Wake up and Smell the Coffee!
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1 John 1:5-2:2 “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also forb the sins of the whole world.”
Sunday school teacher - little girl what is a lie?
Wake up and smell the coffee - This is an idiom, originally coined in USA and serves as an admonition to face the truth and pay attention to what is going on around you. To accept reality. It’s been around in limited areas as early as the 1940s, but it was popularized in the 1960s and 1970s by Ann Landers who was an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Here’s a “wake up and smell the coffee” moment - “Life is short, Death is sure. Sin the Cause, Christ the cure!”
On 30 November 2020 during the height of the first Covid outbreak in USA, Richard Rice blogged that
“a neighbour of more than 25 years died of Covid-19 complications. In early April we were worshiping at home on Sunday morning as a firetruck and ambulance arrived across the street. Gary was rushed to the hospital by first responders wearing hazmat suits. He was put on a ventilator and given 10-14 days to live. He soon fell into a coma and ten days later died. He got the virus after a visit from another neighbor who tested positive but showed no signs of the illness.
Do you know the great difference between Gary and yourself? Gary knew when he was going to die; you don’t. As fearful (and sometimes as crazy) as Covid-19 has made people world-over behave, we must remember that another virus has been among us much longer. It’s a virus without a fancy name or government recognition. In some people it is more noticeable, many seem asymptomatic, but everyone born to human parents carries it. There is no vaccine to prevent it and no social distancing to control its spread. It is 100% deadly. But there is a cure, a costly cure, but freely given to all who will receive it.
Life is short, death is sure; sin the cause, Christ the cure.
Through His death and resurrection, Jesus is God’s cure for sin. Through faith in Jesus alone to save, God both forgives and forgets your sin against Him. Jesus does much more than cover your sins like a Band-Aid, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).”
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
But I want to be clear this morning about SIN! - “What is sin?”(WSC Q14).
Sin is “any want of confirmity unto or transgression of the law of God”(WSC Ans 14).
According to the Bible, sin impacts us whether it is done by us; done to us or done around us. It is not just that we break the law of God; it is also that we do not do the good we ought to do, neglecting the will of God as well as explicitly breaking His law!
But talking about sin in this modern age is not easy - “Let’s be honest: few religious words are less in vogue today than the word sin. Sin, as a usable religious word, died while no one was watching. And good riddance, it would seem. Sin fell off the edge of our moral maps at both poles: on one extreme, it was an unwelcome reminder of our proverbial dirty laundry that we were at pains to keep hidden; and at the other extreme, it was deemed to have outlived its usefulness after a cultural consensus decided that nothing was dirty to begin with. It takes work to recover the will and capacity for honest, open talk about sin. Far from being an exercise in wallowing in our own guilt, naming sin can actually be liberating. It’s like taking stock of our worn clothes in the clear light of day and then making good use of the modern miracle that is the washing machine.”(Ben Wilson - What is Sin Really?).
I. Sin the Cause!
Whilst we rejoice in the legal, forensic and judicial nature of the atonement where sin has been dealt with and we have been justified by God, declared not guilty by faith in Jesus Christ, there is more to the Bible’s doctrine of sin than this.
Sin:
leads to guilt, so when God justifies us we are declared not guilty! Innocent as charged! inocence
leads to shame but through the forgiveness of Christ we to accepted in the family of God.
leads to fear and dread but forgiveness and acceptanc e by God brings confidence and peace.
leaves us lost but forgiveness and reconciliation by God means we are found and restored!
leaves us in despair but forgiveness brings us hope
leads to sickness and defilement but forgiveness to healing and wholeness.
This last pont is my focus this morning for the good news of salvation of Jesus Christ is predicated on the promises of healing for the soul.
Take these Scriptures:
“He was pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquites. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”(Isa 53:5).
“Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Mark 2:17).
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”(1 John 1:9).
That last verse from John’s first epistle occupied our attention in our Life Group last Tuesday for you remember that John says in 1 John 3:4-9, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
Now if those verses don’t cause you to take a deep breath and reflect nothing will! What does he mean when he says, “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him”(v6).
