Well, I've been sick all week and my voice has decided to go funky about 30 minutes ago. So you can pray for my voice as I speak. I don't have the strongest voice in the world anyway, but it just got weaker. So we'll see what God has in mind here. You know, this week, Karen and I were both sick with sinus infections, and Friday night, we were looking for something to veg out on, since neither one of us were feeling so good, and we found on Amazon Prime a documentary called Jesus Music. It's the most intriguing thing. It's a two-hour documentary and it traced back, basically it's a history of contemporary Christian music, and it traced it back to the Jesus movement or the Jesus revolution of the late 60s and early 70s. If you don't know what that was, if you're younger, that was a time when a revival broke out in California among the hippie community, the drug community, if you will, young people. And it was a profound revival in California, and it spread in many ways all across the country. And kind of one of the ultimate experiences of that was something called Expo 72, which is something that Campus Crusade, which is crew now, and Billy Graham put together in Dallas, Texas in June of 1972. And 80,000 kids, basically, came and filled that stadium. There were over 200,000 people there, young people there. It was just the most amazing outpouring of the gospel, people sharing their faith in the streets, people praising God, so excited about this great salvation that they've been given. And my wife, Karen, was a three-month-old believer, and she was there. Jim and Joyce Mugg, Jim was her pastor. He had led a bunch of young people to Christ, and he gathered them all up, took a bus from Wyandotte, Michigan, and headed all the way down there. And Karen was just reveling in the memories of that, and just the joy of it. And, you know, we thought, you know, Easter's coming. Resurrection Sunday's coming. And that's what Resurrection Sunday and Easter's about, is reminding us of this great salvation that we've been given. and to revel in it and to praise God and to drink deeply of his grace and then give it away and share it with other people. So that was the first thing we got from him. But the other thing was, it was interesting because it was the story of all these different famous singers and musicians singing out about the truth of the word of God, the gospel, praising God's, how to walk, fellowshipping, walking with God. And they talk very honestly and openly about the challenges they faced in walking what they're singing. And some of them did better than others. Some of them were able to walk in the light more than others. Some struggled greatly with the darkness. And the transparency that was there and the humility that was there was really quite winsome. I would recommend that documentary to anyone. And I thought of that, and I thought, that's a great word just for this morning, because we're looking at 1 John 1, 1 through 10, which is about walking in the light and not walking in the darkness, and it's written to believers, to those who have already come to know Christ as Savior. So I want to start this morning with a question for you. If I was to sit down with you individually and ask you, what is the greatest challenge that you face in your Christian life, what would it be? What would you say? The greatest challenge in your Christian life, just you and me, just sitting one-on-one, would you say some things like, well, you know, I struggle with getting in the Word. I struggle with prayer. You know, it's a struggle to trust God. It's a struggle to witness. I struggle, I wanna be a better parent, a better husband, a better wife. Would you say those kinds of things? If you did, those are real. And those are important, but they're also fairly respectable. But if we talked further, and you thought maybe I was safe to talk to, you might dig a little deeper. You might talk about your doubts and your fears. and your concerns, and there's struggles of things that you can't get on top of. And if we talk a little further, and you thought maybe I could help you, you might start talking about sin and failure. You might start talking to me about this struggle for victory and freedom in certain areas of your life. You might talk about the need for grace and healing and the uncertainty of how it is that God sees you in the midst of your struggle with failure and with sin. And you might talk about needing a fresh touch of the Spirit in that area or in those areas of your life. And if you did share that with me, you would not be alone. And the news this morning is not news at all. As believers, we all sin. We all fail. I sin, you sin, we all sin. And the best news about that is that God knows we sin. And God knows that he has made provision for all of our sin through his son, Jesus Christ. And he also knows if this sin is not dealt with properly, it will lead to more sin. And that sin can lead us into darkness. It can lead us into deception. It can even lead us into bondage. And that is not what we were born for. Ephesians 5, 8, and 9 calls us children of the light. And this light is all goodness and righteousness and truth. And so this