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I want to welcome you to the end of our study of chapter one of first John and
daily drive time devotions. This is day five verses eight to ten. Yesterday we
began a look at light and darkness and three ifs in our life.

If I walking in the darkness, I'm not going to have fellowship with God because
God is light. You can't be in darkness and be in fellowship with light at the
same time. And a second if we looked at was if I walk in the light, I am going
to have fellowship with him because that's just the way that it works.

Verses eight to ten, John talks about some other ifs in our lives, three others.
If he says in verse eight, we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us. If in verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Verse ten, the third if if we claim that we have not sinned, we make him out to
be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. If we claim to be without sin,
the third if we're lying to ourselves. The fourth if if we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just, he will forgive our sins.

And the fifth if is if we can't claim that we have not sinned at all, we make
him out to be a liar. You take a look at all five of these together that we've
looked at the last two days. It's a real picture of sin and forgiveness and
God's love.

It's first a picture of sin. How do you deal with the fact that you have sinned?
There are three negative ways here and then one positive way.

The three negative ways are we hide. We in shame try to cover our sin. We say
that we have not sinned.

If we say that we have not sinned, we say I can fellowship with him and yet walk
in the darkness. We hide from it. We try to cover it over and there's all kinds
of ways to do this.

It begins in our mind. We know that we've sinned, but then we pray and we say,
God, would you forgive me of that sin and we know that he forgives, but we never
really face up to the fact that that sin is destroying our lives and other
people's lives. We never really face up to the fact that God can begin to change
that sin in our lives.

We even use sometimes a prayer to cover over the sin and forget about it rather
than dealing with it in our lives. Instead of bringing the sin into the light,
we keep it in the darkness. That's what it means to cover over our sin and
sadly, sometimes as believers, we can use even prayer to do that.

Bring it into the light, the light of your own heart, the light of your
relationships and even the light of your conversations with others. We hide.
That's one of the negative ways that we deal with sin.

I've done it. You've done it. We've all done it.

It never works. It just brings more and more destruction and more and more
discouragement into our lives. We hide.

A second way, negative way of dealing with sin is we reason. This is the way of
pride. We reason.

We've really not sinned. This is in verse 10. We claim that we've really not
sinned.

It's really not a sin. This is why it's not a sin. We go through all this
philosophy of what sin is and what sin isn't and these are really big sins.

These are little sins. In fact, these are not sins. There's all kinds of
thoughts that go into our minds, but the truth is it's our pride.

We don't want to admit it. We don't want to admit we've messed up. We don't want
to admit we've failed to love God.

We don't want to admit that we've allowed that into our lives. Our pride trips
us up. You see, really the greatest sin is pride.

It's greater than any other sin because it allows sin to stay in your life. It's
the thing that makes you feel like, "I can't admit that that's a sin. " We
reason our way out of it or try to, but it's still a sin.

It's still real and we still haven't dealt with it. We hide. We reason or we
lie.

We just out and out lie. This is denial. We claim that what we did really wasn't
a sin.

Oh, we know sin is real, but it's just not a part of my life. John reminds us of
something here. To deny your sin, he says, this is powerful, deny your sin is to
deny God.

If I claim that I have not sinned, I make him out to be a liar and his word has
no place in my life because his word says all of sin, all of us have fallen
short of God's glory. To deny your sin is to deny God because it's saying that
God is a liar. You see, we think we can deny our sin and it's just about us, but
it's not.

It's also about others and it's also about my relationship with God. We hide. We
reason.

We lie. John doesn't list this one, but also sometimes we blame. We try to
divert the attention.

God has an answer to all of those. He's got an answer that brings fresh life
into my life and your life. Put aside the hiding, put aside the shame, put aside
the pride, put aside the denial, put aside all of that and instead of that,
choose, choose 1 John 1, 9, one of the most famous verses in the Bible.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and
purify us from all unrighteousness. There's a reason this is one of the most
often quoted and best love verses in all the New Testament. I need this verse.

You need this verse. If I confess my sins, to confess means to agree with God
about my sin. To confess does not just mean I admit it.

Oh, I did something bad. To confess means I agree with God about what it is that
I did, how destructive it is and how he can begin to grow my life out of that.
That's what it means to confess.

It means I stop hiding and making excuses and blaming others for my lack of
obedience to God. I said a moment ago all of sin, Romans tells us that. That's a
truth.

That's just a fact that God tells us. Now I have two options when it comes to
that truth. I can say that I have not sinned, I can resist that truth or I can
confess my sin.

Those are the only two options. I can pretend it's not there or I can confess it
because once I recognize that sin is real, I can't deal with sin on my own
power, my own strength. I used to think I could.