Well what he can’t mean is that Christians are incapable of sinning. We know this because in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, says this: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
John warns us here against self-deception just - If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”(1 John 1:8). Sin is a reality for the Christian and when he or she sins we are instructed to do the right thing and owen it; and confess it and bring it for cleansing under the powerful cleansing agency of “the blood of Jesus” who is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
BY definition, you cannot be a Christian without confessing your sins and being cleansed by the blood of Jesus and so this gives us a hint as to what John is driving at in chapter 3:6 “No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him”(v6) - having confessed our sins and renounced them, asking for the covering of the blood of Jesus we are owning them; acknowledging them and leaving them behind. We are not waliking in them or continuing in them, we are not excusing them instread we are doing what is right, leaving them with Jesus!
Whereas on the contrary, those who claiming to have no sin are by definition denying their need for a Saviour and denying the truh of the Gospel and with such denial they can never be saved!
So there are two ways to live here! Two destinations and because John likes contrasts he says that there is the way of Jesus which is the way of life; light; truth, righteousness and love and then the way of the Devil which is one of death and darkness; lies and unrighteousness, love of the world and a toleration of evil and hate YOU CAN ONLY BE ON ONE WAY OR THE OTHER! To choose to live according to Jesus way is life but to choose to continue in the way of the Devil is death!
The problem however with sin however is that it so damaging and corrupting that it not only corrupts our bopdily appetites; it corrupts our minds and hearts and enslaves us in its grip.
Remember Cain who murdered his brother Abel? God told him, Genesis 4:7, “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is have you, but you must master it.”
Sin is a controlling phenomena; it enslaves; just think of the drug adict or the alcoholic or the sex addict; no one started our along these route hoping to be controlled by the addiction, but that’s just how deceptive sin can be.
Just think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Devil coming along and suggesting that the fruit you were instructed not to eat because it would do you harm, was not bad after all, just a little bite; go on its desirable and it will make you wise and you will be a better person as a result; indeed you will be as God! Go on! It can’t do any harm!
Such is the deception of sin - just look what it did do; it introduced envy and lying and lust and pride and selfishness and murder and on and on and on! Sin infects us and damages us; leaving us with a disease, like a destructive our of control virus that causes an illness by invading every aprt of our being - physical, emotional and mental.
Now, many people today seek to deny this in our modern world!
Until relatively recently, historically speaking, people accepted this Christian worldview about the nature of sin and its damaging effects on humans. But, really ever since the 19th Century when the idea of Darwinian evolution took centre stage as an explanation for the origins of man, many increasinly in the West deny the reality of sin even as they also deny the necessity for the existence of God for an explanation of the Universe, Life and everything in it!
The argument from this naturalistic perspective, in an admittedly simplified form is that life evolves naturally, by random chance and natural selection, and although unguided and unintended, the fittest and strongest forms of life survive and the ultimate expression of the complexity of this life is mankind, who in recent centuries has really come into his own, better; stronger; fitter; healthier; more sophisticated but then they add, without any real evidence for this, that manking is also becoming wiser (I did not say more knowledgable because there is a difference!) and more moral amd they do this without being able to show why or how you even can define moral absolutes like you shall not murder or you shall not steal or why indeed you even need to be moral if there is no God and no Judgment Day to worry about! Why not just be immoral; selfish if it get you what you want?
Indeed much of the modern confusion about what is right and wrong; good or bad; moral or immoral is dwn to a defective view of human nature! Think of the moden claim, frequently heard that “you can be anything you want to be!” inviting us to believe that we are complete master’s of our own fate and destiny; able to overcome any obstacle we experience and achieve any goal we set ourselves, simply because we believe we can! This is utterly delusional and an example of the self-deception that occurs when you do not take sin into account, for even if there are some excellent examples of someone overcoming the odds through hard work and perseverance and achieving something that no one though possible; you enver get tehre by yourself - your teachers; you benefactors; your parents; your neighbours and friends; the opportunities within your Society, as well as your own innate belief and persevance; your country; your opportunity, all help breakdown the political educational and social boundaries that allow you to achieve what you may not have been able to achieve on your own.