morning, what I want to do is we want to look at 1 John 1, 1-10 and talk about walking in the light versus walking in the darkness, talking about the struggle with sin and failure that you and I are all familiar with. The story's different, and yet the story's the same for each one of us. So, why don't you turn to 1 John 1, 1-10. If you are using a pew Bible, actually check this out. It's page number 1021. If you're using your regular Bible and not your phone, because if you're on your phone, you're on your own. You know, that's the way that works. If you're using your regular Bible, and you're not used to being in 1 John, you want to go to the back of the New Testament, you want to go through Hebrews, you want to go through James and 1 and 2 Peter, then you'll find John. And there's three of them, there's first, second, and third, so you wanna get the first one, okay? So you turn to that, and while you're doing that, I'm gonna pray for us and ask God to do what only he can do here this morning, all right? Father, we thank you for this time together. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your spirit. We thank you for Jesus. And we thank you for the provision he made for all of our sins on the cross. Father, your spirit doesn't need to be invited to do anything, but we do invite your spirit to speak to me, to speak to each person in this room in ways that are unique and powerful and filled with grace and truth and redemption and rescue, Lord. Father, I pray that you give me a good memory. I pray for my voice, that it would get stronger, or be strong enough that people would hear. Give me clarity of thought and clarity of tongue. Thank you for this time together, Lord. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're gonna start by reading all 10 verses, and then we'll begin to look at the first four verses. This is John the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. speaking the word of God to us. What was from the beginning, what we've heard, what we've seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands. Concerning the word life. and the life was manifested. And we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. We have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write so that our joy may be made complete. And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announced to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, We have fellowship with one another and the blood of his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. All right, the first four verses. There's a tone here. And as I read this, the tone is the Apostle John filled with excitement to the point of being overwhelmed as he shares what he knows about this Jesus. And he shares three things, and the first thing is, and these are basically three things that he's overwhelmed by. The first thing he shares is that Jesus is real, and therefore the Gospels is real. He's saying we saw him with our own eyes. We looked at him, me and the disciples with me and those close by, we looked at him intently. We touched him with our own hands, both during the three years we walked with him and the days after the resurrection. And we heard the words of life coming from his lips. And he is overwhelmed. Even all these years later, when this book was written, he is overwhelmed. We've heard the gospel. We're forgiven. We're really forgiven. We're completely forgiven. And that leads to eternal life. In 1 John 5, 13, at the end of the book, he said, That's the purpose of this book, okay, and he is excited. It's Resurrection Sunday for John, right, every day. Second thing he's overwhelmed with is our fellowship with God the Father and God the Son is real, and because of that, our fellowship with each other is real. This fellowship that's being talked about is first and primarily vertical, with God the Father and God the Son, but then it spreads horizontal to each other, and that's the theme here, and it's also the theme in verse seven. And he uses this word fellowship Koinonia, which is probably the one Greek word almost all believers know. So easy to say, it falls off the tongue, it's kind of catchy. Koinonia, think of it as a common experience of sharing, of partnership, and intimacy and communion. It's marked by openness with no need to hide. It describes the kind of fellowship that we have been given through Christ with God the Father and with Jesus, and therefore, the kind of fellowship that has also been given to each other. Now, remember, in scripture, when it talks about knowing God, and it talks about knowing God all the time, that we can know him, that he reveals himself to us, it's both intellectual and experiential. There is truth for the mind that fills this book and fills our minds and renews our minds. And then God wants us to experience the reality of that in our daily life. That's sanctification. Koinonia is an experiential truth. This is experiencing God as he is, as we walk with him on our road to sanctification, which is becoming more and more like Christ every day. That's the context here, and that's very important that we understand that and keep that in our minds. The last thing he's overwhelmed with