Charles Stanley - The Confession of Our Sin
One of the most familiar verses in all the Bible is found in First John, the little epistle toward the back of the Bible. And one of the reasons it is so familiar is because it is something we have to deal with every day. It goes like this: If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, all of us have quoted that many, many times. And yet I wonder if we really understand what it means to genuinely confess our sins. Because oftentimes people will say, "Well, yes, I have confessed them". "Well, has God forgiven you"? "Well, I'm not sure". "Well, let's do it again".
So, we do it again. And so they confess something and so I say, "Well, here's what God says. Has He forgiven you"? "Well, I think so. I don't feel like it. Maybe so". And so, in spite of the fact that God has given us a definite promise about something all of us have to deal with, it is still a major problem. And even a more major problem are those people who've never trusted Jesus Christ as their savior, who say, "Well, oh, I confess my sin to Him all the time because the Bible says in the Sermon on the Mount, and I believe of course the Sermon on the Mount". And once in a while somebody will say, "Well, now, I don't believe all the Bible, but I do believe the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments".
So let me tell you something, friend. Of all the scriptures in this Book, the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are the most demanding passages of scripture in all the Bible. So, if you're going to reject the Son of God, please don't read the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments and think that somehow you are going to be accepted in the eyes of God, because it's not so. And so, when somebody says, "Well, I just believe, the Lord's Prayer. I just believe the twenty-third Psalm and the Lord's Prayer. And I love that part when it says, 'If we forgive those who trespass against us, that God will forgive us.' And therefore, I believe I'm forgiven". No, you're not.
You see, if all you had to do is to confess your sin to God, and that would make you right with Him, why did Jesus have to die? There's much more to confession than simply telling Him something that you have done. So, I want you to turn, if you will, to First John. And for many of you who are young believers and maybe are not too familiar with where some of these books are, you just start at the back of the Bible and go Revelation, Jude, Third, Second, First John, not the Gospel but the little epistle here in the back, and I want us to begin reading in verse five, and want us to read through chapter two verse two, and I want you to look for something. I want you to look for some words that keep being repeated over and over and over again. They're just two-letter words because they're very significant in understanding to whom John wrote this Epistle.
So, let's begin, if you will, in verse five. He says, "And this is the message we heard from Him and announce 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 darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as He himself is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is 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. My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation or the sacrifice for our sins; but not only for our sins, but also for those of the whole world".
Now, if you noticed something very significant in these first few verses, what little two letter word did you hear over and over and over again? Can somebody tell me who was not in the first service? What is it? "We," "we" and "us" and "our". And the reason I say that is because I want you to understand how very important it is that right up front you and I understand that this epistle was written to believers, not to unbelievers.
This book is about the Christian life, not about getting saved. And so, twenty-four times in eight verses, John the beloved, you'll recall that he was more than likely the youngest of the apostles and outlived all the rest of them and died, having been banished to Patmos by the Roman emperor Demetian. And here he is late in life writing this epistle to the churches there in Asia Minor. And so, he says "we, we, we, us, and our". We're not talking about lost people. We're talking about believers. Very important you and I understand this.
Now, I believe that God intends for us who are believers to enjoy Him. I believe God wants us to love Him but to enjoy Him, to take pleasure in fellowshipping with Him and enjoy being His friend as well as His child. And so therefore if I'm going to enjoy the Christian life, one of the things I have to learn how to deal with is I have to learn how to deal with sin because sin is a problem in the Christian life. And I want you to notice here in the very beginning of this passage that what this is all about is a problem we face.
Notice, if you will, in verse five. He says, "This is the message we heard from Him and announced to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all". Then he says, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and yet we walk in darkness, we're not telling the truth and we're not practicing the truth". So here's what I want you to notice: The problem here that all of us have is this: The problem is that God, who is light, which means He is perfect and pure and absolutely righteous. He loves us and desires to have fellowship with us.
When you and I are walking obediently before Him, we can have fellowship with Him. When you and I choose darkness in our life, and that is a good symbol in the scriptures for sin. Darkness is indication here of sin. When you and I invite darkness into our life, what we have is an immediate conflict. How do you mix darkness and light? You cannot. How can you mix impurity with purity? You cannot. How can you mix imperfection with perfection? You cannot.
ow, somebody says, "Well, now you mean to tell me that God expects us to be perfect"? I'm coming to that in just for a moment. What I want you to see here is this: that every single child of God has a relationship with the Father. And that relationship is the relationship of sonship. And yet even after you and I were saved, we still at times choose to sin against God. Sometimes we may say we fell into sin, but the truth is, we got a good look at it before we took a fall. So, the truth is we step into it, we walk into it. Sometimes in our frailties and in our weaknesses, in a moment of weakness we do something that our spirit does not want us to do and we know we didn't, we shouldn't, and we don't want to and yet we do it anyway.