And further a failure to take into account our sin-nature, and a desire to deny that there is something the matter with us; that Bruno Mars is right to stroke our ego and tells us that we really are “amazing just the way you are” so we should add another high to our sense of “self-esteem” and seek out our “personal truth” and true identity, which it is claimed will set us free; fails to see the old temptation presented to Eve, to “become as God” to have your eyes wide open to your potential; to have the opportunity of self-worship, but ultimately to fall prey to the Devil’s schemes!
Now. don’t misunderstand me here, God weants us to feel loved; to find our true identity; to experience worth and happiness and wholeness and joy, but He wants us to find it in Him. He wants us to acknowledge that no matter how much we sing the Bruno Mars refrain and tell ourselves that we are amazing just the way we are, we know, deep down inside that there is a dissonance between the high we feel when validated and the daily experiences of failing to come up to even our own standards, let alone the expectations of others; the nagging and irritable guilt we feel when we give in to a bad habit; lose patience with a loved one or indulge in something we know to be wrong and shameful. The TRUTH is that we can’t manage to keep ourselves together; we are not in control at times; we are being controlled!
Here is a WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE moment - Sin enslaves and it kills! Its “wages is death”!
SIN ENSLAVES - Sin cannot be overcome by determined self-effort and strong willpower. Sin runs much deeper and is more powerful and controlling than that!
Sin has a strong ally in our self-centred nature, so that we find ouselves becoming its slave, so much so that we have to acknowledge in spite of our best intentions that “the good that we would do, we do not do and the evil that we do not wish to do, this we keep on doing”(Rom 7). Only Jesus can save us from “this body of death”(Rom 7:24) - we must realise this, and
Jesus gave us a very helpful example of just how it can decieve and what must be done to prevent it in His Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector - Luke 18:9-14, “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed abouta himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What we learn from this is that “the beginning of salvation is to condemn oneself” (Evagrius Ponticus). To OWN the problem and to seek a healing and a cleansing from Dr Jesus who said to us ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Mark 2:17)
SIN HAS A POWERFUL ADVOCATE - Sin has a very powerful agitator in the world called the Devil, an arch deceiver; the Destroyer whom John tells us influences the world in a profoundly malevolent way - “the whole world lies under the sway of the evil one” - and like sin this Influencer infects our thinking about sin; we see this again in the Garden of Eden where he questions God’s motives and calls good what God calls evil and tells them that what God has said will harm them; will not! He sets mankind up to revel agains the godness and the kindness of God to their harm and destruction!
Look how sin infects us today - it causes to become what we think, and the more corrupt our thinking the more we begin to act this out; likewise we become what we do so that habits form and these get so strong in us that once we thought we controlled them but now they control us and even as we try to break free from them we find that they have a power, far greater than our own to overcome; and also we become like those who influence us, whetehr it be our parents and family members; freinds or even companions at work or in life - “bad company corrupts good character”
II. Christ the Cure!
BEFORE YOU ARE LEFT FEELING VERY DEPRESSED, LET ME TELL YOU WHY ALL OF THIS TALK ABOUT SIN CAN IN FACT BE GOOD NEWS!
It sounds counterintuitive at first, but acknowledging the reality of sin can free us from this delusion of sin.
Imagine for a moment you are feeling tired all of the time and are lacking in energy and looking somewhat pasty. You’ve also been irritable, lacking in vitality, feeling low and teaful; somewhat depressed and during this period of time you have been constructing all kinds of narratives in your head: “I’m unhappy! I don’t like my job; I’m sick of my partner; my kids are getting on my nerves; I’m fed up and bored; I need to make some big changes in my life! But finally you hedd the advice of a dear friend to go to a doctor and there are given a medical diagnosis of aneamia, which is treated successfully and in time you discover that the inner narrative voice does not appear quite as loud and life seems much better and your partner and kids are no longer the problem you thought they were. What happened? The real problem was dealt with and the symptoms dissappear on their own
Sin is a condition we all have. It’s like anemia of the soul. It robs us of energy to do the good things we want to do. It pulls us in on ourselves instead of out to embrace the love that is all around us.
Sin sucks the joy out of life and the out of good things so that we become bitter and resentful and depressed but once it is dealt with - wow everythign changes - “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come”(2 Cor 5:17). It’s like being “born again”(Jn 3:5).
That is why sin can actually be good news.
By acknowledging the reality of sin in our own lives, though it can be painful, it means that we can bring it to Doctor Jesus for healing!
We don’t have to accept a lifetime of suffering its symptoms, knowledge of our sinfulness empowers is to pursue a course of healing for we discover that we’re loved sinners.
We can come to Jesus just as we are, “while we were yet sinners.” He is the good physician who assures us that our condition doesn’t keep Him from loving us — and His healing is exactly what He’s offering us just as he did to the woman caught in adultery, whom Jesus tells to go in peace and sin no more — Jesus invites us to come exactly as we are. And to leave changed. Cleansed. Healed.
“THE BLOOD OF JESUS, GOD”S SON, CLEANSES US FGROM ALL SIN!” This is why it is GOOD NEWS!
And when in announcing the GOOD NEWS we declare that Jesus saves, we literally are saying, Jesus Heals for the Greek σῴζω means to deliver(save) or to make whole by cleansing or healing!.
That is why his word to the Pharisees when he healed the paralytic and at the same time said: “son your sins are forgiven you” are so apt - salvation is a healing but much more important than a temporal healing of the body from some spiritual disease or deformity; salvation heals the soul which is why Jesus said to the man he healed in John 9: “stop sinning or something worse will happen to you.”
And when Jesus said to us ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Mark 2:17) he is offering us the opportunity to come as it were to God with a confession of our sin-sickness and ask God to be our spiritual doctor; to cure our souls: “But our Physician is the only true God…Jesus the Christ…He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption and heal them, and might restore them to health when they were dieased with ungodliness and wicked lusts”(Ignatius of Antioch).
So this is where it all gets practical! Healing begins with confession!
Confession is corageously naming our woundedness and wickedness! It is not just confession of the bad things we have done it is a confession of what is true of us by nature - “false and full of sin I am; Thou art full of truth and grace!”(Jesus Lover of My Soul).
Confession is our part of dealing with the sin in our lives; bringing the sin that easily entangles it to our spiritual Doctor, Jesus and claiming the efficacious power of His cleansing blood.
Confession is our coming out of hiding, just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden. It is answering the question, “where are you?” with an honest apprasial of where we are in our journey of faith.
This is why the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in the Prayer of General Confession contains these lines:
“Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness. We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent; according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.”
Confession is not something to be ashamed of!
It is like the AA attendee who says, “Hi, my name is _________ and I am an alcoholic” which is so vital to the ownership not only of the problem but the acknowledgment of absolute dependence on your “Higher Power” to overcome.
“Hi, my name is John Winter, and I am a sinner!” - owning it;l acknowledging as I do my complete inability to save myself and my absolute need to the blood of Jesus to forgive me.
And this is why confession is also to be part of our individual Christian and Community life!
James 5:13-16 “Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
For without confession we will not be healed! “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced!”(James Baldwin).
By naming our sin and opening our wounds to God we open up the possibility of healing and wholenss; but if we hide from God, we will not heal! (see 1 Cor 11:23-30 when giving instructions about a misuse of the Lord’s Supper he states: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”
We can’t lose sight of this, the Lord will “discipline those he loves” - Hebrews 12:6,9-12 “we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits land live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, mthat we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields othe peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and qmake straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.”
And what a tragedy it is, if we have the medicine available to cure us, in the blood Jesus, but we fail to use it and get well!
Let me as an example of this tell you of the Prophet Jeremiah in chapter 8 laments: “O my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?”(Jer 8:18-22). It is an utter tragedy to see people stuggling with sin and addictions when there is in the blood of Jesus the most effective medicine for a sin-sick soul!
Would you be free from your burden of sin?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder-working power,
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder-working power,
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Would you be free from your passion and pride?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide,
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow,
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
Would you do service for Jesus your King?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood;
Would you live daily His praises to sing?
There’s wonderful power in the blood.
There is power, power, wonder-working power,
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder-working power,
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
“the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin…if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also forb the sins of the whole world.”