is joy. This is nothing short of complete joy. Now there's different definitions for joy, but this joy, this is complete joy, this is different. And this is experiential joy as well, and it harkens back to John 15. where Jesus is talking about abiding in him and abiding in him and fellowship with him are two very closely aligned truths, two very closely aligned practices and experiences that we have in Christ. And he says, that abiding in me will make your joy And that's what John's talking about here. He calls it complete joy. Jesus called it full joy. It's the same thing, okay? It's the joy that can fill up all the empty places in your soul. It's the joy that can heal all the wounds in your soul. It's the joy that makes you know that you're never alone, right? That's what comes from the fellowship with God. And Koinonia is basically, I think, an invitation to lay aside a shallow, unsatisfying, non-transformative Christian life and take a deep dive into the heart of God, and consequently take a deep dive into the body of Christ and His people. So that's what John's excited about. That's what he's up to here, and that's what the Spirit of God is giving him, and this is the Word of God to us. So you might say, God has made provision for our greatest need, which is forgiveness. He's made provision for our greatest desire, which is fellowship, and our greatest hope, which is joy. So the question comes, well, that all sounds really good, John, really good. How do we experience the reality of this forgiveness, this fellowship, and this joy? Well, that's what the rest of this chapter is about. Let's move to verse 5. And it starts, interestingly enough, with seeing God as He is. And it says, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. This is verse 5. Now, why does the fact that God is light, why is that the first thing John wants us to know in order for me to experience my greatest need, desire, and hope, which is forgiveness, fellowship, and joy? Because how we see God affects our entire relationship with God. So it has to start with God. And he could have said many things, but he just said, God is light, and that means there is no darkness in him. There's no shifting shadow in him. He is perfectly light. Now, there's different ways we could explain that. The Bible talks a lot about God, talks a lot about light. And what I've done here, just in terms of trying to bring out what John is trying to say here to us, is bring out about five different things that we see in Scripture about the truth that God is light. It defines who he is, and it defines what he does. And I think these five things are pertinent to this passage. The first thing, is that He is life and He gives life. You think that back at the creation, where God spoke the world into existence. He started with light and then He gave life. You think about Jesus coming. What was He? What is He? The light of the world. And He brought life. And Jesus said, not only that, I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. They'd be rich and meaningful. in fellowship with me. So light leads to life. It leads to physical life, it leads to spiritual life, it leads to living life in the light of God's light. So the first thing we need to know when we say God is light, it means he is life and he gives life and he gives life to us, both physical life and spiritual life for anyone who has put their trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. It also means he's righteous and he gives righteousness. And he gives it as a gift from his son. Righteousness is associated, always associated with light, goodness, and truth. Again, that's Ephesians 5, 8, and 9. And that's God. He never lies. He never has evil intent. There's no shifting shadow in him. His glory and his goodness are one and the same. And he's the only one who can bring good out of an evil fallen world. Good out of evil, period. And the cross being the eternal and shining example. The greatest evil that was ever perpetrated in this world was nailing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, on a cross and killing him. The most horrific thing imaginable. And yet, what did God do? He turned evil in the most magnificent, marvelous, unimaginable good that could ever be brought to us. Forgiveness of sin, relationship with God, and eternal life. All we have to do is put our trust in Him and Him alone to be our Savior. So he's righteous. Light also means, when you say God is light, he's present and he's with us. The scriptures speak of the light of his presence. It speaks of the light of his countenance. I love the light of his countenance. It's the idea where he looks upon us with the idea of pleasure, the idea of blessing us, the idea of knowing us, interacting with us. God is light also means he's the way and he shows the way. Isaiah 2.5 says, let us walk in the light of the Lord. Psalm 119, 105 says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Because he's light, he can guide us and lead us the way. And lastly, light also means he's hope, and he gives hope. You know, Romans 15, 13 says, he is the God of hope and he's able to make us abound in hope. I love Matthew 4, 16 regarding the coming of Christ and the gospel. It says, the people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and to those who were sitting in the land and in the shadow of death, upon them a light dawned. Jesus and the gospel give hope. and they give the way out of the darkness. First, coming to Christ as Savior, and then walking with Him, He shows us the way out of the darkness into the light. So these are things that are meant here, just a few, a handful of things that are meant in Scripture when we say God is light. We need to see Him as He is. Otherwise, fellowship with Him will not look like And you will not think about it and want it the way you should think about it and want it the way we should think about it and want it. Because he's the God that we want to draw near to. We don't draw near to a God who is not, we draw near to the God who is. And the scriptures tell us that he is light. But it goes on, and just to make sure we get it, He is the exact opposite of darkness. In Him, there is no darkness at all. Darkness in Scripture, like light, represents many things, only the opposite. Things like death and sin and separation, stumbling, hopelessness, despair, all those things, that is not what God is. That's what God came, Christ came, the gospel came to rescue us from all of those things. So all of those things have nothing to do with His nature or His intent, who He is or what He brings to us. So it's very important here that we see what the Word of God is saying to us that this is the God we deal with. Otherwise, these next verses will get confusing and garbled if we don't see God as the God of light. He's the God that we can draw near to. Now, so the only thing that can keep us from experiencing what these verses 6 through 10 are going to talk about are not seeing God as He is, but the other one is sin. Sin darkens our minds. It darkens our understanding of who God is and who we are in His sight. And that's why these six verses deal with sin. Again, God knows we sin as believers, and he's showing us the way through that experience into light over and over again throughout our lives so that we do not end up walking in the darkness where we don't belong because we're children of light. We walk where we do belong, children of light. So let's jump into these passages here. Dealing with our sin appropriately. There's a wrong way to deal with sin, and there's a right way to deal with sin, and let's first deal with the wrong way. The wrong way to deal with sin, according to this passage, is verses 6, 8, and 10. All right? And we'll list them here. First one is, act like we're, this is verse 6, act like we're walking with God, which is walking in the light, when we're not. We're actually walking in the darkness. And the key phrase here is not practicing the truth, which is by definition walking in the darkness. God is the God of truth, His Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and His Word is the Word of truth. So walking in the light is walking in the truth. If we say we're walking in the light, and we say we're walking in the truth, we act like we are, we tell people we are, and yet we aren't. That's in fact walking in the darkness. Now what's being talked about here is not some perfectionistic performance, not some dot every I, cross every T, not some sort of legalism where you are constantly aware of your sin. This is talking about the difference between honesty and hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is acting like you're something, saying something, and really that's not true at all. So don't turn this piece of grace, this piece of wisdom and advice about what darkness is into something that it's not. This is about hypocrisy. Let me give you an example of what I mean. A few years ago, I spoke on Elijah and depression, and I shared my experience of suffering through up and down depression for eight years, climbing up, falling in, climbing up, falling in, and finally falling in, and having to ask for help and going to Colorado to get it with Karen. You know what the key was there? The key was I had several experiences very close together where the word hypocrisy came into my mind. where my personal life, my personal walk with God, the way I saw God, and the way I was thinking and feeling were getting further and further away from what I counseled, advised, and taught, and supposedly modeled. And when that word came into my mind, that was it. I can't do that. That's the idea here, hypocrisy. I can't do that. That's not light, that's darkness, okay? And so that's when we speak up. We speak up to God and we speak up to at least one other human being, right? That's honesty, right? That's what God, that's what's saying, don't be a hypocrite. The second way we handle sin wrongly, And by the way, you know, hypocrisy, no one sets out to be a hypocrite, okay? It just happens. And so when I felt that word come into my mind, it wasn't about condemnation. It was about shock. It was about, I need to do something, okay? So when we say hypocrisy, don't go home saying, oh, I'm just a terrible hypocrite. Do something, be honest, cry out to God, cry out to at least one other person. That's the idea. Second