← ArchiveSunday, September 10, 2017DateSeptember 10, 2017SpeakerDr Josh BurnhamText—Passages in this sermon1 John 14:22John 127:50TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life the life was made manifest and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was made manifest to us that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our0:29fellowship is with the father and with his son jesus christ and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that god is light and in him is no darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in the darkness we lie and do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light0:59is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of jesus his son cleanses us from all sin if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth and the truth and the truth is not in us if we confess our sin he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness1:21we are in the second week of our series in the book of first john so that we started recently a series i've entitled shining light on authentic faith shining light on authentic faith and we've been1:45asking questions of the lord questions last week that sound like this can we know god and these are questions that god's word answers for us and john in his epistle gives us a resounding exclamation point can you and i know god yes look to jesus look to jesus he has revealed himself from the beginning2:09what we have heard what we have seen and what we have touched and so today we ask another question of authentic faith authenticity if you will the question is this can we truly know that our sins are forgiven or maybe if you will what about my sin what about my sin an author and english professor rosario2:36butterfield said it best this way she said let's say you inherited a beautiful enchanted garden and you've decided to let this garden thrive so you irrigated it nice you've thrown out some fertilizer some nitrogen that you found at the local hardware store and for 10 years you've prayed over that3:03garden and you say you know what let's let it thrive let's let it grow and 10 years later you come back to the garden guess what you find well not only have the roses grown somewhat but also the weeds and the trees and you find your garden in a mess now how foolish would it be for you and i to go to the one who3:27gave the garden and say master i want my money back the garden that you gave me is in horrible shape i let it thrive the best way i know how but there are weeds everywhere i'm giving it back to yours i don't like the way it turned out see that's the garden that you and i find ourselves in this is this is the sin in our life we try to live the best way we know how and yet we find occasionally3:56that the weeds of sin easily entangle us and many of us have walked in today with a lot of weeds in our garden haven't we so we ask the lord god what about my sin i believe you i trust in you and so now what how god can you remedy this situation so read with me in first john one beginning in verse five let me4:22remind you what a privilege it is that we have god's holy perfect words right this isn't just a book this is god's word to us church this is god's word to you and to i this morning verse five this is the message we have heard from him and declare to you god is light and there is absolutely4:47no darkness in him if we say we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness we are lying and not practicing 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 jesus his son cleanses us from all sin if we say we have no sin we are5:14deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us let's pray father we so desperately want to know5:41you more and more father may that be the cry of our hearts that we know you and make you know lord this morning we ask that you engage our minds and awaken our hearts knowing that until you awaken us from our darkness we have no hope6:09so lord answer the question what about our sin because we know that the answer is found in jesus we pray this in and through jesus himself amen and amen well first let's look at our darkness so what about our sin well the bible begins and says look at your own darkness verse five this is a message that we have6:33heard from him that's god and declare to you that god is light and in him there is no darkness and actually it says there's absolutely no darkness so this is something that we truly need to understand that sin is serious that your sin my sin is serious why do we see that why can i say that because god is light6:55and over and over again in the old testament light symbolizes the holiness and the presence of god of god so god led his people by a pillar of fire a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night in the tabernacle there was light to represent god's presence7:22in exodus moses is communicating with god on the mountain and when he comes down the bible says his face glows so much so that the people are scared of him this is the presence and the light and the holiness of god the father the great i am as we have already sung and jesus echoes this refrain for us in john chapter 12 jesus said i have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me7:50should stay in darkness so god is light because he is holy jesus says that he is light you see this is what we find in scripture darkness is the enemy of light right darkness is the enemy of light we're going to get more uncomfortable later but just know generally that darkness is the enemy of light if8:18you're a dark person or if you like darkness it's not good to turn on the light switch because the light is an enemy of darkness look at