Well, what he's talking about here is how do we live a joyful, pleasurable relationship, fellowship with the Son of God who requires holiness and purity in our life when we live in a dirty world and we're going to sin? Now listen, two things I want us to notice here: Let's distinguish between our relationship with Him and our fellowship with Him. Our relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, began the moment you and I confessed the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior.
Now, there's a difference in confessing Jesus as my savior and confessing sin. Confessing Jesus Christ as my personal savior's what you and I do when we trust Him at salvation so that our relationship with Him begins the moment we are born again, or we trust Him as personal savior. We ask Him to forgive us of our sins, we confess our sins, and then we confess Jesus as our savior, based on what He did at the cross in shedding His blood and atoning for our sin.
So, what happens at that moment, we take on the position no longer as enemy of God, but now we become sons and daughters of God. That's our new position: sons and daughters of God. Have a new relationship. That sonship is sealed, the Bible says, by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption, that is, until He calls us home so that therefore, every single child of God is one who has been saved by His grace and goodness and love and mercy, provided that Jesus at the cross, sealed by the Holy Spirit, forever a child of God.
Listen, nothing can tamper with your relationship. This is why all through the scripture Paul says, for example, in Romans chapter eight, "What can separate us from the love of God? Neither death, life, principalities, powers," and he names all these things, and he says, "None of these things can separate us from God's love". He says, "My sheep hear My voice. I know them, they follow Me, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone pluck them out of My hand". The moment you and I trusted Jesus as our savior, relationship was settled once and for all, always, He says in the scriptures, you and I will forever be a son or a daughter of God.
Now, so that's the relationship. But what about fellowship? Fellowship is what you and I carry on daily in our relationship with Him. We get up in the morning, for example. We talk to Him. We listen to Him. We talk to Him during the day. We walk in obedience to Him. We fellowship with other people. We share Him. He's at the head of our conversation. He's always in our thoughts, in our minds. We're fellowshipping with Him. So what John is referring to here when he's talking about confessing sin, he's talking about keeping our fellowship right, not our relationship. So, with all that in mind, let's look at this for just a moment and think about, what does the word "confess" mean?
So let me just explain what this means. The word if you looked at it in the Greek would be "homologayoh". "Logayoh," or "logos" which means "word". "Homo" which means "like". That is to say something, to say the same thing. Literally that's what it means. "To confess" means to say the same thing. If I am confessing sin before the Lord, what I am doing is, I am agreeing with Him about the fact that what I have done is wrong. I'm saying the same thing He says. God says, "That's wrong, that's sin". I say, "Yes, Lord, You're right. That's sin".
To confess means that I agree with God about what He says about my action, my thought, or my deed. To confess Jesus Christ as my savior says, "Yes, I am agreeing with Him, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, virgin-born, laid down His life at Calvary, paid my sin-debt in full, and upon my acceptance of Him as my personal savior," I become a child of God. That's confessing Jesus Christ as savior. We're talking about confessing sin. What I'm doing is I am agreeing with Him about His perspective on what I did. Another thing that's involved in confession is it says that I am assuming responsibility for what I've done, what I've said, or what I've thought so that confession isn't something, well, you know, just First John one nine, just confess your sins, just tell Him about it. No, it is assuming responsibility.
Listen, confession involves the recognition that I have violated God and His law in some fashion, and it is something that does not mix with who I am in Christ Jesus as a child of God. It does not mix with the righteousness that is in me because of His presence within me, because darkness and light do not mix, and therefore this is the conflict. And therefore, I must con, be convicted of my sin. And if I'm convicted by the Holy Spirit, I must deal with that because God's way of saying to me, "If the fellowship is to remain, you have to get that darkness out of your life. And the way you get it out is bringing it to me".
Therefore, the confession of sin is the acknowledgement, the recognition, assuming responsibility, and bringing it to him. And in agreement with Him, this doesn't fit who I am as a child of God. There's nothing nonchalant, there's nothing that's just off the cuff, "Well, I'm just gonna confess it to God and tell Him about it". No, assuming responsibility, agreeing with Him about it. Now, somebody says, "Well, you know, I do confess my sin but somehow, I still just can't seem to be able to believe that I'm forgiven". Well, I'm gonna come to that in just a moment. But confession, listen, confession is agreeing with Him about it.
