Sermon Transcript
Well, my guess is you probably this morning at some point looked at the news, maybe not by way of an actual newspaper, maybe it was digital or whatever. Wouldn’t it have been great if you did look at the news if there was nothing there that was negative, if there was no sin, you know, reflected in the news? It didn’t happen. The news that I looked at this morning, it just feels like the place is a mess. You know, there’s just so much that’s happening around the world that is not anywhere close to God’s plan for life.
Just imagine what life would be like if it weren’t for sin, if it weren’t for our personal sins, if it weren’t for the sins throughout the world. Let me read for you something just to get you thinking about that. If there was no sin, there would be no crime. There would be no fences or locks, no codes or combinations, no guards or alarms. You could leave your home, you could leave your business or your car open, open and unattended.
If there were no sins, there would be no selfishness, no greed or gluttony, no jealousy or arrogance or desire to control others. There would be no hate, no prejudice or bullying, no ill will or malice, no riots or looting, no assault or arson. There would be no violence, no revenge or retribution, no kidnapping or terrorism, no brutality, no murder, no police or prisons, no attorneys or courts, no justice system at all, because no injustice would be found. There would be no perversity, no rape or child molestation, no spouse or child abuse, no acts of cruelty or neglect of people or animals. There would be no victims.
You could walk alone anywhere at any time without any fear. There would be no deceit, no fraud or forgery, no bribery or abuse of power, nor lies of distortion or truth of the truth, no false witnesses, no cheating or hidden motives. Everyone could be taken at their word. There would be no discontentment, no adultery or divorce, no fatherless children or broken homes. There would be no laziness.
Everyone would do what they could to support themselves and to support others. People would contribute, not demand. No one would abuse the generosity afforded them, and even a stranger could be trusted. There would be no wars, no weapons or militaries, no spies or surveillance. Governments and borders might exist, but only for organizational and not protective purposes.
There would be no evil committed of any kind because all people would have regard and reverence for their Creator and the image into which they were created. If there was no sin, we’d be a lot better off than we are right now. Wouldn’t you agree with that? Because of sin, not only are we hurting and the world is hurting, but actually all of creation, we’re told in the Scripture, is groaning. Romans chapter 8, the last part says that creation, like a woman who is in pains of childbirth, is experiencing groaning right now.
It’s in bondage to decay, and it longs for the day when it, along with all of God’s children, will finally be set free from sin Forever. That’s going to be a great day, one that you want to be around for, I promise you. Life in all of its fullness without any sin, the way that the world was originally created to be, it’s finally going to be that way. Now think about all of the things that fill up your soul with goodness and peace and joy. You might think of the beauty of Yosemite Valley and, you know, walking around there.
You might think of the beach and a walk along the beach or the deep love that you feel when you’re with family or close friends, those things that touch you deeply down in your soul. In this fallen world, even those experiences are just a glimpse. They’re just a glimpse of the new heaven and new earth and what life is going to be like when sin is finally gone. And, of course, knowing there’s going to be a better future, that gives us some hope in the present plague of sin. That we live in as we’re surrounded and infected by this plague of sin.
So what can we do about it? Well, we’re looking at a passage this morning that actually speaks to how to be saved from sin. It’s an interesting passage, 1 John 2:1-2. If you brought your Bible, you might want to turn there, pull the message note sheet out. But there is some help here that can help us be saved from sin even if we’ve been saved from sin.
So, if you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you’ve been saved from sin. But it’s possible after you’re saved from sin to be saved from sin in this life before the ultimate life is experienced in all eternity when there is no sin. So, John is speaking very interestingly to this matter of, so how do you live in a sin-plagued world? And this is what he brings into our focus this morning, verses 1 and 2 of chapter 2 of 1 John. My dear children, he writes, I write this to you so that you will not sin.
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world. This is John, John the Apostle. He’s in his 80s, we think, at this point, maybe even his 90s, and he’s writing as a loving, caring spiritual father to these believers that are living throughout Asia Minor. They’re scattered around there.
John’s been walking with the Lord now for years and dealing with sin throughout all of these years. And he’s concerned that these believers, they come to understand a proper relationship to sin. And essentially, the proper relationship to sin in verse 1 is say no to it. Say no to sin. In fact, that will save you from sin right there if you just learn to say no to sin.