one, we deceive ourselves by saying it isn't sin. We say we have no sin. This is written in the present tense. In other words, I am currently sinning and I am not saying it and I am not admitting to it and I'm saying I don't have any sin. I'm saying this to God and I'm saying this to other people. And this is a picture of Hebrews 3.13 that says, sin hardens our hearts and deceives our minds. It hardens the way we think, the way we feel, and hardens the way we think. And pretty soon we can't see, think, or feel straight. And that's what sin does. And that's why this passage is written as God saying, listen, sin can take you places you don't want to go. I've made provision for all this. There is no need to walk in darkness. The provision of forgiveness has already been made, okay? And so that's the next thing is denial, is saying, I deny the nature of sin, and I deny the fact that I'm partaking in sin, whether that's thought, word, or deed, right? So that's the second way we don't want to deal with sin is denial. The third one is in verse 10, we call God a liar by denying that we've sinned at all. Now this is in the past tense. Now it's becoming a lifestyle where we sin, we act like we don't, we say we don't, and now we're calling God a liar because it's really not sin at all, God. And what that is, is what Isaiah 5 says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness. See, that's what sin can do. It can darken our thinking and our thought process to the point where we're no longer sure what's true and what's not true, what's good and what's evil. Does that sound familiar? That sounds like our culture. and evil good. And what is that? That's a lost sinful world that can't see, think, or feel straight about what's right and what's wrong. And so what happens is the more we walk in sin and don't deal with sin, We more and more look like the world, think like the world, feel like the world, and pretty soon we read the Word of God. And by golly, that Word of God's not right, because I'm right. See the deception that goes on? And when you're deceived, by definition, you don't know you're deceived. So that's the picture here. The third way, and it's a progression. You start with hypocrisy, you move to denial, and then we move to rebellion, which is really what that is, okay? So that's a dark picture. That's a picture of walking in darkness. That's a picture that all of us can do, and I'm thinking all of us have. I have. It's real easy to do. And so God in His grace is describing it to us. These aren't condemning. These are informational, okay? This is how it works. This is what it looks like to be the victim of the enemy and to walk in darkness instead of walking in the light as a child of the light, okay? So he doesn't stop there, obviously. Then he tells us what the right way is, and the right way is in verses seven and nine, the right way to deal with sin. Are you still with me here? All right, we'll get to the good stuff here, okay? All right. Walk in the light where God is, that's verse seven, and experience fellowship with God and consequently with other believers. By the way, when your fellowship with God is slowly moving toward darkness, it's interesting how you start moving away from the body of Christ, moving away from close friendships, moving away from church attendance, Getting out there on the edge is why? Because it's uncomfortable. Fellowship, the kind of fellowship being described here with God and other believers is the most wonderful thing. But it's not wonderful if we're not walking in the light, right? So there's this movement to pull away, and we all feel that. When you're hurting, when you're not doing well, when sin is overtaking you, we just start to pull back, right? So God's saying, don't do that. Walk in the light. Stay with me. And again, remember that the words walk, fellowship, these are experiential words. These are sanctification words. Okay, we're justified by faith. and given peace with God. We trust Christ as Savior. We are given the righteousness of Christ. We are made holy and blameless in Him. We are fully accepted by God. And then what God does, then He sets about making what's real in the heavenlies, what's real in His eyes, and what's real in our new identity in Christ, making it real in our experience so that we actually begin to look and act and think and feel and respond more and more like Jesus. These are experiential truths. It's an experiential passage. This is the experiential side of knowing and experiencing God, right? Very important, right? So these are the words we're dealing with there, and sanctification is what we're talking about. So we walk in the light, and we do that by confessing our sins. The word confess is homo legao. It means to say the same thing. It means to agree with God. It means, God, you call it sin, I call it sin. That's what confession is, agreeing with God, saying the same thing. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, why is God faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins when we confess them? Is it because we confess? Or is it something else? The word forgive, there are several words for forgive in the New Testament, is ephiamine. It means to send away and to get rid of it. And it's written in the aorist tense, which means it references an historical event that happened in the past. What would that be? That would be the cross. The forgiveness, God sent the sin away and he got rid of it for us at the cross. And we put our trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins. We were forgiven for all of our sins when we put our trust in Christ as Savior. Past, present, and future. The forgiveness of sin. He's faithful and righteous and forgives our sins because payment has been made. Just keep reading. 1 John 2, one through two. Read this. My little children, don't you love that? This is the Spirit of God speaking to us through John. I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, and you will, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. Propitiation is satisfying God's wrath. You think of Christ on the cross, and we think of this horrible physical suffering he went through, and it was nightmarish. But other men experienced that. But then there's the real deal. And the real deal is you pile up the thousands of years of sins, from the smallest to the most heinous, and everything in between, committed by billions of people, past, present, and future, and all that wrath and judgment, that sin is deserving of, is poured out on Christ on the cross, and He absorbs it. That's propitiation. That's grace. And Christ took it all. That's why God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. We confess them because they're already paid for. And confession is how we experience the reality of that forgiveness, the reality of that cleansing. Confession is how we don't allow sin to become between us and God, not on his side, but on our side. We won't talk about what's wrong. We won't talk about the failure. We won't talk about the sin. And we won't bring it to him because we don't think it's forgiven. We don't think it can be cleansed. And in fact, it already is, but we can't experience that until we bring it to him. This is the experiential fellowship with God that confession brings to us. So confession is not a burden. Confession is a gift. Oh God, you come to God and say, God, you call this sin, so do I. Lord, forgive me and thank you for forgiving me. Cleanse me, thank you for cleansing me. Now fill me with your spirit, enabling me to walk in the light and the power of the spirit, looking more and more like Christ. That's what this passage is about. That's what 1 John 1, 9 is about. We'll talk more about that here in just a second. Now, this passage is known for confusion. This passage is known for what I would call not being taught well. And this passage is also a place of great spiritual warfare because the enemy, Satan, his desire is to make us walk in darkness and not light where we belong. And so he'll twist anything that has to do with the grace of God. And here's some things, so here's some things I want you to know and things to remember about confession. So we'll dig a little deeper here. First of all, the Holy Spirit shows you what needs to be confessed. All right? In John 14, he is called the Comforter, Parakletos, the one who comes alongside to comfort, strengthen, and encourage. He indwells us. He wants to fill us. Okay? And he fills us when we're walking in the light, like this is describing. He's also the Spirit of Truth. that guides us in all truth, that reveals truth to us. And if walking in the light means walking in the truth, which it does, we just saw it here, that means the Spirit of God comes alongside and shows us when we're not walking in the truth, shows us when there's sin, and comes alongside and whispers to us. Sometimes he yells, but mostly listens. Whispers to us and tells us that's sin. That's not right. Let's take care of that. That's his job. Now I say that's his job because there's two kinds of Christians. There's one that has not so sensitive consciences and ones that have hypersensitive consciences. And the Spirit of God knows how to deal with both kinds of believers. The not so sensitive conscience is one that thinks I'm walking in the light and I'm not. Well, the comfort here is that the Spirit of God is well able to bring the resources to bear to get through your not-so-sensitive conscience and speak to you. And He is gracious, He is patient, and He is utterly relentless. He will not stop because He's committed to showing us how to walk in the light. So if you're of that conscience, be assured God is faithful to you to show you what needs to be confessed. More troublesome is the hypersensitive conscience, where you have a sensitivity to these things, and a sensitivity to sin, and maybe a bit of a perfectionist bent, perhaps. And so you're, if you will, can be almost obsessed with, am I doing the right thing? Was that sin? This is not a burden. Jesus said, my burden is easy, my load is light. Take it upon you. Confession is a freedom that's given to experience the grace of God and walk in the light. It is not a burden. It is not a law. It is not something that you do. It's something the Spirit does. He doesn't need your help. He is fully capable of revealing sin to you in