Now, that brings me to talk about for just a moment, how do we do it? That is, in simple terms, how do we deal with this? How do we confess this sin that all of us have to deal with in our life? Well, there's lots of things that you and I could say about it, but let me say that, first of all, if I'm going to deal with it and deal with it in a proper fashion, then I've got to deal with it the way I believe God says very clearly, and that is I've got to be specific about it. You see, here's what we do. And I know why we do it because I thought about it in my own life. For example, it's one thing for me to say, "Now Lord, please forgive me of my sins. In Jesus's name, amen".
I don't even believe He hears that. You know what? I can do that, and I don't feel too bad. But if I said to Him, "Lord, forgive me because, Lord, I am angry at him. Forgive me because that is lust. Forgive me because that is greed. Forgive me because", and I could just go on a whole list of things. There's one thing, it's something about naming it. He says, "If we confess our sins," and I don't believe God intends for us to give Him this generalization. You know what I've noticed? The Holy Spirit never, has never convicted me of just S-I-N-S. When He convicts me, He points out in my life something that is not right.
For example, if the Holy Spirit just said, "Well, you're a sinner and you've sinned". Well, what do I confess? I mean, if the Holy Spirit's just gonna convict me of sin in general, what do I confess? Secondly, if He just keeps convicting me of sin in general, how will I ever know that I have dealt with this generalization of sin? We are to confess sin specifically. Name it and call it what it is. In the society in which you and I live, we've got all kinds of sophisticated, modern-day names for pure, downright sin. God wants us to name it what it is.
"Lord, I have sinned against you by gossiping against this person. I have sinned against you, dear God, by being dishonest. I've sinned against You, God, because that was deceitful. I've sinned against You, God, because My whole attitude was all bent out of shape. I have falsely accused". There are all kinds of things that you and, "Well, Lord, just please forgive me of my sins. I know You love me. In Jesus's name, amen". Forget it, He doesn't... you know what? That's not taking responsibility for action. Therefore, if confession is going to be genuine, I have to name it.
Now, somebody says, "Well, now when it comes to confessing sin, to whom do we confess it"? We confess it to God. He's the one we've violated. If I have sinned against someone else, I go to that person, I ask them, "Please forgive me". Somebody says, "Well, then what about public confession"? Listen carefully. Public confession should only be done, listen, when that person can do that under the guidance of God, and it brings no hurt and harm to someone else.
Listen, any kind of public confession that hurts and harms someone else, that does not edify the body, is not of God. And so therefore when a person says, "Well, I've just gotta confess to the whole world," listen, it is never permissible to cleanse my conscience at the expense of someone else, not in public. Now, when do we ask Him to forgive us? We ask Him to forgive us not as some people do. They say, "Well, you know, at nighttime when I get down to pray, or when I kneel by the bed, or I go to bed, I always settle up with God".
Let me ask you, do you mean to tell me that you believe that God, it's okay with Him if you sin all day long and every night you settle up? No, because here's what'll happen: Let's say you get up in the morning and you and your wife or your children, you just have a big fuss, and I mean you stomp out and you leave. More than likely you're not gonna be a saint all day long. What's gonna happen? Somebody at your office says something and you're a little bit tough on them and next thing you know, if you've counted your sins all during the day, you started with number one, you're up to about forty-six by the time you get home at nighttime.
Now listen. When do you confess sin? Immediately upon the Spirit's conviction. When the Spirit points out something that's not right, that's the time to deal with it. Because listen. Listen, now listen carefully. We're talking about fellowship. We're talking about God loving us and desiring our fellowship. He wants us to deal with what clouds our relationship immediately so that we confess and move on, we confess and move on in our life, not having sin accumulate in our life, and finally, when the conviction gets so bad we can't stand it anymore, we finally say, "All right, Lord, I want to deal with this". No, He loves us. He wants us to walk in wonderful, pleasurable fellowship with Him and therefore to do so, I've got to get this mix unmixed.
I've got to get this darkness out of my life, whether it is something I said or something I did. Therefore, we confess sin immediately. And immediately upon our confession of sin, of course, He is certainly going to forgive us. Now, another thing I want to give you a little warning about is all this pleading and begging. You see, when He says if we confess our sins. He says if you and I come to Him and we tell Him sincerely, out of an honest heart, assuming responsibility, acknowledging that we have violated Him and His law and that He's the only one who can possibly forgive us and we need His forgiveness and tell Him that, we are forgiven instantly. We don't have to beg and plead.
In other words, I may weep over the wickedness of my heart, but pleading and begging and hoping and "maybe He'll forgive me" does not fit a single solitary verse of scripture in the Bible and especially this one when He says if we confess, plead, beg, cry, weep, fast, pray, He says if we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, one of the problems that people have oftentimes is believing that somehow God really and truly has forgiven them. It's a real struggle. And it's a struggle for believers sometimes because of what they've been taught, sometimes because they feel so unworthy, sometimes because of certain particular sins in their life, they will say, "How in the world could God ever forgive me for that? How could God ever forgive me"?
And here's what I want you to remember: Friend, the reason He can is... here's how you know He can: Look at the cross. This is the reason God can forgive you of every single solitary thing you have ever done, no matter what. It has nothing to do with your promises of being good. It has nothing to do with how good you are and how worthy you are. It has to do with what Jesus did at the cross. You see, this is what grace is all about. If there's one message I want the world to hear, it is this: The grace of God in His love for you and me will keep us and cleanse us from our sin and keep us in right fellowship with Him so that you and I can enjoy Him.
And listen, as you and I learn to walk in, as He says, in the light, enjoying the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving His pleasures and His blessings, that is one of the greatest testimonies we can have because the unbelieving world is looking to see, to find some happy, joyous, contented Christian, someone who is going through difficulty and hardship and at the same time has this overwhelming sense of joy and confidence in their life. That is the most convincing and persuasive testimony we can give them, is our life lived out in joy in the presence of the Lord. And so, if I'm not sure, and if I'm really struggling over, "Well, has He forgiven me or has He not"?
Listen, we stand and sing "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchased of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood". Blessed assurance of what? Not only my relationship, but blessed assurance that I am a forgiven child of God, walking in the light.
Now, somebody says, "But now wait a minute now". Are you walking in the light, for example, are you walking in the light, and let's say that sin comes into your life, are you walking in the light? Yes, I'm walking in the light, but I have allowed darkness into my life for that moment, and I have to deal with it. That doesn't mean that I get out of the light, get over here in the darkness and now my relationship's all broken and now I'm walking in darkness. No, I am walking in the light, being cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and dealing with the dirt in life, dealing not only with the dirt in life, but dealing with this naturalness within me, which will be there until the moment you and I die.
If I don't deal with it, if I don't recognize that, if I don't understand that God's forgivenesses and His grace has taken into account that you and I are imperfect persons, listen, He did not say if we live up to His standard, He said if we walk in the light. He knows that you and I are not gonna be perfect. He knows we cannot be perfect. Listen, as long as I have naturalness within this body of mine, I will never be perfect. There are no perfect saints.
And these folks say, "Well, I'd join the church if there weren't so many hypocrites". Then, well my friend, you are one if that's your attitude, because none of us claim to be perfect. All of us claim to be children of God, who sin against God at times. We're weak, we're frail. We just happen to be those ones who have learned what the grace of God's all about, walking in that grace, and learn to understand, listen, learn to accept the forgiveness of God by our confession before Him.
Now, here's what I want you to notice: He says He's not just interested in forgiving us, He's interested in cleansing us. That is, God wants us to walk clean before Him. He wants us to walk purely before Him. But He knows that because of this naturalness within us, because this dirty world we live in, we're not gonna stay that way very long. That's why He says the blood of Jesus Christ is continually cleansing us from all sin. And He says, "This is my promise: You confess it, you're forgiven".
That's the promise of God. Not only that, He says, "But I will cleanse your life," so that you and I can walk in obedience before Him. And I would certainly like to think that all of us who have been saved at least some years, that we see more purity in our life than we did in times past, that we see changes, that we experience growth in our life as we are living the Christian life. Things that used to bother us don't bother us anymore. Things we used to say we don't say. Things we used to think, we don't think. Little things that really used to give us a difficult time, we can just walk by them.
People's criticisms and so forth, they just go in one ear and out the other. We find ourselves growing in the Lord, learning to deal with sins against us as well as sins that we ourselves are responsible for. And so, He wants us to take pleasure in Him. And so what does He promise us? He promises not only will He take away all... He takes away the guilt. And so when should a person confess? Instantly, because listen, if I deal with it right then and there, I am forgiven instantly, and I don't require God to get on my case.