So, they’ve been saved, but they need to learn to say no to sin after they’ve been saved. Now, last week Dan helped us understand that we’re going to always be struggling with sin. Sin’s going to continue to be a part of our lives. We studied the passage 1 John 1:8-10, and verses 8 and 10 just remind us of this fact that we’re going to struggle with sin. It’s just to refresh your memory, verse 8 says, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
Verse 10, if we claim we’ve not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. Simply said, all of us have an ongoing problem with sin. Dan helped us see that last week, and hopefully we believe that. In fact, you can just use the word— or note the word we that’s used here. The we is referring to John who wrote this, and obviously even the Apostle John, if he includes himself in the we instead, he’s not saying, you guys, you’ve got a problem with sin, but we have a problem with sin.
Even the disciples were not exempt from a problem with sin. But although everybody sins, that doesn’t excuse future sin. So, John comes right back and he says, so, you need to learn to say no to sin. Be done with sin, all of it. It should be our goal, our intention to not sin at all.
Now, that’s the best way to be saved from sin. You know, after you come to faith in Jesus Christ, it’s just not to live in sin at all. Now, why would John say that? Why would he basically say to these believers, you need to tell the devil to take a hike, and you need to walk in the Spirit so that you don’t carry out the flesh, but rather you do the work of the Spirit? Now, why does he say that?
Well, perhaps for reasons that we might say to a friend, or we might say to our kids, or to our spouse, or to somebody that we care about. We might say to them, drive safe, you know, before they get in the car and they’re going to go on a trip or they’re just going to drive around the Bay Area or whatever it is. I mean, if we really care about them, one of the things that we say to them is drive safe. You’ve probably heard somebody say this to you on more than one occasion, or you’ve said this to many other people. Why would we say that?
Well, for one, we know how dangerous driving can be in the Bay Area. It’s just not, you know, safe sometimes to be driving. I mean, you’re driving perfectly, but not everybody else, especially the people that are passing you like at 40 more miles an hour and deciding that, you know, that they’re going to take this as a racetrack or whatever it is. It can be very dangerous to drive around the area. So we might say to them, you need to drive safe.
But also we know how they drive. And knowing how they drive, we want them to drive safe as well. And why would we say that? Because we don’t want anything bad to happen to those that we care about. To those that we love.
Well, that’s essentially what John is doing here. He’s saying, listen, you need to say no to sin because sin— there’s no good thing that’s going to come out of your sin, continuing in sin. He’s already written verses 1 to 4 in our first study where we looked at what life is all about, zoe, life in its abundance, life in its fullness. If we hope to experience life in its fullness, then we have to say no to sin. We’ve got to put sin behind us.
Say goodbye to sin once and for all time, we have to make an over— an over-and-done commitment to sin. Now here’s my question for all of us this morning: have we made an over-and-done commitment to sin? I am over that. I am done with that. I want— I’m going to say no to sin again and again and again.
Do you remember that conversation that Jesus had with that woman who was living in sin? Now, we don’t use those words anymore. We don’t talk about that person living in sin, but she was living in sin. She was actually caught in the act of adultery. Think about this.
The religious leaders and the religious teachers caught her in the act of adultery, and they brought her to Jesus, and they asked Jesus what they should do because they said, in the law, it told us that we should stone her. And we’re not talking about the stoning that, you know, people often think about today. We’re talking about picking up stones and killing this woman. And you remember how Jesus replied? Jesus said, okay, you who is without sin, you who are without sin, you cast the first stone.
Well, that caught everybody off guard since everybody there was with sin. They weren’t without sin, they were with sin. And they knew that and they actually owned that so that they turned and they left without inflicting harm on this woman. And then at that point, Jesus spoke to this woman and he told her 2 things. Number one, he said, I want you to know that I don’t condemn you.
I’m going to show you grace and compassion. And he did. And the second thing that Jesus did was he charged her. And what did he charge her? What did he— what did he say to her?
He said, he said, sin no more. Leave your life of sin.
Now, that is essentially what John is trying to say, isn’t it, in 1 John 2:1? You need to leave your life of sin. You need to make a commitment to be over and done with sin. You need to say no to sin. Now, the Apostle Paul talked about this in Romans 6.
I think it’s so important to see this in light of this topic this morning. But in Romans 6, he’s dealing with this whole matter of potentially going on with sin. And some people are even, you know, thinking, well, we can go on with sin. And, you know, ’cause like what Dan talked about last week, we confess our sins and God’s gonna forgive us anyway. So what does it really matter?
Well, Paul answers that. Romans 6:1-2, he says, what then shall we say? What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? And then he says, by no means.
So he answers his question. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? And then verse 11, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So this sin thing needs to be dead in your life.
