, not taking the preemptive step to care for another brother or sister in the church, hoping that someone else will meet that need. Maybe it looks like impatience, getting frustrated with others when they don't meet your timetable. Maybe it looks like grumbling, frustrated that God seems to be blessing others and giving you the leftovers. These sins aren't friendly. They will choke you out. They need to be recognized and confessed to God. The scary thing about sins like these is that they are deceptive.
They make you think that everything is okay. You start to become blind to the power that they have in your life. Sure, things could be better, but at least they aren't as bad as what other people struggle with. The scariest thing about being deceived like this is that you don't know you're in this position. To fight this, you need to surround yourself with other Christians who actually know your life, friends who ask questions about how things are going in your daily walk, even if those things seem small or insignificant to you.
Another aspect of confession that we'll consider is that it is a great weapon against two sinister tactics of the devil, temptation and accusation. Temptation tells you before sin that this act will satisfy you more than God will satisfy you. Accusation, after the fact, tells you that you are a sinner who God would never want to save. Temptation tells you that you need to give into this just one more time and you can ask for forgiveness later.
You've had a long day and these people are crossing the line. You need to just blow off some steam. Accusation then tells you, how could you believe that God wants you now after you did this? You gave into your anger again. How could God stand to look at you now? Confession destroys both of these weapons. Confession guards us against both the apathy to temptation and despair from accusation. Confession is not just for after sinning or giving in to sin.
Temptation reveals our desire for sin. And at that point, we need to confess our evil desires to the Lord. We need to stand with the Lord against temptation. We have the opportunity to ask for help before handing ourselves over to sin. And if we do give ourselves over to temptation, we have a hope against accusation. Accusation says you are a sinner beyond hope. Faith answers that Jesus saves sinners beyond hope.
Christian, you can rest with a clear conscience before your holy God. Jesus has paid for your sin in full, therefore you can and must confess your sin to him. Go to him and find full forgiveness. rest in the God who gave his life that he might save yours all for his glory let's pray Lord we thank you for the beautiful promise contained in this short verse that there is forgiveness for those who confess their sins to you Lord we pray that we would be a church marked by knowing who you are that you are a good and faithful God and that would drive us to bring our sins to you, knowing that Jesus Christ offers full forgiveness. In Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen.