First John. First John is where we're going to be. Chapter 1. But as usual, we're going to turn there and then turn someplace else right away. But First John, Chapter 1. And we're going to be going to the last chapter of the Gospel of John. John, Chapter 21. So I'll give you a heads up if you want to go ahead and turn there. So the Gospel of John, Chapter 21. And we're going to be in First John. And you know me, various other places in between. But there's the first two launch points. I'd like to start out with a little bit, and I've been trying to do this, give us a little bit, a fuller understanding of John. and the author of this book. Because one, he's one that we know a lot about because he's mentioned in the four gospels. He's written 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. He wrote the book of Revelation. So we have a lot we can ponder about. First thing, he is a fisherman. We've talked about that and what that means, body type, style. He's not some little sissy guy. This is a guy who drug nets full of fish and would get them onto a boat. And to be able to handle that, he had probably a big, strong hand, big, strong guy, strong back. Jesus had a nickname for him that tells you a little bit about his disposition. He was called a son of thunder. He was ready to call down fire on people who had rejected and in fact insulted Jesus Christ. He's like, Lord, you want us to call out fire on them? He's a fiery brimstone preacher. He's probably one of them who banged the pulpits a lot. There's my one for the year. But he's one of these guys, like, oh, let's bring it down. He's kind of like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I kind of see him and his brother, James, as almost like tag team wrestling duo. You kind of see them, whoa! want us to call it out far." And Jesus was like, no, back it off a little bit. And so he kind of had this nickname for him. Hey, sons of thunder, come here. And I'm sure John was humbled by that. And so that's kind of neat. And it's hard to think of a fisherman and not think of Me fishing you know when I think of me fishing I think of you know I get some hooks I'm sitting on usually on the dock at our lake and I can throw out and sit there and meditate you know I might get a fish might not get a nibble watch what's playing around in there and and and that's not what he's not like a fisherman with a pole out he's a commercial fisherman so he's working with a net you know he's working with boats you know I don't even know that I've ever fished off a boat. Maybe once. I've mostly just fished off the bank. I've just never had that way. But here, he's a commercial fisherman, so it's different. They fished at night. They used lights a lot. And we can kind of glean that from the text, because they'd be coming in in the morning with their haul or no haul. So it's a little bit different. But there is an aspect of it that's still the same with fishing. There's long periods of waiting, you know, like you might have to drop your net down and wait all night or decide where you're going to do it here or there versus just casting out and thinking. So with fishing comes a lot of thought, I think. A lot of time where you can sit and reflect, take in creation, you know, to be able to look at it, you know. And when you do catch a fish, look at that, like what is this strange creature? Am I going to put my finger in its mouth and get it out, like get the hook out or is this thing just going to live with a hook in his mouth and let him go? You know, it's like if we caught catfish, I usually took them to our neighbor. Here, you can get it off the hook and you can have it. I didn't want to be puking because I'd seen my cousin once grab it. He got barbed and he just started instantly throwing up. And I'm like, no, thank you. I don't think I like catfish. Same way with any snapping turtle. He gave that to the neighbor. But he caught all kinds of weird, mysterious things in his net. And so he's out there, often at night, in a boat. I thought, man, what would that be like to be floating out waiting on a boat? What would I be like? Here you have the mysteries of the deep underneath you. And that already draws my attention. I'm kind of fascinated with diving and what's under the water and what's down there to go and look, sunken treasure, you know, coral, mysterious fish, you know, all these different creatures. I pay to go to aquarium often, you know, if we're in that area, we go and see. But the same thing, he's floating on a boat with all these mysteries deep beneath him. He's also got the sky above him, where there is no artificial light other than fire or a lamp. And so imagine the stars that would pop out from him in the middle of a lake that he can then ponder the mysteries in the depths of the heavens as well. And what's up there? Who made me? What's going on? What's God like? All these different things and to have it reflected in the water. What a place of meditation to be out there at this time. And I can perceive that John did do a lot of that thinking. I can perceive his thoughtfulness and his meditations in his writings, the way he writes and the way he puts things. This is a guy, he's not some unlearned fisherman. Matter of fact, his father owned the business. We know that he had some money and he had some pull and he had some influence from other things that we'll look out because who he's able to go and talk to during the crucifixion. But here we are in the Gospel of John, John chapter 21, and I can see his meditations in this. Look at verse... So John 21 verse 24 says, this is the disciple which testifies of these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. He's talking about himself. He never calls himself John. He never mentions his name. He's always the one whom Jesus loves. Here he says, the disciple who wrote this, he's telling you the truth. He's not making anything up. I am putting my stamp, my name on the line here. I verify this is an eyewitness account. These are things that I witnessed. And then he says this. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, that which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the whole world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. There's a verse charged with mystery. What did John see that he did not record? See, because John, and I've talked about the heptatic structure of John, in the Gospel of John, he puts seven miracles. He just lists seven jewels that convey the point of the story he's trying to tell. It's not that Jesus did seven miracles. Apparently, Jesus did an infinite amount of things. He's like, I suppose if I took time and I wrote them all down, the world cannot contain them. I'm like, that's an exciting three years. And he's like, man, you can just kind of see his meditation. I couldn't convey it all. I couldn't tell you it all. Well, we know that the Bible does tell us that God's ways are unsearchable. His knowledge is past finding out. And so there is an unsearchable well, an untapped resource that we'll be able to always go to and to study and to learn and to get instruction from. But John kind of tells us here, he's a thinker. He wants you to think a little bit. He goes, I've just told you seven. There's more. There's more of this mystery. Come to know him. And I think he ends it with that for that allure because he knows that we like a mystery. We have a desire to discover more. I like to watch the show The Curse of Oak Island. I don't know any other Oak Island mystery. I know there's a few over here. The Curse of Oak Island is a treasure on this island. And I remember reading the story in Reader's Digest and a few other books I had about it. And I watch it, and my wife can't watch it with me. She doesn't like that they're always about ready to die. So she doesn't watch it with me. So I watch it, and she'll always be like, what happened this week? And I always can answer the same thing. They almost found the treasure. Because every week, they almost find it. They never find it. It's always there. I hope they find it. But I like that mystery solved in that way. But there is something that keeps me coming back. Maybe next time. They're going to find something else. There's going to be something more. John's kind of put that teaser at the end here. There's more. Don't you want to know him? Don't you want to study him? Don't you want to be around him, this man who fed 5,000, this man who resurrected the dead, this man who was able to attach ears that had been just freshly severed off, this man who was able to speak with power and authority and came down here and claimed to be the Messiah? Don't you want to know him? I think John taps into that. That's why he writes us 1 John. 1 John is a book, as we read with the memory verse, This is for us. I'm gonna cheat ahead and go back and look at, as I memorize this. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name. It's two believers. This book is for believers. First John, it's instruction to us. If you've repented and trusted Christ as your Savior, he says, here's a book for you. And here we are in chapter one. He's told us several things. We're not very far, and yeah, we're a few weeks in, so it's gonna be a while. Short book, but man, this book has got some depth to it. Verse five is where we ended last week where he talked about light and darkness. This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Well, we spent a whole week talking on that verse. But it's also kind of code. And I've been trying to categorize these codes that are in the Bible that a lot of times we take for granted because we know them. And this is one, he says light and darkness. It's kind of like, well, It's imagery that holds up. You figure he wrote this, you know, 2,000 some years ago, and it's going to convey a truth to us in 2017, and we still get the light, dark imagery. That God is light, he's good, he's dressed the good side, you know. And then there's the dark side, you know, Darth Vader, the bad guys, the villains. You know, we have that, the light and the dark. We have it there. There's the good and there's the bad. We still have the good guys dressed white and the bad guys dressed in black. You know, it's kind of an imagery that holds up. God is light. We are darkness is what He's conveying to us. God is holy is what He's saying. We are not. So there's the dilemma. How to us, us who are darkness, us who are evil, us who aren't holy, how do we have fellowship with the light? Because when I turn on the light, the darkness flees. When we turn on the light, darkness is gone. You don't have dark and light together in the same place. It's not like you get to the edge, oh, I'm in the light, I'm in the dark. You can't do it. It's gone, it dissipates, it runs away, especially if you think in a room in that way. How do we get together? First, let's see how Paul paints the picture, because sometimes we need to convince ourselves that we are with us. We need to make sure we're in agreement with the Lord. So I'm gonna turn to Romans chapter seven. We'll look at a few verses in Romans. Romans 7. Verse 18. Romans 7, verse 18 says, for I know that in me, this is the apostle Paul, for I know that within me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. I'm going to stop there because it gets into a tongue twister, but this conveys it all. He's like, I want to do good, but I'm not good. I desire to do good, but I usually do what's wrong. I identify with that. I understand that. Like, man, you know, I can leave every Sunday morning, but this week, I'm going to tear it up for the Lord. And Sunday, Lord, I'm confessing for I did not tear up this week for the Lord. And so it's like I have a desire, but I have the flesh. I want to sleep in. I don't want to get up. I don't write them, talk to them, take the risk, expose myself. Do I, don't I? All the struggles that we face, I want to do what's righteous. I want to pursue Him. Stay down the straight and narrow, but it's hard. That's us in the flesh. He says right there, in my flesh. He's like, in my heart, I have this desire. I had a change within me to where I want to live righteously, but I'm stuck in my flesh, which is hard to live righteously in our flesh, in this evil world with all these things trying to lure us all paths and destroy us away and then to bring us down, let alone, and you have it in your pocket now. You have all these things. It's just right there. He says, it's trying to pull us away. So Paul tells us, he goes, that's Paul's inward struggle. I want to, but I'm carnally minded. My mind is still lost. I've been saved, but man, in my flesh, it's hard. It's a war between us. It's a fight. Christianity is a fight. It's never like, I won. No, it's a fight. We're trying to stay with him. So Paul's gonna tell us how God sees us. That's Romans chapter three. Romans three and verse 10 says, So he's quoting the Old Testament here, it says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. All men are that way. So all men are lost, all men are unrighteous, all men are darkness and God is the light. So God is the light and we are darkness and he's putting us all in that camp. Look at Romans chapter eight. The men are studying the book of Romans, if you'd like to come and go through this, not just this curious, this little cursory brief overview, but they're on Sunday mornings going through the book of Romans. But here we are in Romans chapter eight, but you're welcome to join that class. Romans eight, verse seven says, because the carnal mind, that's the world mind, the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, Neither indeed can be. That's a tongue twister. I'm going to read it again. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. He's saying we're carnally minded. We're worldly minded. We think of the world. And that is opposed to God. And so we have to really fight to bring every thought captive. As a matter of fact, there's a verse that says that. We have to bring every thought captive. It's a wrestle. It's not just like cruise control. I'm doing what is righteous all the time No, it's a fight to do what is right. It's a fight to choose with God It's a decision that we have to make a path to go down You know each step we're going to make and so through these few verses that we looked in Romans Plus the one in John that tells us we are darkness that we are rebels that we are evil that we are carnally minded We are carnal. We are unrighteous. We are worldly and And yet God is holy, and he is just, and he is pure, and he is perfect, and he is perfection. So how do we, darkness, get together with the light and not be consumed by it? You know, that's kind of the struggle. That's the dilemma, and that's the dilemma that Paul, or Paul, that John is putting to us here in 1 John, if we turn back there. How can we be restored in a fellowship with God? How can we come alongside God if we are darkness and he is light? Man's tried a few different ways. John is aware of those. He's written this in his day and these same battles go on today. I can think of categories or these people that take this same tact today. One way that man tries to rectify this, God is light, we are darkness, how do we get together? And one way that man tries to rectify that is say, well then God needs to change. He needs to come down to my level. I need to reduce God to something less. I need to make God like me. That's what verse six is. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. Walking with God, it's living with God, it's fellowship with God, it's in step with God. This is saying that I'm fine and God's fine, we're good together. God and I are good. We walk together, we're down the same path, God's good with me, I'm good with Him, we're okay. We just saw from the Bible that God's view of you is that you are not good. You're evil. There are none righteous. No, not one. You're carnally minded. You're wicked. Even the apostle Paul here had a direct encounter with Jesus Christ. He said, I want to do good, but my flesh wants to do evil. And yet we're going to say, we're good. We're good. How can you have fellowship? How can you have communion, light and darkness together? You can't. So how do you do that? How can you say, we just walk together? So God is having to slum it. God is having to come down. God is having to lower himself to be in man's image here, or to at least humble himself to say, well, I will fellowship with you where you are, even though you are a sinner. But God doesn't do that. God is 100% holy, 100% just. And God cannot be in fellowship with sin. He can't. So that doesn't happen. Verse seven says, but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Some have taken this verse to mean that, well, if I live according to God's laws, then that means I am fellowshipping with him, and that, you know, as I walk with his laws, that he is now cleansing me, and he is keeping me in direct fellowship with him. Well, you can't keep his laws. And this does not say walking according to God's laws. He's not saying that. If you live in my laws, that you are fine. He doesn't say that. It says that if you are in the light, not according to. So it's not a matter of, no, it is a matter of where we walk and not how we walk. He's saying, are you with me? Where are you walking? Are you walking with me and not how are you walking? And again, this is some deep stuff for a fisherman 2,000 years ago. So how can we think that we are right and safe, but you're wrong? Because a lot of times that's what it is. A lot of times you can self-deceive yourself. I can say, I think I'm all right. I can justify myself. God knows me. He understands I'm trying. He's there. So yeah, we're good. But you can be wrong. You can be wrong, and self-deception is the worst. And the best example I can think of, you know, my limited framework, is I was in high school, and a buddy of mine had a brother who went to IU, and he found a map, and there was something that was down there that some of the kids did, I guess, and there was a cave down there called Buckner's Cave. It's somebody's property. It had a little book you'd sign in, and you could go to this hole and crawl down in it. And I'm like, sounds good. So I wanted to explore and do that. So we got the map, and we got some flashlights, and we went down there. And it's got a, for Indiana Cave, it's got a big old mouth that you walk in, and then there's one little rock, there's a little hole you go behind, and we did. And we crawled for. way too long to where it was no closer like if I get tired of crawling so I tried rolling but my shoulder would rub you know it's that narrow so we were going forever you know crawling down this way getting back to this loop cave it made a big loop and so we crawled down there we finally got into this room where we could set up a little bit and we were exhausted and so we We got there and we shut our lights off and we just kind of laid on the ground there and talked for a minute. You know, man, that was a crawl. You know, I hope we can find our way back out. You know, all this other stuff and hope our batteries are good. So, you know, so we had our lights off, laying there for a while. So, we were sitting there talking, talking about the plan, talking about how dark it was. And so, I set up. I was on this rock. So, I set up on this rock and we were sitting there chatting, you know, just talking. And he's like, well, I'm pretty sure, you know, as we get our lights on, we're going to go down this little creek and we're going to turn left. And we're going to go down the path that way, or go down that channel. Ah, it sounds good and all this stuff. So I'm about ready to stand up, thinking everything's good. And he said, we probably ought to turn our lights on before we stand up. And I'm like, OK. He'd been there before. So I turn on the light, and I got a rock right here. I got a rock right in front of my face. I mean, it's that dark that I didn't even know it didn't sound like it. I got a rock right in front of my face. I'm inches away from busting my nose. Who knows? I'm pretty squirrely as I sit there and talk. I'm like, who knows how close I came to rubbing my nose off. Or if I stood up, I'd have bashed my head and everything else. I was oblivious to it. I thought I was fine, I'm sitting there, I think I'm okay, but the minute I turn on the light, whoa, danger Will Robinson, you got a rock right here, you got it all over your head, there's blind crawdads in the creek over there. They had all these things going on around me, who knows, whatever, spiders, and we did see some bats that were in the corner, and it's like, all of a sudden the light shows me all these things that I'm sitting right next to, but I was oblivious to, because I was in the darkness. It's a pretty good parallel what this is talking about. If you're in the darkness, you think you're good. But the minute you start shining God's light on it, you start seeing, you know, I'm not good. I am in a dangerous position. I am a perilous path and I have danger right in front of me and I can't even see it because I'm not looking at it with his eyes. We need to turn on the light, you know, then we can see it exposes us. So we need to do that. See here, it says here that Jesus can cleanse us. The end of verse seven. Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin. I have all underlined in mine. And I'm glad that he puts that in the present tense. Cleanseth us. It's a cleansing. He is cleaning us. He keeps us clean. Again, like I said, this book is written to believers. Those who had seen themselves as a sinner have repented of those sins and trusted Jesus Christ to save them. Now we are trying to live in this world as saved people who still keep getting into sin. He's telling us here that you don't lose your salvation. And I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. Once I did nothing to save myself, I do nothing to lose my salvation. Jesus Christ saved me, he put me in his hand, he's gonna deliver me, and he says, now once you're in my hand, I am in my father's hand, who can pluck you out? So he's got us in there. But I can't lose my salvation, but I can lose my fellowship with God. I can get into sin, and all of a sudden, there's a wall there. You know, I don't have that closeness that I did have because he is righteous and he is holy, but now I am in sin and he can't have fellowship with that. So now there's a division in there. There's a silence that goes on. My prayers aren't like they should be. I don't have a desire for the word, you know, that I can have a distance that grow, you know, think of relationships in that way. Think of husband and wife when there's a trouble that comes and that coldness creeps in and you know it. What's for dinner? Cold shoulder. I'm having it all day. And so, you know, we got to watch out for that. And so we have this, we lose that fellowship. And again, it's because John, we gotta remember, he is writing about family truths here. He is telling us how to live in the family of God. And how do you get in the family of God? How do you get in any family at all? You have to be born into it, right? Or marriage, you know, and so they're both contract, but you have to be born into it is the Bible way. And so again, you have to be born into this. And so this is a family truth. And so that means he might have to discipline you. If you're gonna stay in that unbroken fellowship, there's gonna be some discipline that comes. And John is trying to make this clear to us. But see, but people don't like being told that they are wrong. I'm a preacher, I get that all the time. Hey, if you're just a Christian around somebody, you try to mention anything, it's kind of like, you sure are judgmental of me. I'm just telling you what God's Word says. That's why I usually try to use God's Word. It's like, it's not me saying this, it's God saying this. God says that if you tell a lie, you're a liar. It's God who says that if you lust after someone, it's the same as committing adultery. God says to put him first. you know, to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. God says to honor your father and mother. God says do not covet. God says, you know, do not bear false witness. You know, God says all these things. I don't, you know, and I can take you to Exodus 20 and show you. And so they don't like being told that they're wrong. Okay, I can't bring God down to my level. God's gonna have to expose my sin, and then he's gonna show it that way. I don't like that, so they try another method. And this other method is to bring themselves up to God level. Well, maybe, maybe I'm good. Maybe I'm like God then that way. Verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. This view is called sinless perfectionist. There's people out there that think that, hey, I got saved and God has made me where I don't sin anymore. I'm perfect. Yeah. You ever met someone perfect or thinks they're perfect? Not very fun to be around them. So they say that, I am perfect, I'm not sinning anymore, so now God and I can have fellowship. We have fellowship. Yeah, if you're around someone like that, it's no fun. Because if you're, I heard J. V. R. McGee told a story, he said, he goes, I had a roommate, and he's going to Bible colleges at seminary. He goes, and they put us in a room with some guy, you know, you don't know, it's like a college dorm. So he gets in there in his college dorm room and says, hey, I just attained sinless perfection. He's like, really? Shake your hand. I've never met someone who didn't sin anymore. So he shakes his hand. He said, after the first semester, he's like, I'm moving out. He said, why? He said, because if there's anything wrong in here, it's always my fault. It's never your fault. You're sinlessly perfect. Everything has to be your way. He said, he moves out from the guy. And he said, the guy never got another roommate. He said, this guy thought he was it. He was the bomb. You have to live by my standards. I'm perfect. You have to go by them. He's like, man, you don't want to be that way. And so confidence is one thing, but saying you're perfect is another. So what's John say about someone who claims to be sinlessly perfect? And again, we've talked a few things about John, even this morning. He's a fisherman. We've talked about him being the son of thunder. It's kind of fun. One week we talked about how fast he was that he outran Peter to the tomb. Let's just think for a minute, who's writing to us right now? John's the one disciple who died of natural causes all the others gave their life for Christ John lived during Jesus time which is kind of interesting it puts a pretty unique time to be on earth He heard Jesus preach and he was convicted of his sin And Jesus shows up to his work and says I'll make you fishers of men And John said okay, so he changed his careers and He was the son of the owner of the company. You don't just walk away from the family business, right? And so John does this. He forsakes all, he follows him. It changes careers. He lives with Jesus for three years. He saw him transformed where his human body let his glory shine through to the point where he says he's like shining like lightning or he can't hardly look at him. He also sees Moses and Elijah. I've not done that. He's eaten bread that Jesus Christ was able to multiply, bread and fish that he took from little boy's lunch and made go and grow. He ate some of that meal, he ate from a couple times, different meals like that. I think he was at the wedding, he even had that wine. He saw miracle after miracle. He sat next to him at the last supper. How many people claim that? One other guy, he's only got two sides, right? So he sat next to him at the last supper. He was at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the man who split time and divided it from A.D. to B.C., this man who has so impacted the world that we're still talking about him. He had talked to Jesus while Jesus was on the cross. Jesus is nailed to the cross. He looks down, John, son, behold thy mother. And he puts Mary, the Virgin Mary that we all talk about, Mary, Jesus Christ's mother. He says, John, take care of her the rest of your life, rest of her life. Take care of her. That's John. This is this John. This guy has some influence in Christianity. This guy has some clout. He was one of the last people he talked to before he died on the cross. John, he's the one who ran to the empty tomb the first resurrection Sunday, right? He hears the news, the tomb was empty. He runs to it, he looks inside, he sees the grave clothes. He's like, oh, they've not been cut open. They've not been done anything else. He's passed through these. He sees the face cloth fold up on the other side. You know, the job is done. He sees this. He saw Jesus Christ with his eyes, the resurrection. He watched Thomas handle him. He saw him on the shore. There's one time when they're fishing, you know, in those 40 days after the resurrection. And he's like, how's the fishing? Some guy on the shore. And John's like, and Peter like, No good. And he's like, throw your net on the other side. Okay. And they throw it on the other side, and it's full. And John's like, that's Jesus. And Peter dives in and swims. You know, and they get there, and they have shore lunch. Jesus has made them breakfast on the shore and all this stuff. John's the one that recognized him. It's him. You know, he sees all these events. He watched him ascend up into heaven with the promise that he's coming back, you know, and to go forth and to take the gospel and to teach. And he's the one that had the promise to him he would not die before he saw the end. And he's then given the book of Revelation that tells us all this. He is saying this. He does not claim to be sinlessly perfected, but I'm sure somebody in 2017 in Trafalgar probably is. So this is the guy who's saying this, and so he has some clout in Christianity to say, here's God's view of someone who claims to be sinlessly perfected. Verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The truth is not in us. In the verse six up there, it says, If we say we have fellowship in him and walk in darkness, we lie. He calls them a liar. You're a liar. If you say, if you're living in sin, if you have sin in your life and you say that you're in close fellowship with the Lord, he said, you're a liar. I mean, he's not afraid to call you a liar. He's not politically correct. He's like, I'm just getting it to you straight, man. You're a liar. And then we get down to this guy who says, well, you know, okay, reducing God down to my level doesn't work. I am like God, I am sinlessly perfect. And he's like, you have no truth in you at all. It's worse than a liar. You are self-deceived. Because who does the sinless perfection person fool? Does he fool anybody around him? No. You ask anybody who claims to be sinlessly perfected, you go talk to the close people around them. It's like, hey, you ever seen this guy slip up? They probably got a list a mile long. Oh, yeah, sinlessly perfected? Yeah, I can tell you a list of things about him. Ask his wife. She'll tell you all the things he's not doing. You know, he's not fun to be around. Is he fooling God? Wow, that guy must be sinlessly perfect. I have to make room up here. He's got to sit next to me. No, no, he's not fooling God. He knows who he is. He knows his heart. He knows he's mine, so he's not fooling him. So who does he deceive? It tells us right there. He's self-deceived. That is a desperate, desperate, horrible place to be. Self-deceived. He's just, and he's sin. He's there. He's lost. So what do we do? We can't bring ourselves up to God level. We can't bring God down to our level, that doesn't work. What do we do? If I were a hype man, and I'm not even singing the Jewish song, if I were a hype man, I would pitch it to you. The Christian Bar of Soap. I'm going to sell it to you right here now. It's the Christian Bar of Soap. It washes, it cleans, it purifies, it restores, it rejuvenates to original state. You know, sinless perfectionism. It'll give you all that. It takes away a far and disobedient child and brings them near. It'll take away relationships that are broken. It'll restore them. It's available to every believer all day, every day for free. Yep. Lost? That applies to you. You need salvation. You need the continual, you need the cleansing wash that gets you into God's family. We were talking about the Christian bar of soap for the daily cleansing, the everyday grind, for going through the nitty and the gritty of it. And so you have to get into the family first. This Christian Bar of Soap is helping the Christian to be able to walk in the light, to have fellowship with God, to be able to stay in a right relationship with Him while we are evil and carnally minded and wicked. How can we have this? This is for us to be in the family, we are born in the family, now how do we walk and stay in this family? How do we have this fellowship? You know, because we love darkness, we gotta get that out. How do we restore the joy of our salvation when we've sinned and that fellowship has been broken? Let me introduce to you the Christian bar of soap, verse nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confession. Confession this verse is called the Christian bar of soap. This is how we stay in a right relationship with him because we sin He knows we sin John the guy who was there talked to Jesus on the cross knows that he says I gotta confess I gotta get washed. I gotta get clean. I gotta stay in a right relationship with him Confessing does that just mean saying? Yeah. Yeah, you caught me. No, this the Greek word here is to say the same thing and To, be in agreement with and so it's a saying looking at yourself through, god's eyes and like, yeah i'm not perfect And yes you are holy, and yep i'm a sinner i am evil i need help Lord, I lied. Lord, I lusted. Lord, I stole something that wasn't mine. Lord, I didn't put you first, I put me first. Lord, I was trying to craft you into an image of a God that I liked, who liked me like I was, and I made a graven image, and I was trying to worship that. And Lord, I didn't always honor my father and mother, and just going through the Ten Commandments, as Paul says, examine ourselves daily to make sure that we're in the faith by going through there, because the Ten Commandments is the mirror that shows our lost state to drive us to the Christian bar of soap, where we have to get clean, we have to get right, and confess our sins. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you're agreeing with God. I'm a sinner. I'm agreeing with God. Yeah, that's a sin. That's not a mistake. It's not a little boo-boo I made. It's not a little, oh, you know me. No, it's a sin. I call sin, sin. See it as God sees it. I don't like that. That's sin. I told you not to do that, disobedient child. We're in God's family, right? And so you gotta get right with that. So now you're agreeing. I agree, Lord, that is sin. Please cleanse me from that. Cleanse me for how I did that. Ask for that confession. Agree with him. Now because you agree with him, now you see that not as some alluring thing that's gonna draw you back to it. Now you see it as something that's, that's sin. Because I'm in agreement with him. And you're not gonna go running back to it. Are you probably gonna get in again? Sometimes. But now you hate it. You despise it. You're like, why did I do that? And you're instantly convicted of it. And you're like, next time you're trying to avoid it, you're putting up safeguards. Your life begins to change because you're like, I don't want to displease him. I don't want to cause him pain. I don't want to break fellowship with him. And so now I avoid sin. And it's not because you have strength within you. It's because you have the Holy Spirit given to you. It gives you eyes to see and ears to hear. And you have a broken and a contrite spirit that is able to take The correction from God saying that, that's sin. You need to confess that. You need to get right and stay in relationship with me. You want to stay close to it. You want to be right there. How's your walk with the Lord? How long is it from when you sin to where you feel like you need to confess? Do you have to wait until Sunday morning and Brian says something? Or is it throughout that week and you get done and you're like, what have I done? Lord, I went back to the same thing. I've confessed this before. Forgive me. Father, forgive me. Help me to hate this and stay away from it. That shows your walk. Are you walking in the light? Are you trying to live laws that fulfill it? No, we want to be with him and we want to confess our sin. We want to be right with him. Yes, the Christian bar of soap, it's what helps us to have that fellowship. John needed it. John's like, I'm not sinlessly perfect. I have to confess my sin. And the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all unrighteousness, all unrighteousness, he says. It's available to all of us. So it's not like, well, it's so great a sin. He could never forgive me. He can forgive you. What if you're like, well, you know, I don't know that I need that. Yeah, it sounds all good for you Christians or whatever. I don't know that, you know, I'm that bad that you're saying that I, one, need to have someone die in my place. I need someone to step up for me. I don't, you know, I think I'm okay. I don't know that I'm that bad that I need a savior. You know, surely, you know, God weighs me out against everybody else. I'm not as bad as most of the world. If he judges on the curve, I think I'm going to do okay. Let me just ask you this. Are you going to call God a liar? I would not say that that is a good side of the conversation to be on. I have to call God a liar. So God says that we are sinners. God's given us the Ten Commandments to show us our sin, to show us that we have a need of a Savior, because we do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lie. We do lust. We do covet. We do hate people. That's the same as murder in God's eyes. You know, that we don't honor our father and mother. When we rebel against them and when we live in these other sins, it's a slam against them. That we don't go to the Sabbath day every day and keep it holy. You know, how many Sundays have you missed? You know, that we don't put God first in everything. We usually