verse five this is the message which we have for heard from him and declare to you that god is light and there is what there is the hcsb says there is absolutely no darkness how much darkness none absolutely none and if that's the case8:42why are we okay with darkness then if god is holy and he is light why are we okay and you say well can it be that serious really is our sin that big of a deal since moving to alabama last year we've almost been here two years now i found there's some nuggets of goodness hidden throughout the state9:08one of those gifts that keeps on giving is milo's sweet tea right now i had a bad experience the first time the staff took me to milo's the very first day and like look you have to eat at this place and i ate the hamburger i was trying to have a game face on like this is i ate it so this is not good this isn't this is like kangaroo meat or something um but it's growing on me they've changed everything they're back to normal9:36um but i love sweet tea i'm from from the south raising the south i mean if you pour it out like my like the thicker it is the better i want to be able to pour my sweet tea out and it and it freeze coming out of the um well i re i actually observed several weeks ago that there's even a a greater mixture if you a concoction i was going to the grocery store and found that there's a half and half milo's10:02lemonade and tea i'm like this is awesome it's a refreshing look on milo's tea and so i bought that and i drank it me and a friend we drank it um in about an hour a gallon of half and half by ourselves that's okay i don't understand the um that's not a sin i don't believe um but but let's put this in perspective for you let's say i make you a perfect pitcher of tea and it10:32has it's it's bulging with ice it's in a yeti cup like it's going to stay cold for it's for the apocalypse and and i give this to you and you're about to drink it because you are thirsty and i said well before you drink it i want you to know this i had a vial of poison and i accidentally knocked i knocked the container into the sweet tea but don't worry um i don't think anything spilled11:01and even if it did it was probably only one drop now if if i rehearsed that narrative to you would you drink that sweet tea how much poison has to be in that tea for it to be ruined and destroyed for you even a hint of poison in that and sin is has even greater effects in our life sin is serious how11:30serious there is no darkness every sin leads to separation every sin leads to separation and you might be thinking well i've jesus died for me so i'm good yeah you know what happens when we sin we put a wedge in our life with our savior with our heavenly father every sin is serious and we do11:59not have degrees of sin so we need to really pull back the the veil that we have in our lives as church people we think that they are unofficial categories of sin that we pray and say lord just thank i thank you that i haven't murdered thousands of people this week because that's that's the really bad that's really bad group all right we're going to pray for them there are there is no category of12:28sin in scripture it is either you are in darkness or you are in light and think about it and if you are honest we all have categories of sin don't we we think there are things that we can do we call them white lies they are still dark lies and usually the sins that we categorize as not so bad like there are mortal sins that immediately lead to death um you know if you are a if you are a fan of the opposite12:58football team that's one of those right or um hitler or stalin or bin laden there are people that we think that that those are they have a special place in the seventh level of hell but the sins that you and i categorize as not so bad are normally the sins that we struggle with the most gossiping that's not so bad you know what let me just go blast people on facebook yeah i know i13:24probably shouldn't be doing it but lord i know you'll forgive me or you know i know this is for work purposes but let me just take this for myself the things that we categorize as gray or white-ish are the things that we normally struggle with and then if we're honest i find myself doing this we13:51look down upon people i can't believe they're doing that you know what we're saying we're saying is i don't struggle with that so i'm going to judge you more harshly there is no light in that every sin in my life is serious everyone look at verse five how much darkness is in god there is absolutely no darkness we must wake up to the reality that our sin is serious14:14and we must treat it that way when we hear gossip we must stop it and say there is no absolutely no place for that and i'm going to further um unveil that later as we move on there is no darkness in god how much none and if we are to be children of light how much darkness should be in14:40us none none at all secondly what about our sin when it is dark and there is no darkness in god verse six if we say we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness i want you to hear me very clear this is not me saying this i'm echoing what scripture says therefore i am saying it15:05if you say you have fellowship with god and yet you walk in darkness god himself says what that we are liars look at verse six if we walk in darkness and we say we have fellowship we are lying and not practicing the truth as elf would say you sit on the throne of lies that should cause us a lot of concern shouldn't it because most of us want to say we have fellowship15:36with god and if we're honest there are a lot of dark places and dark recesses in our lives that we do not want exposed and