Now, the last thing I want to say in this message, and I'm coming to it, if I don't deal with it, something's going to happen. So, He says here's the promise. If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just. Now, He backs that promise up with saying He's faithful and just. What does He mean? When He says He's faithful, that means He's reliable. You can always count on Him. Every single solitary thing God promises God will perform. Now, listen to what He says: If we confess our sins, He's faithful. You can trust Him, you can bet on it, He's reliable, He's faithful, He'll do it. Every single promise will be kept. He's faithful and just. What does He mean by "just"? That He is right in forgiving us.
Now, listen carefully. I've explained this many times. How can God, who is holy, forgive one who is guilty and unholy? Because when Jesus Christ went to the cross, took your sin, placed it on Him, He died. He paid the penalty. Therefore, God can put you and me in the stream, in the daily river of His cleansing and forgiveness. And every single moment of our life we are living in the cleansing forgiveness of Almighty God. Confession keeps my fellowship right. The blood of Jesus Christ is what it is in my life that cleanses me. And so therefore I have the promise. He says He is faithful and just. He is right in forgiving me moment by moment.
How long do I want this to hang over me? Confess it, it's done and gone and over with in that moment. Does that mean that there is no consequence to a sin just because I confess it immediately? No, there are some sins, for example, which there will be a consequence, but for many that's it. When you deal with it right then and there, that's it. But if you don't deal with it, there is something else going to take place. So He says He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Then he comes along to give us added assurance. Listen to what he says in chapter two.
Now, he says, "My little children," he says, "I have written these things to you. I'm writing these things to you that you may not sin". He didn't say so you'd never sin, but that you may not sin. He says and, or, but if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now, what does he mean by that? Now, listen to what he says. This is John desiring that you and I learn to live in continuing, listen, uninterrupted fellowship with the Lord, and here's what he says. He says we have an advocate with the Father. Not only has He promised to forgive us but we have an advocate with the Father.
Now, that's the same word that John uses in his Gospel when he says our comforter, our paracletos, the one that comes alongside of us. He says we have one, the Lord Jesus Christ, who stands in our stead. Now, today we know that the Lord Jesus is seated at the Father's right hand. What is He doing? According to Hebrews, He's making intercession for us. He's bringing our needs and our attention to the Father. So when you and I come to Him, it makes no difference what we come to Him for. He says there's one mediator between God and man and that's the person Jesus Christ. We have someone, listen, seated at the Father's right hand who's on our side.
Now, the Father is, too, of course. He's there to make intercession for us. He's there to plead our cause, plead our case. He's there to affirm our relationship, that we're one of the children of God. We are part of His sonship, part of His family. He's our advocate. Not only He says is He our advocate but He's our sacrifice. What is He saying? A reminder that, listen, you and I do not have to pay for our sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, His sacrificial death two thousand years ago keeps me clean two thousand years later.
My confession is my way of opening the door in order that what? The blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses me, I take advantage of that, and I keep my fellowship with Him absolutely right. Confession is a normal, natural part of the believer's life to keep our fellowship. Remember that relationship is fixed forever. It is God who has an eternal grip on you and me. It is God who has an eternal grip on us at salvation from that moment on. Our fellowship is something that comes and goes.
As long as I'm walking in His Spirit, walking in obedience to Him, I'm gonna have fellowship. The moment I choose disobedience, something happens. And I, listen, I can let that something happen and drift and drift and drift till I get myself in a big mess. Or I can instantaneously say, "Father, forgive me of my sin, in Jesus's name. I know this doesn't fit who I am". Instantly that fellowship is right.
So, First John chapter one, these verses are dealing with the believer's fellowship. What am I saying? Simply this: You and I have the privilege of enjoying the Christian life, not making it a burden, not a handicap, but walking in fellowship, walking in love, enjoying the savior and the Father who loves us dearly.
And I want to say to you, my friend, if you've never trusted Jesus as your savior, that confessing your sin's not enough. You must confess Jesus as your savior which means you agree with the Father that He's the Father's Son and that when He died at Calvary, He paid your sin-debt in full, and that you're accepting Him as your personal savior.
If you're a believer, been going through difficulty and hardship in your life, and the Spirit of God's been convicting you of something and somehow, you've not been willing to deal with it, I want to encourage you to deal with that. Ask Him to forgive you. Tell Him you want Him to strengthen you. You want Him to enable you to overcome this thing in your life. You want to walk in victory. You want to be a child of God. You don't want your fellowship torn apart anymore. You want to be what God wants you to be. I know one thing for certain: God will answer that prayer because He takes delight in pleasuring Himself with His children and pleasuring His children.