You’re dead to sin. You need to be literally dead to sin. Say no to it. And then he goes on, Romans 6:12, he says, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
So essentially what he’s doing is giving us 2 choices, you can call them 2 lifestyle choices. Here’s one of the choices: offer your body to sin. The other choice is offer your body to God. So we got these 2 choices. We’re like a sacrifice, or Paul talks later about we want to be a living sacrifice to him.
But we can either be an offering to sin where then we are instruments of wickedness, he says, instruments of wickedness or instruments of unrighteousness, which is outside of God’s plan for our lives, or we can offer our bodies to God as an instrument of righteousness or godly living or pursuing a life of holiness. And essentially what Paul is saying to those that he’s writing to in Rome, and he’s essentially saying it to us this morning, is what’s it going to be? Are we going to be an instrument to sin? Are we going to be an instrument to righteousness, to God, to sin? What’s it going to be?
And he’s saying you need to make a decision that at this moment in time you’re going to be done with sin and you’re going to intentionally act in ways and live in ways that ultimately presents you as an offering to God, no longer as an offering to sin. It’s fascinating because the term that’s used here describes a point-in-time action, a punctiliar time and action. It’s in aorist tense, and it speaks about— it’s in the imperative, it’s active, so it’s something right now. If you’re faced with a choice of giving in as an instrument of unrighteousness or giving in as an instrument of righteousness, you choose the righteousness path at this point in time. And then when there’s another crossroads, you choose at that point in time to say, no to unrighteousness and say yes to righteousness.
And what’s interesting here is that this act that he’s calling for is an act after salvation. So he’s not talking about the act of salvation. Salvation has already happened in the lives of these people that he’s writing to. He’s already spent a lot of time talking about that in the early chapters of Romans. But now he’s at a point where he’s talking about a whole matter of what we call sanctification, or becoming more and more like Jesus Christ, walking in holiness, walking in purity.
And he’s saying you need to continue to make acts on every occasion where you’re confronted with sin. You need to continue to make an act or a commitment to present yourself to God as an instrument of righteousness. I came to faith in Jesus Christ when I was in 5th grade. The first time I can remember presenting myself to God and saying, God, I want to say no to sin. The first time that I can remember actually doing that was when I was a junior in high school.
It was a separate act. I’m not saying it necessarily should be a separate act. I’m just saying that that’s what it was for me. And that’s what he’s calling out of these people that he’s writing to, and John essentially is calling for the same thing. You need to make a commitment from this point on to say no to sin.
I don’t know if you’re a Christian or a— You come to a place where you gave your life to Jesus Christ. That’s the first most important decision. But that’s not the only decision. There needs to be continual aorist act tenses of decision where this time, this time, this time you continue to say no to sin. Why?
Because we’re instruments of righteousness now. Now, are we going to get that right perfectly? Absolutely not. But that should be the desire, or that should be the direction or the commitment in our life to not flirt with sin, to not get close to sin, to not play with the fire, to not play around with sin, because ultimately it’s going to burn you. Have you learned that lesson?
Have you seen it play out in your life? A lot of people recently are dealing with gluten allergies. I don’t know if there’s like a whole new thing related to gluten or whatever it is, but there are just a lot of people dealing with gluten allergies. And what they found is gluten is no good for them. So they want to set gluten aside.
They want to say no to gluten. But this is really hard, especially if you go to Cheesecake Factory, you know, and they bring out that big old bread thing, that bread basket. Have you been over there? That thing is just like— you’re looking at it, you go, I can’t say no any longer. If you are on gluten diet, you just— I got to have some of this.
But the problem is, is if you have some of what’s in that basket right now because you’re allergic to it, What’s going to happen is you’re going to pay for it right here. I mean, you’re going to, like, feel it, and it’s not going to be a good thing for you. Recently, I was talking to a person who has an allergy to gluten, and he said that when he eats gluten, he suffers the consequences of eating gluten later that night, usually between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. And it’s a terrible thing for him, he told me. And that reminded me of a time where after I would eat ice cream, I love to eat ice cream at night. I don’t know if anybody else has ever, you know, been plagued with this, but I love to eat ice cream at night.
And so after I ate ice cream for several years, I couldn’t figure it out, but right around 3 o’clock— I don’t know if that’s a satanic hour or whatever it is, but, you know, right around 3 o’clock I would have all these reactions. And it was odd. So I try not to do the ice cream thing anymore, but that’s what it made me think of. And he went on to say, well, it really scares me. Because when I start having these reactions between 2 and 3, I usually get up, and when I get up, then I faint and pass out.