what is scripture reminding us of scripture is saying this denial of sin is not the answer what about our sin it is dark and denial is not the answer so what are some ways that we denial that we deny by the way it is destructive and we practice this from a very young age most of16:02you have broken something when you are a toddler or a three or four year old and when mom walks in it says did you break this and the nearest object you're going to point to it was the dog's fault it was the cat's fault it was bubby's fault it was an earthquake but it wasn't me well why do you have a bat in your hand and16:31it wasn't me we are made to practice denial and we must root denial out of our lives to grow in our faith so what are some ways that we deny sin in our life the first is this sometimes we call our darkness light we call our darkness light there are times that we just say you know what sin is not it's not a sin it's just something else and if you let culture determine what is a sin and what is not16:58culture will deny and lie right it's not a lie it's a white lie it's not gossip you're just sharing a prayer concern right you're not you're not lying or flattering yourself on facebook you're just sharing something we cannot let ourselves or our community or our culture determine what is sin god's holy word17:23determines what is light and what is not we have to stand upon the word of god we cannot deny that sometimes we don't deny sin but we do it in this way we rationalize it we rationalize our sin or this is an attempt to explain or justify and it's a yet another way of denying which destroys our soul so17:53what are some ways we rationalize uh it sounds very simple like this well you know i'm only hurting myself or i'm not hurting anyone else you know i can drink or i can smoke or i can get high by myself because i'm not hurting anyone man don't you know that you are created in the image of god and he wants you to find your identity in him ephesians reminds us that we are not to be drunk with wine18:21but be filled with the spirit why because substances help us run away from the world by causing us to forget and god helps us cope with the world by helping us remember his promises may we may we may we not be people who rationalize and church people we're the world's worst because we add a little spiritual flavor to it i've heard it said like this right um well it's okay if i look at18:48pornography it keeps me from having an affair really really i'm gonna stand before the throne and say god this is why i did it because i didn't want to go down a darker road or you know what no one's gonna know we cannot rationalize our sin youth and don't get caught up in the lie of you know if i do this19:11my friends will think i'm cool or if i go to this party all right i'll be accepted the greatest acceptance we have is in jesus christ and if i could go back there would be people i would look and say no thank you because you're longing for something you don't realize you're longing for and what you're looking for is not going to give you satisfaction it's only found in jesus we cannot rationalize19:41what are some other ways that we deny very simply sometimes we call ourselves christians in spite of our sin i believe that's the denial of overlooking all right verse six um we can say we have fellowship with him and yet we walk in darkness we it's easy for us to overlook our sin hey i'm a member of so and so church um that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of eternity if you don't know jesus20:10and i am tired and i've told casey this my wife our little one's sick today so she's not here but i've told her look when i die and if it's today this is what i want at my funeral don't have a vigil for me don't shoot fireworks if you want to rejoice do it after later at home i don't want you to say how great of a person i am and overlook my sin i want my funeral to say you know what he was he was no good20:38at all and yet jesus died for him the chief of sinners we cannot overlook our sin and i'm tired of going to funerals where we make everyone angels that's a lie and do not do that at my funeral because you will be lying and we're going to throw down when you get to heaven because i told you better right21:06but we overlook sin why because if i overlook your sin maybe you'll overlook mine and the hope is that maybe god will overlook all of ours oh church god does not overlook our sin there is absolutely no darkness in him some say this some overlook and deny sin in this way verse 10. some say we do not have sin we21:32have not sinned um so let me just i'm just gonna say a very a sentence on this i don't know if there are any of you here that don't feel like you've ever sinned one you're wrong um and god can heal you but sin is sin and dark is dark and god is light we also deny ourselves in this way we deny sin i call21:55it the holy roller mentality the holy roller mentality another way we denial um sin in our life is that we portray to the outside world as a church that we have not sin right so so we we put on our game face at church we put on our mask and our three-piece suit and we ride our nice cars and we get on our ivory tower22:22and we we know we've sinned but we want to look really good for the world like when i go to church i want i don't want anyone to think i've sinned god wants something different for our life we should be a church that if the if hitler himself drives down this road and is convicted of sin and he says i don't know where to go he can say i can go to that church because they're full of sinners and the answer22:48is jesus and they have the good news we cannot be people verse 10 who say we