put us first in everything. And we do craft a God in our own image and so that's breaking that. When we break all 10 all the time, we are sinners. That means we need a savior. And salvation comes when you humble yourself and you realize, I'm not good. I'm not better than most. I'm like everybody else. Sure, I haven't done the violent crimes, I haven't done this, but compared to God's perfect standard, His Son, Jesus Christ, we all fall short, we all fail. And we need to then confess that, be in agreement. Yes, I am a sinner. Father, forgive me for I have sinned. That's the first prayer you need to pray. That gets you into the family of God. He said, we confess our sins. He's faithful enough that he'll forgive you of your sins. I know if you're to have salvation, now this keeps you in that right fellowship with God. Now we can walk with Him daily because we confess our sins. Do you just have to do it in the morning? I do it in the morning. I do it at lunch. I do it between. I do it like second breakfast and third breakfast. I do it not just when I eat. I do it when it's like, man, what have I done? And boy, I need to do this. And I need to pray and intercede with someone. First thing I do is, Lord, let there be no sin in between you and me that I can't ask this request. And I go through, what have I done? Oh, man, I probably goofed off too much here at work. I stole from my employer. Try to get those all right now, Lord. Please intercede on this brother and the other having this trouble. You know, just try to do that. Confess our sins and get these things right so that we can have a great fellowship with Him. That's what He's wanting us to do. That's what John wants for us. He wants us to have this, and this is how he's starting it out, because he's going to get to the easier stuff. He's going to get to harder stuff on how we ought to live, but it's practical. How do we live in a lost and fallen world? How do we live when we go out in the trenches, and we have sin ever in front of us? Does he want us to be like the Essenes? Those were a group of people who just kept themselves isolated, and they lived in this little commune by themselves. No, he wants us to be in the world, but not of the world. He wants us to be different. He wants us to be a light that's out shining. He wants us to have an answer. How can the lost find us if we're not there? And so we need to be out there to have communication, talk, and make it available to them. But how do you do that and go out into these lost places and then not be lured into sin? Confession Christian bar of soap daily cleansing now, let's do it. And so I hope I Hope as you weighed your thoughts here this morning and your thoughts are like I'm glad for that bar. So If you're thinking I don't know that I'm in the family One, if you say that you haven't sinned, one, you're calling God a liar. That's not a good place to be. If you're saying that, well, I think I do all right with him, no, you've not brought God down to your level. If you're thinking, well, I think I'm pretty good, you're not sinlessly perfect. You need to realize that you're a sinner in need of a savior. You need to realize that you're poor and destitute. You have nothing to bring to God. God sees all of our righteous works as filthy rags. It's like taking the best we have and we're giving it to Him. Here, Lord, now this buys my salvation. It disgusts Him because you know what salvation costs? It costs the death of His Son, His only Son, to die for us than for you to offer anything else as an insult to God as an insult to Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us. So cast all that away, die to yourself, humble yourself, and come to him empty-handed and naked and say, I have nothing. You see all. You know who I am. Forgive me. Father, forgive me. And confess your sin. Is it a magic prayer? No, it's just a matter of going through and saying, here's what I know I've done. And enlist them. Call them sin. Agree with God. Confess with him. I use the example of kids, like if they're going to apologize to their parents for breaking the vase or whatever it is, go and tell them. Hey, I violated the rule, I was playing ball in the house, and I broke the vase. Please forgive me. That's the same thing, you know? We need to go to the Lord and then just confess what you know you did. Might God reveal everything to you all at once? Probably not. Might throughout the week? Probably. Just keep confessing, keep getting right with Him. And He's gonna then give you a peace that passes all understanding. Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ. Realize it's not you that saved you, it's Jesus Christ that saves you. And then asking Him, Jesus, save me. Forgive me, that's when salvation comes. And for those that have that, we now have the Christian bar of soap. Now the priest and the priesthood at the temple, they had a big washing ceremony where the priest got right. And then he was cleansing throughout, you know, then he would go throughout his day and he would get soiled throughout the day. So then they had to labor, he'd go back to and he'd just have to wash his hands. He had a big ceremonial cleansing that he had to go back daily and wash his hands to be able to go and continue to minister. This is what this is. This is for that continual cleansing. We've had our sins forgiven if you're a Christian. Now it's just that keeping right as we walk and do our work in the dirty world. And so it's very practical for us today.