Freaks my wife out. And he said, I really found out that the solution is not to eat gluten. If I say no to gluten, then I’m not going to have this fainting thing in the middle of the night. Do you see what John’s saying here? See what Paul’s saying here?
You see why Jesus told this woman to be done with sin, to say no to sin. I mean, yeah, it might be fun for right now. In fact, Hebrews talks about the passing pleasures of sin. Yeah, there might be some pleasure in it, but ultimately it’s going to take life away. It’s not going to add to your life.
So say, say no to sin. That’s where John is. That’s where he is suggesting that these spiritual children that he cares deeply about, that that’s, that’s where they get I don’t know if you’ve ever read Augustine’s Confessions. It’s a big book. It’s actually 13 books.
It’s 13 books that he put together where he’s confessing his former life and his desire to walk in faith and this new life. But Augustine, as a young man, he had little interest in saying no to sin. In fact, he’s the guy that prayed, Lord, make me chaste, but not yet. I don’t want sexual purity yet. His mother prayed constantly for him, and he heard his mother praying that he would end up cleaning up his life.
And he prayed when he heard her pray. He said, yes, Lord, help me clean up my sinful life later, not yet. Well, that could be how we approach sin. Lord, you know, I really— I’m not quite ready yet. Ultimately, what happened was Augustine got to a place of repentance, true confession, and he ended up committing himself completely to Christ, and he came to the point of saying, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Save me from all my sins.
That’s the transformation. John’s calling for, where we make a no-to-sin commitment. Lord, I don’t want to be somebody who’s selfish. I don’t want to be somebody who’s angry or who continues in lustful thoughts and hurtful words and arrogance and greed and sexual immorality. I want to be a person who’s completely devoted and changed by you.
Can you imagine how much better life would be in this world and in our individual lives if we were just to say no to these kinds of sins again and again and again. You see it? Have you, and do you, and do I continue to say no to sin? Now, John recognizes that there’s a high probability that even with a no-to-sin commitment, We’ll still sin. We’ll still fall into sin.
And when we do, we can be saved from sin by acting on what John says here now. So what does he say? Verse 1, the last part, he says, but if anybody does sin, if anybody does sin, 2 things to note here. We have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous one. And the second thing, he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Essentially what John is saying is, if you fall into sin, do this: remember your Savior. Remember your Savior. If anyone sins, if that happens, and it will happen, along with verse 9, confessing your sins, In addition to confessing your sins, verse 9, you need to remember your Savior. And it would really be good to remember 2 facts about our Savior. The first fact— and I want to start with verse 2— the first fact is to remember what Jesus did.
Verse 2 talks about what Jesus did. What did Jesus do? He gave up his life so that we might gain life. He was our atoning sacrifice. Now, this word atoning maybe is a mystery to many of us, but I’ll bet that you’ve probably studied a little bit about some of the sacrifices that you hear about, how the Jewish people, they had this temple, they also had a tabernacle, and in and around the tabernacle and temple, they would perform acts of sacrifice, the high priest on behalf of the people.
And so they had these different offerings like a burnt offering and other offerings that were a part of their sacrificial system. Well, one of the particular days that they performed these offerings was called the Day of Atonement. And the Day of Atonement was an annual event where God’s people gathered, and there were many different offerings that were presented during this period of time. But one of the things that happened was, is that they brought 2 goats in, and one of those goats was selected to be the goat of sacrifice, so to speak. They were to sacrifice that goat, and when they killed that goat and put it on the altar and the blood and presented the blood to the Holy of Holies and all these other things that happened on the mercy seat and so forth, as they did all of those things, they were making atonement.
They were making atonement for the people’s sins. Another way to say this is they were satisfying God. And his justice. Or another way to say this is that they were paying for those sins. So atonement or payment was made for those sins.
They were paid for by this goat that was sacrificed. But the second goat was not sacrificed. The second goat that was selected, the second goat was kept alive, and the high priest would place his hands on the head of the goat and he confessed all of the wickedness and all of the rebellion and the sinfulness of God’s people. And then this goat was sent away into the wilderness, symbolizing the remove— the removing of sin from God’s people. The removing of sin from God’s people.
Well, we are told that Jesus Christ made atonement for us. This passage here is speaking about He was the atoning sacrifice, meaning he paid for our sins. And so the picture is no longer a temple courtyard where a sacrifice was made. The picture is now what? It’s a cross.
And on the cross, Jesus paid for our sins, or he atoned for our sins. He is the Lamb of God. This is what John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. In 1 Peter 3:18, it says that Christ died for our sins.