His way and His time. Right? So just by way of assurance there, this is his job. This is what he does. The spirit of truth shows us how to walk in the truth, which is walking in the light. That means he shows us how to confess. Make sense? All right. The second thing is we're not forgiven because we confess. I think I already covered that and I got ahead of myself there. If we did that, if we say that, if I'm not forgiven unless I confess, well, there's all kinds of problems with that. The first one's both theological and practical. Theological is the first one. I'm saying that the death of Christ on the cross was not sufficient to pay for my sin. I have to confess, and if I don't confess, it's not forgiven. Do you know what you just said? The cross of Christ is not sufficient to forgive you. You must add your works to it. You must do something. to complete this forgiveness that Christ died for on the cross. That's not true. That flies in the face of propitiation, which we just read about, okay? The other thing is practical. Do we really think we know all our sins? Do we really? We don't. I once had a lady who cut my hair, and she told me, which is a sincere believer, and she told me, she says, you know, I heard a teacher this week that told me Something about confession that I never knew. I thought that if you died without any unconfessed sin, you'd go to hell. And I looked at her and I said, Joyce. I was like, and she, and she was so thrilled and so relieved. See, that's a, that's an extreme perversion of that principle. Okay. The idea is that Christ paid the price. We confess. So we enter into the joy of that provision, right? That's sanctification. Confession also is not begging God to forgive you. It's not feeling bad enough, long enough, until you feel worthy of being forgiven. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes confession of sin and repentance of sin, there's great sorrow there. In fact, 2 Corinthians 7, 9, and 10 talks about a godly sorrow. that leads to repentance without regret, that leads to a deeper experience of our salvation. So it's very real. There are mundane sins that God reveals to us, we confess them, and we just keep moving right along. There are other sins that have greater consequences, they have greater effect on us and other people and on our lives. And some of them can fill us with grief. And so there can be great sorrow, but that's godly sorrow that leads to life and not to death. Again, we're not talking about a sorrow that makes you feel bad enough, long enough, until you've earned the right to be forgiven. We don't earn anything. That's important. And the last thing is there's a difference between weakness and sin. Weakness can lead to sin, but it's not sin in and of itself. We all have been given a personality, a mind, and a body by God, and He likes us. He likes us just how He made us, minus the sin. Weakness is part of our existence. And weakness can, if it's not brought to God, lead to sin. It can literally become a seedbed where you can grow sin. And it often does that. But it's not sin in and of itself. Weaknesses we don't confess. Weaknesses we bring to God. so that his strength may become perfect in us. That's 2 Corinthians 12, 9 and 10. So that he ended up glorifying himself through our weakness instead of it becoming a place of sin. So that's just an important kind of extra credit concept there that helps us and will help you. So that's 1 John 1, 1 through 10 with an add on 1 John 2, 1 through 12. And the picture here is of a gracious God who has made provision for all of our sin. who we, as a believer, put our trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, and now he wants us to reap the full benefit of being a forgiven people, a spirit-indwelled people, a spirit-filled people who can walk in the light. And he wants us to know how to experience that through walking in the light and through confession. And as we do that, we walk in ever deeper fellowship with God, realizing that this indeed is the best thing. and the only thing I ever really needed. And then what comes from that kind of life is you begin to dig more deeply into the body of Christ. Relationships get deeper. You become a blessing and an encouragement to other people, and people bless you and encourage you. And then as we become more like Jesus, who is the light, we become like Him in the sense we become lights in the world. And people see that. They notice that. And when we combine our good deeds and our lifestyle with words of the gospel, that's how people come to Christ. See, this is the picture of the grace that God has poured out upon us that he wants to drink deeply of. And we don't want to let the enemy or any other wrong teaching rob us of that. All right. That's all I got. I'm gonna pray, okay? Father, thanks for your word. Thanks for confession. Thanks for your Son. Thanks for your Spirit. Thank you for being our Father. Lord, I pray that you drive these truths deeper and deeper into my soul and my spirit, and the same with each person here, Lord. Let us walk in your grace, your forgiveness, and your freedom as people of the light, who walk in the light. I pray this in Jesus' name.