I think all of us go through that phase where we think, you know, I've sinned
this much, so maybe if I do this much good, it'll make up for how much I've
sinned. Ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous to think that any good that I
could do could make up for my offenses against God.

You see, I need a savior and Jesus Christ is that savior. We're going to talk as
we begin next week about what Jesus did that's the power behind 1 John 1, 9, his
death on the cross and his life that he gave for us. That's the power behind it.

That's why when I confess my sin, he cleanses me from all unrighteousness. Maybe
you've never done this. Maybe you've never said, Jesus Christ, instead of trying
to make up for my sins on my own effort, I'm still in that phase, instead of
trying to do that, I recognize I need something more.

I need a savior. Do it right now. Say to him, Jesus Christ, I confess my sins.

I confess that what I've done is wrong. It's hurt me. It's hurt others.

I confess that I need your forgiveness. I agree with you about those sins that I
know about. There's a lot I don't know about.

The ones that I can see, I can see how terrible they are. I can see how selfish
they are. I can see how destructive they are.

I can see why you told me not to do these things. I confess my sin and I ask for
your forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Purify me, God, from all unrighteousness.

Begin a new life in me through Jesus. All of sin. And when you and I say, Jesus
Christ, forgive my sin, he hears that prayer.

He heard your prayer right now. He's rejoicing in heaven right now. I confess my
sin.

And then as you live your life in Christ, every time there's a sin that comes
into your life, you bring it to him again. You confess it to him. You agree with
him about it once again.

And you recognize once again that he's forgiven it on the cross. You make this
agreeing with God about your sin a part of your life, your relationship with
him, and then you watch him begin to grow you. Now I'll admit that the trouble I
have and that a lot of people I know have with repenting of my sin is that I
have to repent of my sin, the ugliness of it.

It's much easier to admit, oh, I'm at a bad day or I had a bad attitude today or
I hit a bump in the road today. It's a lot easier to say that than, God, I
repent of the ugly sin, the sin of selfishness that's in my heart and in my
actions. And I'll admit personally that the unwillingness to call sin sin is
what keeps me filled with rather than filled with God's Spirit.

If I confess, if we confess, it's more than admit, it means I say the same thing
about, I want to do that today. Yes, sin is ugly, but forgiveness is beautiful.
And instead of letting my pride keep me from talking to God about my sin, my
prayer for me today, for you today, is that I'll allow God's Spirit to come into
my life, allow me to drop my pride so I can talk to him about everything.

Yes, my sin included. In fact, let's do that right now. Our Father, we thank you
that you are faithful to forgive and to cleanse when we confess.

Our confession is met by your faithfulness every time, every time. So right now
in prayer, I bring to you my sin, the ugliness of it. God, I have to admit, I
doubt whether you can even change it.

And because of that, maybe I've been afraid to bring it to you. Or maybe it's my
selfishness that I don't want to change it. I want to hold on to it.

Whatever it is, God, I agree with you about it. I may not feel how dangerous,
how deadly, how disastrous this sin really is, but I agree with you. I know that
I'll see it one day.

So I confess this sin. And mentally, in my mind right now, I draw through that
sin, 1st John 1, 9, "You will forgive this sin, purify me from all
unrighteousness. " I recognize your forgiveness and I pray out of the foundation
of that forgiveness, that new life would spring, new growth would spring into my
life.

Lord, if there's more than one sin that's coming to my mind right now, I bring
each of them to you and I draw that line through that sin. I see you erasing
that sin and on that chalkboard writing instead, 1st John 1, 9, "Forgive,
purify, because you are faithful. " And Lord, I don't ask this lightly.

I don't ask you to forgive my sin thinking, well, I'm just going to do it
tomorrow. I ask this seriously, knowing how this sin has hurt me, you and
others, how it's grieved your heart. And God, I ask that you help me to begin to
grow, to begin to grow out of this sin, to grow to become more like you, Jesus.

If there's someone I need to tell, give me the courage to tell them. If there's
a verse I need, bring that verse into my life. Grow me, God.

I know that you changing me takes time sometimes, many times. And Lord, I'm
willing to watch you work in my life, but I'm not willing to let this just live
in my life, stay in my life. I want to be more like you, Jesus.

Change me. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Next week, we're going to look at 1st John chapter 2. It's a chapter about how
Jesus forgives your sin. It's a chapter about the difference between love for
the world and love for God.

It's a chapter about the reality of the antichrist. It's a chapter about the joy
of love. It's a chapter about the power of fellowship in your daily life.

Don't miss 1st John chapter 2 this next week.