He didn’t have to die repeatedly and sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, but He is the one who gave His life once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh. But he was made alive in the Spirit. And we’re told in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. All of that is to say is that Christ was our atoning sacrifice.
And so he’s bringing— John’s bringing that into focus now, and he’s saying, listen, if you fall into sin, here’s what you need to do. You need to remember, you need to call to mind what Jesus did. And what did he do? He died on the cross, and when he died on the cross, he made it possible for you to be completely forgiven of your sin and to have your sin completely be removed. He has taken away your sin.
Now that means we don’t have to continue to live with guilt and shame when we sin. We can come before God and we can confess our sins knowing that he is faithful and just To forgive us of how much of our sin? All of it. So that now there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. So one of the things that we ought to be doing when we sin is we ought to be going back in our minds and remembering what Jesus did for us.
He died on the cross to pay for our sins. You know what that’ll do for us? That’ll give us a greater love for God. That’ll give us a greater desire to live a life of no sin, to seek that as the, the ultimate goal, to not sin. But if we do sin— and John totally recognizes that— but if we do sin, then go back to what Jesus has done for you.
Remind yourself of that gift, an undeserved gift, but remind yourself of it. And then he also says, and remember what Jesus is doing, the first part or the last part of verse 1. If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ the righteous one. Now the setting is no longer the cross, or the setting is no longer a temple courtyard. The setting is a courtroom, and this courtroom has in it a judge, and the judge is God.
And it has in it one who’s been accused, and he accuses us. It’s those who have sinned against God. And there is an accuser in this room. Who’s the accuser? It’s Satan.
Romans chapter 12— excuse me, Revelation chapter 12, verse 10 tells us that Satan brings accusations against us before God night and day. And what is he accusing us of? What is this liar, what is this destroyer, what is this murderer accusing us of before God? He’s accusing us of our sins. He’s claiming to God that we don’t deserve life, that we deserve death, that we deserve to be eternally separated from God.
But into this picture steps a defense lawyer. Into this picture steps an advocate, personal advocate, personal advocate for each one of us. And he stands before the throne and he says, Father, this is one of my children. This is one that I’ve died for. He pleads our case before God.
This is one of my forgiven kids, saved by my blood. His sins were paid for. His sins were washed away. Her sins were washed away. Do you ever think about that?
When you fall into sin, do you ever think about how right now Jesus, the greatest defense lawyer of all time, is standing before God and he’s not going to lose this case? He is standing before God pleading on our behalf our forgiveness. And if he pleads for us, then certainly we can receive the verdict of God that has been passed down to us through Jesus Christ. We can receive it for all that it is. It’s a gift of mercy.
It’s a gift of grace. It’s a gift of forgiveness. It’s all of that and more, and it’s all based upon what? Do you see what it’s based upon? Verse 1.
Is it based upon our righteousness? No. It’s a good thing. It’s based upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So Jesus appeals our case not based upon our righteousness, but He appeals our case based upon His righteousness.
You say, well, what does that matter? A couple weeks ago, I had a conversation with a guy over at Apple. It’s not that I work at Apple, in case you’re wondering, Austin, if I got a job over there. I don’t know. I don’t— that’s why we haven’t seen each other, but I don’t work there.
But anyway, I was over at Apple, one of the billions of buildings that they have, but I was over at one of those buildings and I was there with a neighbor of mine who’s a spiritual seeker. And we had lunch together. It was really good, Austin. I want you to know the food was really good. But anyway, so we had a really nice time.
And we got into— part of the reason it was such a nice time is we got into a spiritual conversation. I know that his family practices Hinduism. And so I asked him, I said, how important is your faith to you? And he was describing how important his faith is and how they put up lights. Like last night, they just put some lights up.
And we live very close to them. And then he went on and he said, you know, one of the reasons why it’s really important to me is because I really believe that I need to accrue good deed credits. In fact, he said, my grandfather, I think one of the best things he ever told me was I needed to get my credits up and I needed to accrue good credits. And he went on and he said, that way when you’ve sinned against God, then the Lord will use some of your credits to pay for your wrongdoings and spare you of judgment. Now, that’s a part of his faith tradition.
In fact, part of that’s called bringing good karma into your life. Now, when I look at a passage like this, I really believe the Bible teaches differently than that. You see, because when I look at this passage, The only chance that we have before God is not based upon our righteousness. It’s based upon whose righteousness? Jesus Christ.