have not sinned look the world does not need our three-piece suits and our fancy lingo they need our jesus they need our jesus we are consumers of grace this should be a place where sinners flock by the way this is a place where sinners flock i'm thankful that we have a god who takes away our23:17denial how bad can denial be here's a story in 2004 the boston public library decided to commemorate the 85th anniversary of this event now listen to this it blows my mind in 1919 an enormous steel vat containing 2.3 million gallons that's a lot of gallons of molten molasses burst23:44hot sticky and had up to 30 feet tall waves that's a lot of syrup it was so strong that it destroyed buildings crushed freight cars wagons automobiles and drowned people one author called it the dark tide the tank was 50 feet tall and 200 feet around can you imagine a 3024:12foot tall wave of molasses coming at you um it's like lord just take me home i'm gonna eat as much as i can right now and the boston public library decided to commemorate this and this this is why it's important for us this is what we do this is what the factory this is how they mitigated the issue company24:39officials reacted to the constant leaks by repainting the tank to match the leaking molasses it had been leaking for months and years and they would just repaint it molasses colored and eventually it burst forth they felt out of sight out of mind you see they knew about the dangers of denial and did nothing they did nothing what about our sin instead of denying it god's word says own up to it25:09own up to it what about our sin it is dark every sin that we have is serious and denying church people we are we are professional deniers that is not the answer but we have an answer and his name is jesus christ we have a deliverer look at verse eight i believe one of the most promising verses in all of scripture25:35if we say verse nine if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to what to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness if we confess he is faithful and just to what to forgive us and26:01cleanse us what a beautiful beautiful verse in our lives you see jesus gives us hope healing and restoration so how does that work in our lives one we have to walk in light it is not enough for you and i to walk26:25that's what church is church is us um most people religion is trying to be a good moral outstanding citizen and work your way into god's good graces that's walking over and over again in scripture in the jewish world to walk means to obey it is not enough to walk we must walk where in the light and26:45where is light found it is found in god himself it is found in god himself it is not enough just to walk you see walking in light you see walking in light conveys to you and i an openness an openness to god and what the world needs to see and what our hearts need this morning is for us to say god every27:15crack and crevice and dark recess is open to you because you are only as strong as your deepest secrets and we don't have any secrets from god we must walk in the light we must walk in the light of his goodness chesterson said it like this the issue is now clear it is between light and darkness and27:40everyone must choose his side you see walking in darkness does not mean that you and i do not sin but it means that when we sin we do not hide it from god and we have a long list of people in our lives that hide sin begins with the the very first book of the bible adam and eve that eat eat the fruit28:04and they the one that god tells them not to and they realize that they're naked and they realize this is not good so they they make poor clothes they make fig leaves and they they put it upon themselves and they what do they do then they hide from god and god is calling out to them and they think they can hide in the garden from the presence of god28:30and you know who they pass that down to right us we have a legacy of hiding from god even if we're christ followers when we sin what do we want to do we want to run as if we can run far enough right ask jonah how far you can run right i'm going to run god you call me this way i'm going to run that way you say nineveh i say tarshish and i might get on the ship28:59god there's a storm i don't want to die because i if i know if i die i'll have to meet you so throw me into the bottomless pit of the sea and god said jonah even in the big fish you will find me are you open to god this morning and maybe you have brought struggles and weeds in here and you think no one can see them there is one and his name is jesus are you open to the light of christ in your life you say well i don't want to do that i don't like that29:30that's okay because this is god's promise i want us to read over this again and again and again verse nine if we confess so this is a if then conditional if i do this then god will do this it should be but we deserve if i confess my sins god is going to wipe me out from the history of the world and i will be29:54no more i deserve nothing but that is not what god's word says look at verse nine if we confess our sins he is what he is faithful so i am unfaithful and yet god is faithful and he is righteous and he is in just to what he is just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness30:20i believe that these are two beautiful rainbows in the sea of our sin when i sin god offers me forgiveness and cleansing and when i sin god says if you confess confesses has several aspects one it is a mental recognition that i have sinned from god's perspective i can't30:48confess something that i don't believe i've done so confession is one agreeing with god that i have sinned and i am