It’s not based upon my credits. So Jesus isn’t arguing the case with, well, you know, Dave’s a really nice guy. That’s not where he’s going with this thing. I mean, that would be a dead-end road.
Arguing the case through Jesus and his righteousness. And that’s what we need to remember. It’s not our righteousness. We need to come back to our Savior and what he did and what he’s doing right now.
I just finished reading Randy Travis’ memoir.
Some of you probably never even heard of Randy Travis. Anyway, he’s a country singer. Traditional country singer, but he wrote this memoir, just recently came out here in 2019, Forever and Ever Amen: A Memoir of Music, Faith, and Braving the Storms of Life. And I love to read these kind of books, but especially this one, because he takes us on this 35-year journey of his music career that back in 2016 resulted in him being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He sold over 25 million albums.
So he’s had, you know, quite a journey. In the book, he talks about his faith journey, how he came to faith in Jesus Christ, and how that hasn’t been, you know, just like a woo, it’s just been a one thing on and up and up and up and better and better and better all the time. Hasn’t been that at all. It’s been a lot of ups and downs and ups and downs, and there have been a lot of dark days in his life when his faith has really helped him get through those dark days. And certainly even Recently, or in 2013, you may have read this or heard about this, Randy Travis had a major stroke, and he’s been living in the aftermath of that.
He hasn’t been able to sing since then. He’s dealt with marriage problems. He’s dealt with financial problems. He’s dealt with alcohol problems. He talks about how in 2012 he made a public embarrassment of his life that was actually videotaped.
He was, he was into drunkenness that particular night. He said 5 years later the videotape of him and his embarrassing behavior surfaced and it was just an absolute, he said, embarrassment and humiliation to me. But then he said this, seeing that awful video reminded me, however, of an important spiritual truth that none of us can ever completely erase our past sins. Isn’t that true? That none of us can ever completely erase our past sins.
Only Jesus can do that for us. So while I must live with the reminders of the sinful things I’ve done in my life, I don’t have to live with the guilt, shame, humiliation of those things anymore. I can step into the future with confidence because Jesus paid the price for my forgiveness, and he has set me free. And then Randy went on to say this: When Satan, the accuser of our brethren, tries to bring things up from the past and hurl them in my face or tie me up in guilt and shame, I simply recall that I have overcome by the blood of the Lamb, the word of my testimony, and my willingness to lay down my life for Christ, and I say, In the name of Jesus, Satan, take your hands off me. I don’t belong to you anymore.
Jesus bought and paid for my soul, and I belong to Him. That’s the first time I’ve ever in print seen somebody who claims to be a Christian actually processing the truth of 1 John 2:1-2. In fact, my guess would be, like even in my life that I haven’t brought to mind when I find myself in sin. I have not brought to mind enough this passage, a passage that calls us to say no to sin, and a passage that calls us at the same time that when we fall into sin, when we sin, to come back to our Savior, to remember our Savior like Randy Travis is doing here. And to come back to our Savior and to remember what he did and what he is doing right now.
And not only will that change how we view ourselves right now and our sin, but it’ll change our relationship with God as we continue to go forward. Well, let’s pray. Father, thanks that we could get together this morning and encourage each other through song and through your word and We thank you for this encouraging passage, and so we pray that even as we reflect on this and we identify with this, that there will be commitments that will be made in our lives like no doubt they were made back in the first century where people were struggling with sin just as we are now.
I hope and pray, Lord, that if there’s anybody here that’s not yet received you as their Savior, that that would be the first commitment. Commitment, that they would recognize that we all need a Savior, and that’s why Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world so that all could be saved. But not all will be saved because of our sinfulness, because of our stubbornness, because of our unwillingness to say we need a Savior, because we want to continue to do life our way. It’s pretty obvious we’ve made a mess of life our way. So my first prayer, Father, would be for anybody who’s here right now that’s been holding out on you, that’s been continuing to live as if they’re the god of the universe, that they would turn to you even today and ask for forgiveness and ask you to save them, not based upon what they’ve done, but because of what Jesus did.
And Lord, may it not stop there. May our lives be a continual offering of righteousness, to live for righteousness. May we live differently. And when we blow it, thank you, God, that that does not mean we have to live with condemnation or shame or guilt.
But that in you we can live cleansed, forgiven, knowing there’s not— therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ.
And so may we live in light of that. May we remember our Savior. May we remember that he is our atoning sacrifice. May we remember he’s our advocate. That changes everything.
And as we continue to Think about this application in our lives this morning. Lord, have your way be done in us. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