dark and two confession of the mouth means that my heart is also attuned to his grace that is true confession it is not just saying well i believe in god it is saying no i believe i know that31:11i have sinned and i in my heart acknowledge that he is the sin forgiver and maybe that's you today you don't feel like you can ever be forgiven you know why we feel that way because of god were me i wouldn't forgive myself have you ever felt that way god if you were me i don't deserve forgiveness because god you give me chance after chance and lord you're saying if i confess what you already know31:42that i've done unholy ungodly spiritual terrorism all sin is serious all sin is dark god if i confess that that you will forgive me and that is exactly what he does what a beautiful picture of grace in our life and maybe you've walked in with sin and you say i don't know why i'm here today but but i i32:09want good news the good news is that if you confess he is faithful and he is just to forgive you of your sins and purify so what does forgiveness look like what does forgiveness look like several things one it means that god no longer holds that sin against you oh what a wonderful it doesn't mean that god forgets like god doesn't look at me and say now what did you do again i mean it's right on the top of32:38my of my mind that's not how god operates we want to forget but sometimes the greatest forgiveness is in remembrance like god remembers and he says i will no longer hold that against you because of what my son has done on your behalf and the other part of forgiveness is not only i will not hold that against you but he removes that iniquity from us he removes it away and not only that he cleanses us33:05look at the cleansing that god offers us verse nine if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from what how much sin are we cleansed from oh how often are we forgiven if we confess all sin so that tells me this33:31if i have brought heaviness in and i have not yet found forgiveness that means i have not confessed you see shame and guilt always should lead us back to the throne of god and so if you are here and you feel guilty for sins that you have committed that you have already confessed that guilt is not coming from god because he's what right verse nine if we confess our sins he is33:58faithful and just to forgive so so a remembrance of a past sin should bring remembrance of forgiveness so if the world says josh don't you remember what you did i can say you know what i remember that i'm forgiven you want to make the devil mad remind him you're forgiven right so josh don't you remember you34:22did this you're not qualified to be a christ follower devil don't you realize i'm forgiven don't you realize i'm cleansed from all unrighteousness and so if you are guilty here today and you've you've for you have given those sins to god i want you to know that it's time to forgive yourself because god's already done it and he's removed that and he's cleansed you34:50in church we need to live as people who are free we're free we're clean we live in the light glory to god we are free he is faithful and just to forgive there's no greater hope in scripture than that good news many many years ago a man named andre cassangnes died in paris at the age of 86 he was a french35:19born inventor and he made an invention with a glass front where you can make pictures and erase them and he called it uh if any one of you are french i'm sorry for my french here um le écran magique which is the magic screen and we know how the story ends an ohio art company35:47renamed this invention the etch-a-sketch i mean this is these are my sermon notes for today um and i was never good at at the etch-a-sketch but i don't think this inventor realized that he had made a beautiful picture of god's grace because you see our lines and our lives are marked with brokenness36:18with sin and darkness and some of you have come in with a very ugly picture today and you don't feel like there is any hope here is what first john says if you confess he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and and what cleansing us we can we can leave here with a with a blank screen36:48we can leave here as as a clean slate a god gives us a new life an eternal life i don't care what was on your screen when you walked in like god didn't put stipulations he didn't say you know what if you are halfway good i'll forgive you no his son died for all sin and if you are here today and you have not confessed to jesus i want you to know that he offers you a new37:18life in a new way he offers to make your life clean and we're going to invite you to put your faith in jesus right now that's the invitation he offers you this morning and i i urge you i did this and i was foolish do not say i can wait till tomorrow because you might not have that option37:44don't say well you know what let me contemplate it god says if you confess you will be forgiven maybe you're here and you just need to come to the altar or spend some time singing a song of freedom you know you're free but you struggle living as a free person you're still carrying the chains of weight in the weight of your sin look god has forgiven you and he has cleansed you church live free38:13it's okay to tell the world we're sinners we can say you know what look this is what my life looked like before god but he shook me up he sent his son to die for me and his blood washes me clean that is the offering of salvation for all of us and that is what is offered to you right now if you believe if you confess and you put your trust in jesus let's pray38:42believe if you confess and you put your trust in jesus let's pray
